Global Conflict

by Tom Zola

  "Second, recon says the coast is defended by some special Jap regiment. I don't care what kind of guys they are – battle-hardened specialists or kids with guns. We'll go out there and slaughter those slant-eyed yellow monkeys! No mercy! No prisoners! Kill 'em all!"

  The gunny got approval. Some raised their fists, others nodded silently.

  The swimming tanks were eating their way through the water inexorably. They carried an entire battalion to the beach. In the background, the big guns of the Navy ships were still thundering. Their shells tore open the jungle of New Georgia. One sheaf after the other was thrown into the dense green, where huge detonations devoured the flora and fauna.

  Roebuck cleared his throat. He knew what he was doing this for. In his head, his wife Marie's last letter was still present. A few hours ago, he had read her lines out loud to his comrades Pizza, D'Amico, and Juergens, who earned the nickname "Batman" for excessively reading a certain comic book series. It had become a ritual for the four Marine Raiders to keep incoming letters until the beginning of a new operation. Shortly before they moved out to fight the enemy once more, they opened the envelopes together and read each other the lines from their loved ones. Roebuck had been quite embarrassed sometimes, because his wife wrote very frivolous things. But at least he knew what he was doing this shit for. He had to protect his homeland – and Marie - from these yellow bastards, even though he would have preferred to have been with her in San Diego.

  Finally the first phalanx of swimming tanks reached the beach. Immediately the battleships moved their fire farther into the hinterland of the island, but so far the enemy had not shown up at all.

  "Remember," Gunny yelled at his men. "We gonna bail out and immediately head for the jungle, otherwise we put our tanks in the way of those that are gonna land with the second wave. The captain is in the LVT on the right. We'll stick to him. Load and lock!"

  The men cocked their weapons and turned the safety devices on.

  "Semper Fi, boys!" Gunny bellowed.

  "Semper Fi!" the soldiers repeated, barrel-chested and with tense faces.

  A crack was heard and vibrations went through the Alligator as the crawler tracks of the amphibious tank dug into the sand before the steely monster pushed itself out of the water with a mechanical groan.

  "Go, out, out, out!" Gunny commanded and made a gesture to bail out over the edges of the cargo compartment. The GIs started to move. They jumped up at the side walls of the Alligator and pulled themselves over the edges. Pizza paused on top of the wall and indicated Roebuck to hand him the bazooka. Together with the anti-tank weapon, he let himself fall over the edge into the knee-deep water, where he immediately struggled to his feet. Roebuck followed as he overcame the edge of the cargo compartment with a smooth move and also jumped down into the water.

  The sun burned relentlessly down on Segi Point. The cool water that penetrated Roebuck's boots, sleeves, and pants felt pleasant. But he knew he'd curse his wet feet at some point. Immediately he reached for the bazooka, which Pizza handed to him, and waded through the shallow water, following his comrades.

  There was still no trace of the enemy. The men of Company L stormed up the beach. They finally reached the jungle border where Gunny met the company commander, Captain Morgan. Both discussed the sitrep before Gunny gave new orders: "We move 50 into the forest and take defensive positions. Then wait for the tanks! Machine Gun Squad to me!"

  Juergens, D'Amico, and a few others hurried over to Gunny with their heavy M2 machine guns, the tripods they needed for emplacing them, and lots of ammunition boxes, while the Bazooka Squad commander assigned Roebuck and Pizza a Navy bomb funnel with overthrown palm trees at its edges. Everywhere, weapons clattered and breeches clicked as the Marine Raiders took up positions.

  While Pizza checked his carbine, Roebuck subjected the perimeter to an examining look. Once again, they were in the middle of the jungle. Palm after palm, the trees stood close together, and the ground was overgrown with ferns of all sizes. Sometimes the visibility was barely more than a few twenty yards due to the dense vegetation. The Japs could lurk everywhere, and Roebuck did not yet believe that they had retreated without a fight. He stared into an aisle that led deeper into the jungle. The Sherman tanks would take this path, while the Marine Raiders were assigned to fight their way through the coppice to the right and left of it. The Alligators had meanwhile taken up position at the edge of the forest. From there, with their machine guns, they could guard the infantry's advance for quite some time.

  Minutes later, the first wave of Shermans went ashore as they rolled out of the bellies of larger landing vessels. The armored battle tanks proximately formed a column formation on the beach and shortly afterwards pushed into the aisle. At walking pace, the steely comrades drove into the jungle, tracks squeaking. Roebuck's Company L received its marching orders.

  "Form a skirmish line!" It resounded from everywhere. The battalion's riflemen advanced side by side like the poles of a fence. Slowly, they pushed deeper into the jungle. The Bazooka Squad stayed close to the Rifle Platoons, ready to fight enemy tanks or fortified shelters. Ever since the Japanese relied more heavily on their tank weapon, the Marine Raiders had encountered enemy tanks on every goddamn battlefield. Morgan had decided to combine his bazookas to always have the concentrated firepower of all his anti-tank weapons in one place. Intel did not expect enemy tanks at Segi Point – but one could never know.

  The battalion marched a long way inland together with the Shermans. The terrain was difficult, the ground partly swampy. Several times a tank got stuck and had to be pushed out of the mud by the Sherman behind it. Mosquitoes, flies, and other beasts the Marine Raiders didn't even want to think about buzzed around the heads of the soldiers. Fighting in the jungle proved again and again that it always increased the pace of the already-inhuman warfare. Here, it wasn't just the Japanese who were the enemy. Here, every damn creature was hostile – as was the climate, the mud, the dryness, the wetness. Diseases were inflicted on the Marine Raiders. One could have gone through the ranks and asked, and wouldn't find anyone who had never had diarrhea, headaches, fever, pus pustules, or other niceties during his time in the Pacific theater. In the humid air, every wound ignited rapidly. Over and over the Navy Corpsmen prophylactically distributed tablets, and the men had stopped asking why they were eating them like candy.

  The brooding afternoon sun stood over the dense forests of Segi Point. Birds sang their strange songs. Meter-high ferns got in the way of the Marine Raiders. Razor-sharp grasses slit their hands open. Sweat was pouring out of every man's pores. The skin was moist and reddened, and everything was sticky. The soldiers groaned, they cursed, but they marched on. Under the roof of gigantic palm leaves, the heat accumulated. The Marines stewed in their own juice.

  Suddenly, a thunderclap was heard on the left, and the next moment the first Sherman of the armored column got hit by an AP shell. The tank – still in motion – turned half to the side under the force of the impact. Tank men bailed out screaming as flames tried to catch them.

  The Marine Raider Infantrymen threw themselves to the ground. Roebuck had clearly seen the gun smoke from that enemy cannon. Dense trails of fume rose to the left of his position about 400 yards away. He recognized two earth bunkers overgrown with fern. Muzzle flashes from handguns flashed in embrasures.

  The US soldiers yelled orders at each other while Japanese shouts sounded over to them. An enemy machine gun opened fire. It vomited bullets at lightning speed; so fast that the banging of the individual shots merged into one another and turned into a constant rattling frequency. Shortly the enemy machine gun delivered some harassing fire, then it became silent again while the Sherman's drivers engaged reverse gear to get out of the AT-gun's range.

  Roebuck delved into Juergens' mien with a questioning face. "What is that," he asked, when the enemy machine gun again started shooting with a seemingly unusually high rate of fire. The projectiles of a brief burst of fire chased over the skulls o
f the two Americans. They ducked behind a trunk.

  "No fuckin' idea, buddy," Juergens replied and shook his head. "Maybe a Type 92?"

  "No, Batman. Listen!"

  As ordered, the enemy MG sent out just another firing burst, while the Marine Raiders shook off the shock about the Japanese surprise attack and began to move into gear. NCOs made arrangements and gave instructions.

  "That piece shoots way too fast. Must be 15, 20 rounds per second! Type 92 and all the others are slower. They sound more like a typewriter."

  Juergens nodded. "Whatever," he finally realized. "We'll kill it either way!"

  The Bazooka Squad commander reached the position of the Bazooka and MG teams and shoved himself down. "Skipper wants us to blow up the earth bunkers and give covering fire! 2nd and 3rd Platoon attack from the right flank. Pizza, Tommy, get your bazooka ready to fire on my command.

  “Batman, your fire team is with me now! Take firing position right here, engage on my command!"

  The Marine Raiders confirmed the order, then Pizza jumped behind Roebuck, who lifted the bazooka on his right shoulder while grabbing its handle piece. Pizza took the first rocket from an ammunition bag and stuffed it into the rocket launcher tube from behind. Then he knocked Roebuck on the helmet, the sign for "loaded." To the left of them, D'Amico swung the tripod of the heavy MG from his shoulders and pressed its feet into the soft ground. Seconds later, Batman had locked the air-cooled Browning machine gun on it and was ready to fire.

  "Bazooka fire!" the squad commander yelled. At that distance it was not easy to hit anything with the rocket launcher, but the target was an immobile one, and Roebuck was a skilled shooter. He pressed the buttstock against his shoulder, aimed through the iron sights, found his target, and finally pulled the trigger. With a boisterous sound, the rocket shot out of the tube, while a boiling hot jet of fire escaped on the back and scorched the flora behind Roebuck. He plainly felt the heat that got set free from the ignition. Within a blink of an eye, the rocket's solid fuel propulsion ignited, and the warhead dashed off with tongues of flame in its luggage. It hit the closest bunker in the middle right above the embrasure. A millisecond later, the wooden shelter was swallowed by a gigantic explosion. Desperate cries of the Japanese were heard.

  "Every moment now the monkeys will run right into my biscuit," Batman gloated, and pressed his MG to his shoulder. In fact, Japanese tactics often seemed to be to just attack in vain against American positions until the GIs ran out of ammunition. Losses at a ratio of 100 to one were not uncommon in the Pacific War. Often Japanese soldiers attacked with drawn swords. But not today.

  Roebuck watched the men of the other platoons move forward. With long leaps, they hurried from cover to cover and fought their way through the thicket. Finally their vanguards reached the earth bunkers. The first Marine Raiders invaded the enemy entrenchments. But there were no shots heard, no screams. Finally, 2nd Platoon reported that the area was free of enemies.

  "What's wrong with the friggin' Japs?" whispered D'Amico, then the squad commander gave new orders: Bazooka teams and Juergens' MG were supposed to catch up with the platoons at the earth bunkers. Swearing in a way one should not recite, Batman eased his Browning off its tripod anchorage and lifted the weapon onto his shoulders. Then he and the others chased after the squad commander. Shortly after, they reached the earth bunkers. Their fellow soldiers from the other platoons had already taken up positions all around. D'Amico, Batman, Pizza, and Roebuck stumbled into the shelter that had been ruptured by the rocket. Four dead Japanese lay there in their own blood, their faces caked with dirt. They were half-buried by fallen wooden beams. There was no trace of the Japanese machine gun or the rest of the bunker crew. The NCOs assembled to discuss further action, while the Shermans lined up farther back in the aisle and the wounded tankers were taken care of.

  Pizza and Juergens immediately tackled the Japanese corpses, searching them for valuable objects. D'Amico sat down wheezing on a beam and moistened his chapped lips with water from his canteen. Then he picked up a can of peaches from his field pack and pried it open with the shiv of his knife. Immediately he poured the juice down his throat. Right and left, the sweet stuff ran out of the corners of his mouth. Roebuck, however, examined the destroyed bunker. He found something metallic under collapsed wooden planks and now, moaning, pushed the beams aside. Lastly, he reached into the gap and grabbed the flashing metal. Immediately he felt that he had touched a big firearm with his fingers.

  The barrel was still warm. With some effort – Roebuck snorted like a bull in the eyes of a rival – he pulled out the weapon under the rubble and looked at it with big eyes.

  "What's that?" he asked. That weapon was long and mostly made of metal. The buttstock and parts of the grip were wooden. Under the muzzle there was a bipod, while the barrel was stored in a housing with large cooling openings. Roebuck had never seen this weapon before, but he immediately realized that it had to be a machine gun. All of a sudden, Batman and Pizza looked over his shoulders, curious to see if Roebuck had found anything interesting.

  "Anybody got any idea what that fucking gun is?" Roebuck wanted to know. Juergens made a sour face. "Well, if I didn't know any better, I'd say it's an MG 42."

  "MG 42?" repeated Pizza disbelievingly.

  "Yes, from the Krauts."

  "Can't be. Look, there's Japanese characters engraved on the side." Pizza pointed to the metal body below the top cover.

  "Oh, yeah, fuckface? Then look here!" Juergens handed his comrades a crumpled photo.

  "Where'd you get that from?" asked Roebuck.

  "From that dead Jap over there."

  Suddenly the enemy AT-gun started firing again from a new position. Outside, another Sherman flew apart. Handgun fire thundered south of Roebuck's position. Immediately the Marine Raiders kissed the ground while bursts of fire hit the ruptured earth bunker they were in.

  "The fuckin' Japs are flanking us," Juergens shouted as he and D'Amico set up their Browning with nimble fingers.

  Again an AT-gun bang echoed through the jungle. Immediately, another Sherman burst in two with a bouquet of sparks spreading like a volcanic eruption. The remaining tanks began in the narrow aisle with desperate turning maneuvers, while they randomly fired in the direction they assumed the enemy to be. In the dense vegetation, they hardly could detect any Japanese soldiers waiting for them.

  The 2nd Platoon started to move at the same time, pushing north. Batman gave covering fire. Because of the thick undergrowth, hardly anything was to be recognized; his fire bursts simply disappeared in the green and tore up shrubs and branches. The squad commander was in radio contact with 2nd Platoon, and was therefore able to direct the MG fire accordingly. 3rd Platoon, on the other hand, dashed back to the aisle to be able to take the enemy into crossfire from there.

  Suddenly Japanese yelling sounded from everywhere. 2nd Platoon had run directly into an ambush. Japanese climbed out of holes in the ground and jumped down from the treetops. With pulled Guntō swords and bayonets, they involved the Americans in bloody close combat. Roebuck saw only a mixture of men in front of him running into each other. American and Japanese uniforms meshed; blades sank into flesh and rifle stocks smashed faces. A knot of screaming people rolled through the brushwood.

  More and more Japanese came from everywhere. Further Shermans went down the drain, and also 3rd Platoon was under heavy fire. Once again an enemy MG 42 hammered in staccato into the Marine Raiders, killing several GIs within seconds. The Bazooka Squad commander ordered Roebuck and his fellows to fall back to the aisle. The Marine Raiders ran for their lives.

  "What kind of shit is this?" D'Amico shrieked. Roebuck, however, did not react. His thoughts focused on the photo Batman had shown him just a minute ago. That picture was stuck in his mind's eye. It showed about 30 Japanese soldiers, who had gathered for one of these typical group photos. At the edge, however, stood three men of clearly Western descent. They wore the uniforms of German generals.

 
Southwest of Piazza Armerina, Italy, June 21st, 1943

  The accommodation blockhouses were two-story wooden buildings located south of the excavation site of Villa Romana del Casale, about five kilometers southwest of Piazza Armerina, between the former thermal baths and a wide olive field. Four of these rectangular blockhouses with black pointed roofs stood next to each other. Von Witzleben had had this complex raised in a hurry, because he wanted to provide the troops with a very special health resort in addition to the usual recreation homes. 300 seats in the Adolf Hitler Sanatorium in Sicily were of course a joke, in view of millions of men under arms, but it was intended above all to fulfill the symbolic character, to show that the Chancellor was doing something for his soldiers. The waiting lists were already infinitely long, but strong contacts could also work wonders in this case. Was it a coincidence that Berning was now here, while Doctor Krüger and the head of the sanatorium, Medical Brigadier General Link, had known each other well since their student days?

  Chancellor von Witzleben had already begun searching for a suitable location in November 1942 because he wanted to open his sanatorium as soon as possible. He casually mentioned his plans in the presence of Mussolini, who was immediately taken with the idea. The "Duce" was determined to build the sanatorium on Italian soil. Von Witzleben liked that, because where could you recover better than in Mediterranean Italy?

  So everything went his way. Before Christmas, Mussolini and von Witzleben together determined the location: Villa Romana del Casale in Sicily. Construction works began a few days before New Year's Eve. Both heads of state pulled out all the stops; hundreds of specialists and pioneers were shipped to the island located just in front of the Italian boot tip. Thus on May 1st, 1943, the sanatorium could be opened and baptized by von Witzleben on the name Adolf Hitler. The Führer's aircraft had officially been shot down by enemy fighter planes; consequently Hitler had died an honorable soldier's death – so it had been sold to the people. Outwardly, von Witzleben's government did everything in its power to ensure that the German Reich would continue in Hitler's spirit; the Chancellor did not want to force major political changes on the already-shaken people. Therefore Hitler's name had to serve for all sorts of things these days in order to add symbolic power. Those who did not look behind the scenes of the state's work hardly noticed anything of the subtle changes that von Witzleben and his companions had initiated since November 1942; changes, which were gradually implemented – often without much attention. The Waffen SS did not exist anymore since March 1st, and the NSDAP had to surrender almost all charges of importance and influence. Although the party was still involved at the grassroots of society, spreading its ideology there and retaining its patronage over youth organizations, among other things, it also continued to represent the delegates of the Reichstag, a parliament that was in fact powerless.