Jungle Sniper

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

While the other Japanese troops awaited their fate deep underground on Hill 522, Ikeda and his band of sogekihei snipers melted into the jungle at the base of the hill.

“Isogashī! Hurry!” he ordered them. “We must be swift and silent as smoke. Isogashī! Isogashī!”

Ikeda kept a nervous eye on the skies. Though tattered by artillery fire, the forest canopy provided enough cover to hide them from the watchful eyes of enemy planes overhead. Meanwhile, they had managed to slip away without being spotted by the attacking force, which was now intent on going after the Japanese in their underground bunkers, like a pack of terriers after fleeing rats. Ikeda winced at that mental image.

Some might have seen leaving the hill to the Americans as retreating, but not Ikeda. He planned to fight another day.

While dying for the Emperor was honorable, Ikeda saw no honor in dying like a cowering rat, deep underground, without taking at least some of the enemy with him. Deciding that his men needed a reminder of that fact, he called for a halt. Looking one by one into the faces of his small band, he said to them, “Each of you may die only after you have killed at least ten of the enemy. Then you may die with honor. Is that clear?”

“Hai!” they responded as if with one voice.

Morosawa offered a grim smile. Clearly he agreed with Ikeda’s strategy.

Ikeda gave a nod of satisfaction and moved on.

He had no real plan of action or any destination. He knew only that the fighting in the vicinity was far from over, and they would lend a hand where they could.

They soon found that they were not alone in their intentions. Ikeda and his men joined a company of stubborn Japanese defenders who were making their way toward Palo, located at the base of the hill, eager for any chance to strike back at the Americans. The commanding officer accepted them readily, glad to have more men.

Until now, Palo had largely been left out of the defensive equation as having little strategic importance, but that changed as the Japanese became aware that American troops were using the bridge in Palo to carry supplies from the beach across the Bangon River to the interior of Leyte.

Japanese defenders had wired the bridge to be blown up, but the contingent tasked with destroying the bridge had been killed in a firefight with lead elements of the US invasion before they were able to carry out their mission. Palo had become a vital target for the Japanese, if only to deny the Americans use of the bridge.

“Hurry up!” said the Japanese officer in command of the unit that Ikeda and his men had joined, urging them toward the outskirts of town. “We must be in position by nightfall.”

“Hai!” Ikeda replied as he and the other troops began pouring along the road toward town.

The Japanese troops were not the only ones using the road. Throngs of refugees were fleeing the town, which had been a hapless victim of the earlier naval bombardment. With their homes destroyed, and fearful of more shelling, groups of civilians were heading into what they hoped was the relative safety of the countryside. They would return once the shelling stopped for good. They were sure that the Japanese had fled the area, but they were soon proved wrong.

“Out of the way!” Ikeda shouted, shoving a Filipino family off the road. The father kept his gaze downcast meekly, even as the soldiers pushed his wife and children into the roadside brush. He did not dare to raise a hand or utter a word of complaint.

There was a good reason for that. The few men who had defended their families from the Japanese now lay dead at the roadside. Many of the refugees were now widows or even orphans.

From the look in Ikeda’s eyes, it was clear that any protest on the father’s part would have brought instant death to the villager and his family. If the father recognized Ikeda from his frequent visits to search for guerrillas in Palo, the man gave no indication of it.

Watching what was taking place, the man’s young son seethed with anger. He hated to see his proud father forced to act like a coward, although he understood why. He followed his father’s example and kept his mouth shut, hoping that the Japanese troops would pass over them like a rogue wave and be gone.

If only he had been older, he thought, he would have joined the guerrillas who were fighting for their freedom from the Japanese. He saw his younger sister, scratched and bleeding, pick herself up from a patch of thorns alongside the road. For a moment the boy glared defiantly at Ikeda, but lucky for him, the Japanese sniper did not notice.

Although it was daylight and US aircraft kept a close eye on any enemy ground forces, the fact that the Japanese had mixed with the refugees gave them a certain measure of protection. The US planes flying overhead would not fire on the Filipinos, even when they knew a few Japanese must also be using the road. The refugees provided the Japanese troops with perfect cover as they advanced toward the town.

So far they had not encountered any American troops on the road. The Japanese took it as a good sign that the Americans had not pushed this deep into Leyte. The fight for Hill 522 and other strongholds had bogged them down, keeping American forces close to the beach. Some of the Japanese soldiers took it as a sign that they might still be able to push the Americans back into the sea.

Ikeda smiled as a sudden thought came to him. “Stop!” he shouted at the Filipino family moving in the other direction. “What is your hurry? Where are you going?”

The father of the family could only stare mutely because he did not understand a word of Japanese.

“You are coming with us,” Ikeda said. He turned to his men. “Do not allow any more refugees to escape. Turn them around. They are going back to Palo with us.”

It didn’t matter that the fleeing townsfolk could not understand Ikeda. The gesturing by the Japanese, along with the bayonets and rifle muzzles pointed at them, needed no translation. The soldiers forced the refugees to head back in the direction of Palo, prodding them at gunpoint.

If the townspeople had no idea what Ikeda and the other Japanese were planning, they would soon find out.

For the unfortunate people of Palo, the long-awaited liberation from Japanese occupation had turned into a nightmare of war and destruction, starting with the shelling by the US fleet. The shells that rained down on their town had been intended for Hill 522 and other Japanese defensive positions, but some had fallen short and struck the town, wrecking houses and businesses. Some of the townspeople had been killed. The Filipinos had been caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place.

The town itself had a long history that had mostly been peaceful until the arrival of the Japanese. Even the Spanish-American War had resulted in a quiet transition to the American era that had lasted for four decades.

In other places, especially closer to Manila, the initial American occupation after the 1898 Treaty of Paris had not been peaceful. Some Filipino leaders fought for independence. More than four thousand US troops had died during the conflict against Filipino freedom fighters just after the turn of the century. The vast majority of those US casualties had been from tropical diseases rather than combat.

However, the insurrection had lost steam by 1906, in large part because of military defeats suffered by the insurrectionists and the fact that the US kept a light touch in governing their new territory. The Philippines had autonomy and self-rule — as long as they stayed friendly to the United States government. The guerrillas lost any popular support.

Long before that the Spanish had colonized the islands in the fifteen hundreds. This town had been one of the first where Spanish Jesuits had celebrated Mass in the Philippines, making it among the oldest Spanish outposts.

The years of Spanish influence gave the town architecture a vaguely European air. The buildings were modest but stately, many covered in stucco and accented with colorful wooden shutters. A few green palms or coconut trees growing along the streets added a tropical flair to the old-world charm.

The town was laid out around a central square, with the river forming the western boundary. Several businesses and residences lined the road leading to the bridge across the winding, muddy Bangon River, which flowed into San Pablo Bay.

In more ways than one, the church was the center of the town’s life. Whether it was by design or not, Palo Cathedral remained the tallest building in town, presiding over Palo with its sheer physical presence. Its original stones dated to 1598. As awful as this day was, the centuries-old stones of the cathedral served as a reminder that these events were merely a flyspeck in the flow of time.

The Japanese had no appreciation of the old Spanish culture or Western religion, especially when something as powerful in the lives of Filipinos as the church could challenge their own control. In fact, they viewed the traditions of their occupied country with contempt.

One of the cathedral’s current priests, Father Francisco, had taken to the hills and jungles alongside the courageous Filipino guerrillas battling the Japanese. Persecuted as he was by the Japanese, the priest had no choice but to leave. It had been only a matter of time before the Japanese either imprisoned him — or worse.

Knowing of this connection to the guerrillas, the Japanese occupiers had shown little sympathy for the citizens of Palo.

To make matters worse for the town, the Japanese military could do anything it wished with impunity. As the highest power in the land, the Japanese army had no one to answer to but themselves. The town’s civilian government had been disbanded or replaced with obsequious local men willing to do the bidding of the Japanese. Local military commanders understood that General Yamashita, the ultimate power on Leyte, had far more concerns than the treatment of the locals.

Consequently, Ikeda had been a familiar sight in the town, and a feared one as well, going door to door in search of guerrilla fighters, his band of soldiers acting like thugs. He hadn’t held out much hope of finding any weapons or ammunition, much less an actual guerrilla fighter hiding in one of the houses. His real purpose had been to punish the townspeople for helping the guerrillas.

The way that Ikeda saw it, he had lost more than his fair share of men who had made the mistake of venturing too far into the forests occupied by the Filipino freedom fighters. Small bands of Japanese troops were easy pickings for the guerrillas. Why shouldn’t the townspeople pay a price for their support of the guerrillas?

The arrival of American forces meant long-awaited liberation from under the Japanese bootheel. But not quite yet.

Liberation was not going to be as easy as the Filipinos might have hoped. As it turned out, Ikeda and the Japanese had one final cruelty and injustice to visit upon the town and its people.

At the moment the Americans were focused on taking strategic positions such as Hill 522. Although they were using the bridge across the Bangon, US forces had shown little interest in the town. When the Americans did get around to occupying Palo, the Japanese planned a surprise for them.

Having rounded up the fleeing townspeople, the Japanese drove them back into the streets at bayonet point, herding them like cattle.

Most of the Filipinos were women and children, old men or boys. The old men were frail, and the boys were very young. Any male sturdy enough to work had long since been drafted by the Japanese to dig rifle pits and carry logs or baskets of earth during the frenzied effort to build defenses before the arrival of US forces. Of course, many young men had given the Japanese the slip to join the guerrilla forces rallying around Father Francisco.

In the frenzied streets, some of the women chattered in frightened voices. Small children cried. They were all totally at the mercy of the Japanese soldiers.

“Be quiet!” Ikeda shouted at the cowed villagers who now crowded the street. An officer stood nearby. Although he was in charge, he gave Ikeda a nod of approval. “I must have silence!”

They could hear the sounds of battle growing nearby, the deadly clatter of machine guns and the thump of mortars. Any civilian could be forgiven for finding these sounds terrifying. Staring at the enemy’s rifles and bayonets, the townspeople had no choice but to comply with Ikeda’s demands. They fell silent.

“You have been chosen for a great honor,” Ikeda said. He gazed around at the frightened townspeople in order to let his words sink in. The handful of Filipinos who understood Japanese translated for the others. “You will lead the fight against the Americans.”

The confused townspeople looked at one another in bewilderment, not sure what the Japanese officer was talking about. They had no weapons, and more than that, they wanted to welcome the Americans, not fight them.

But from the looks of things, they wouldn’t be given any say. Whatever the Japanese had planned for them, they would have no choice but to obey.

On Hill 522, the bulk of the fighting was over, but the real killing was only about to begin.

A few Japanese soldiers popped up now and then to fire a few shots, or even to deliver a mortar shell, but meaningful resistance was over. The GIs had come to the part of the job that focused on smoking out the enemy wherever they could. Egan’s war dog, Thor, was kept occupied going around to the tunnel entrances and the cave mouths, sniffing out the enemy. His frantic barking echoed across the hillside.

When word arrived that Patrol Easy would be joining the force moving to occupy the town of Palo, it was welcome news. They’d had enough of this place.

“Fine by me,” said Philly, watching as a detail moved cautiously from one hole and pillbox to another, casting in grenades or satchel charges. The details had developed a deadly efficiency as they wiped out any Japanese defenders who might still be hiding on the hill. The ground shook with the detonations.

As the largest charges exploded, they sent a roar up the tunnels and out into the air. It sounded like a Hellcat engine in a dive, a giant buzzsaw and a volcano all rolled into one. He couldn’t think of a worse fate than being trapped underground and awaiting certain death. Deke shuddered, some part of him sympathetic to the Japanese on the receiving end of these efforts. He supposed that he hated the Japs as much as any soldier. But this extermination didn’t sit right with him.

Even worse was watching drums of gasoline or diesel oil being poured into the deeper holes. With theatrical nonchalance, an officer or sergeant would take a couple of puffs from a cigarette, then toss it down the hole. The message seemed to be that he gave as much thought to killing the Japanese in the hole as he gave to tossing away a cigarette butt.

What followed was not an explosion but a suffocating whoosh of fire. Angry orange flames soon rolled out and licked at the tropical air. The acrid smoke from the petroleum flames soon mixed with the disgusting odor of burned flesh and singed hair that wafted out from below. No matter how many times a soldier smelled that, there was no getting used to such a nauseating smell.

“This makes me sick,” Deke muttered. “Sick to my soul, that’s what. Burning folks alive. How the hell can a man do that to another man?”

The hollow look in Philly’s eyes showed his agreement. “There’s no answer to that, country boy.”

“War is one thing, kill or be killed and all that, but this is something else,” Deke went on. “This has got to be a sin. It ain’t right.”

“Tell it to Hirohito,” Philly said, his voice suddenly taut with anger. He wasn’t mad at Deke, but at the situation. “It’s his damn fault, not our fellas. Hell, it’s not even the fault of the Nips we’re roasting alive down there. Well, not all their fault. Hirohito is the one that started this whole mess. He’s the one that’s done this to them.”

Deke supposed that what Philly was saying had a lot of truth to it, but right now, Hirohito was nowhere to be seen. What he did see were lots of GIs eager to pour gasoline into the tunnel entrances.

As the day progressed, the pace of the annihilation increased. At first, one of the officers had gotten Yoshio to go around and shout for the Japanese to surrender. Dutifully he yelled into hole after hole, but there weren’t any takers before the gasoline and grenades were poured in. After a while, no offer of quarter was given.

“Save your breath,” the officer told Yoshio.

Not eager to join in the mopping-up operation, Deke and the other snipers found themselves cooling their heels. It was uncertain when they would be ordered down to Palo. Here on the hill, the Japanese artillery and mortars had been firing for hours. Not anymore.

The first thing Deke noticed when the barrage stopped was how quiet it had become. There was still plenty of artillery in the distance, but the sudden silence was eerie on the hill, like when the band stopped playing at a barn dance.

From time to time in the newfound quiet, they could hear strange singing underground as the Japanese soldiers awaited their fate. Maybe Deke was only imagining it, but he thought that he could hear that singing give way to the screams of the dying Japanese.

But the way most of the soldiers saw it, there was a job to do, however gruesome it might be. At least that was the story they told themselves. Any Japanese left alive were bound to reappear and cause more trouble. There was no question of making this a clean fight. This was no longer a battle but had become a slaughter, a killing operation. Deke reckoned that it was no different from eradicating gophers back home on the farm.

The enemy below had dedicated themselves to nothing less than the destruction of the United States and its allies. They had killed more than a few GIs here on the hill, and now they would pay the price. The GIs were exacting their revenge. Deke didn’t like it, but he understood. He just wasn’t proud of it.

It was all why the orders to get to Palo were welcome. When a line of infantrymen began descending the hill, Deke and Philly fell in once Honcho gave them the signal. The trip down the steep hill was only marginally easier than coming up had been, due mainly to the fact that gravity was now on their side. But there was a lot of slipping and cursing, with no clear trail to follow. The troops found themselves plunged back into jungle surroundings.

“I swear that if I find a banana leaf big enough I’m just gonna get on it and slide down,” Philly said after he had fallen yet again.

“You just ain’t graceful like me,” Deke said. Some of his good humor had returned now that the smell of burning flesh from the underground fires was fading.

Deke was indeed the only one who had seemed to keep his feet. But while the others were busy falling down and picking themselves up, he also kept an uneasy eye on their surroundings, rifle at the ready. Not every Japanese had been sealed inside Hill 522. Due to the heavy jungle growth, the terrain was perfect for an ambush.

Coming down off the hill and reaching the outskirts of town, the jungle faded away. They walked through small plots containing rows of vegetables — what they would have called kitchen gardens back home. It served as a reminder that, for the Filipinos, this was not some distant battleground. This was their home.

Feeling exhausted, the GIs managed to place one foot in front of another, glad to be putting the hill behind them. Yoshio had been busy trying to talk with a wounded Japanese soldier who had expired without saying more beyond telling his wife that he loved her. He hurried to catch up, but he hadn’t gotten word that they were headed into more action.

“Are we returning to the beach?” he asked eagerly.

“No, we’re being pulled off Hill 522 to occupy Palo,” Philly said. “Assuming the Japanese aren’t already there, in which case we’ll have another fight on our hands.”

“More fighting? It seems like the army won’t be satisfied until we are dead,” Yoshio remarked.

Philly smirked. “You catch on fast, you know that?”

Deke tried to reassure him. “It’ll be different this time, kid. Honcho says we’ll have tanks with us. They’ll bust through any Japs as easy as pie.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“You know what, kid?” Philly continued. “Maybe you ought to go first, ask any Japs in town if they want to surrender. If you ask polite enough, maybe they’ll put down their guns and they won’t fight.”

“All right, stuff a sock in it, Philly,” said Honcho, gathering the squad. “Listen up, fellas. We’re going to hang back and watch for snipers while the rest of these guys go in ahead of us. Nobody knows how many Japs are in this town, if any, so keep awake. We’ve got armor to lead the way, so we’re going to let the tanks go in first and do the heavy lifting.”

Nothing cheered infantrymen so much as the sight of their own tanks leading the way. The tanks were not invincible, but they could take a lot more of what was thrown at them than a humble GI could. Even the bullets from the dreaded Nambu machine guns bounced right off. They could also dish out a lot of punishment.

“There they go,” Philly said, sounding almost gleeful.

The two tanks rolled toward the town. Both tank commanders had their hatches open, to help them navigate the street ahead. The street was cobblestoned, and the tracks clacked down the street, sometimes cracking stones as they went.

Reassured by the presence of the tanks, most of the GIs figured that taking Palo was going to be a piece of cake.