Jungle Sniper

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Once they had reached the town, Ikeda turned to his men and whispered harshly, “Follow me!”

They ran to the doorway of a commercial building and pounded up the stairs. A corner of the building was missing, damaged by a bomb, looking like a big bite had been taken out of it. Ikeda positioned his men along the open windows overlooking the street and square below.

From his perch above the narrow street, Ikeda looked down with satisfaction. He and his men had a commanding view of the street. They also had a front-row seat to the scene that was unfolding below.

The bulk of the refugees had been forced ahead of the Japanese, creating a human buffer. The Americans would be reluctant to fire on civilians — Japanese forces had no such qualms. He was sure that the Americans would be taken by surprise. Meanwhile, the horde of civilians would provide good cover, enabling the Japanese troops to get quite close before opening fire.

It was the perfect ruse. The trap had been set.

From their position up here, Ikeda and his men would wreak havoc on the unsuspecting Americans.

“Sir!” Morosawa shouted.

Ikeda looked in that direction and saw with satisfaction that the soldier was pointing at a small force of Americans advancing through the street, directly toward the mass of civilians flowing toward them. There were two tanks leading the way, but all that firepower would be useless against what was about to happen.

Ikeda put his rifle to his shoulder and waited for the Americans to come into range.

Looking around, Deke noted that Palo really was a proper town with masonry buildings and a handful of two- and even three-story structures. The buildings made him a little uneasy because he preferred being surrounded by fields or forests. He had yet to fight in anything resembling a town.

At the moment, the town also seemed to be deserted. There wasn’t even so much as a dog in sight, which was a little unusual, because the lean little village dogs were usually found in abundance. The dogs seemed to be smart enough to have cleared out. The only dog in sight was Thor, straining against his leash as if to say, Let me at ’em!

Soldiers followed on the heels of the tanks.

“Hey, where are the Japs?” somebody shouted.

“Shut the hell up!” yelled a sergeant.

But the man had simply said what was on everybody’s mind.

“Looks like the Japs didn’t have time to put out the welcome mat,” Philly said.

“If what you mean by welcome mat is shooting at us, don’t be disappointed just yet,” Deke said. “Might be that we’re walking right into a trap.”

“What trap is that?”

“Maybe they’re waiting for us to come in closer.”

“It could be that they turned tail and ran at the sight of those tanks.”

“They’re probably inside those buildings,” Deke said. “I’ll bet they’ve got snipers on the top floors. They’re probably gonna shoot down on the troops from inside the buildings. That’s what I’d do if I was a Jap.”

“Which you’re not.”

“Thank the good Lord for that.”

The quiet did not last for long. Rodeo, the squad’s radio operator, got a message and passed the word in a whisper. “The boys in the tanks see movement up ahead.”

“What the hell are they waiting for? Then tell them to start shooting!” Honcho exclaimed.

There was no need for Rodeo to relay the orders. The tankers knew what to do. As if on cue, the tanks opened fire with their machine guns. Moments later, what appeared to be the enemy came into view, flowing like a tide down the street toward the advancing US forces. The tanks’ machine guns mowed down the advancing enemy in rows, their bodies quickly piling up.

But something wasn’t right. So far there wasn’t any return fire. It soon became apparent that the street wasn’t filled with enemy soldiers, but with women, children, and old men.

“Hold your fire!” Honcho shouted. “Rodeo, get on the horn and tell those tanks to stop shooting, for God’s sake. They’re killing kids and old ladies!”

The advancing Americans took their fingers off their triggers and stared, aghast at what they beheld. Many of the helpless civilians now lay dead or dying, their blood flowing along the cobblestones.

But there were wolves among the sheep.

A boy broke away from the mass of people still in the street, running toward the Americans. It was the same boy who had been forced earlier to watch his father cower before the Japanese. He held his head high, pumping his arms, running flat out on skinny legs for all that he was worth.

“What the hell?” somebody shouted.

“Don’t shoot, for Chrissake. It’s just a dumb kid.”

As the Americans lowered their weapons, Honcho stepped forward to meet the boy. Nearly breathless from his sprint, the boy reached the lieutenant and spoke the only word of English he knew. “Japanese!” he shouted, then pointed frantically behind him. “Japanese!”

Realization dawned on Honcho. He shoved the boy behind him, out of the line of fire. “Get ready! Japs! Here they come!”

Hiding among the terrified civilians had been several Japanese soldiers using the Filipinos as cover. They opened fire indiscriminately, having no compunctions about their bullets taking out a few more civilians.

The Americans struggled to react. To shoot back meant killing and wounding more civilians. Up ahead, the tanks’ machine guns had fallen silent.

A few of the GIs felt sufficiently confident about their marksmanship to shoot back, Deke among them. He picked out a Japanese soldier with a fixed bayonet and dropped him.

“Aim for the Japs,” Honcho urged. His own twelve-gauge lacked the finesse to do any good, but that didn’t stop him from grabbing a pair of binoculars and calling out targets to his sniper squad.

Undeterred, the Japanese raked the tanks with fire and unleashed their weapons at the advancing infantry. Many of the GIs held their fire, unsure of whom they should shoot at. The Japanese shot several soldiers while they tried to figure out what was going on.

In the confusion, the Japanese quickly got the upper hand. Patrol Easy held steady, but some of the GIs nearby started to melt away in the confusion in the streets.

“Hold your positions!” Honcho shouted in frustration.

From their vantage point on the second floor, Ikeda and his snipers picked off several GIs. Ikeda put his crosshairs on one of the tank commanders and pulled the trigger, watching with satisfaction as the man’s lifeless body slid back into the hatch.

But the tank wasn’t full of fools. One of the crew must have seen where the shooting was coming from and took command of the situation. Slowly and deliberately, the muzzle of the tank’s gun swiveled in their direction.

“Down!” he cried, rolling away from the open window.

In the next instant, he was thrown back, ears ringing, dust clogging his mouth and eyes. On his hands and knees, dragging his rifle, he managed to reach the stairs. With a final glimpse behind him, he could see that many of his men were dead. He spotted Morosawa’s shattered body in the rubble, the man’s blood mixing with the dust.

Ikeda headed for the stairs before the tank could fire again. Even he had to admit that a rifle was no match for a tank.

Leaping down several steps at a time, he led the few men he had left down the stairs and into the safety of the alley just before another tank round blew the building to pieces.

“Pick your targets!” Honcho shouted, mainly for the benefit of the GIs within hearing range. He had managed to rally enough of the soldiers to put up a fight against the Japanese.

Deke and the rest of Patrol Easy already knew what to do. Deke swung his rifle from one Japanese soldier to the next, dropping them where they stood. More and more GIs opened fire, their magnificent M1 rifles spitting out bullets as fast as they could pull their triggers. They might not be snipers, but at this range they did just fine singling out enemy soldiers.

Fortunately the Japanese stealth attack started to fall apart as the Filipino civilians scattered. They ran for whatever shelter they could find, darting down alleys and into doorways, many of them screaming. Soon only the Japanese remained, caught out in the open.

The tanks opened fire once again with their machine guns, cutting the enemy to pieces.

Despite the clever, vengeful Japanese attack in which they had used civilians as camouflage, Palo was now in American hands.