Pacific Sniper

Chapter Thirteen

It was an awe-inspiring sight, with the machines leading the way ahead of the soldiers. The Japanese had launched a second wave led by tanks. From one of the tanks there flew an Imperial Japanese flag, bloodred sun against a snow-white background. It was as if the bright flag signaled that the attackers intended to make a clean, if bloody, sweep of all those in their path. Deke doubted that he had ever seen anything that looked so sinister as that Jap flag. But instead of fear, he felt anger. Goddamn Japs! Who do they think they are?

The small, nimble tanks were perfect for island fighting. Known as the Type 95 Ha-Go, the light tank was just fourteen feet long and less than seven feet wide. Although the tank was no match for a Sherman, the Japanese tanks were more than effective against infantry. The tanks fired a ragged volley, shells screaming directly overhead or exploding among the foxholes. One of the shells struck almost directly between their position and the jumble of boulders where the enemy sniper was hidden, sending a geyser of rocky island soil high into the air.

“Fall back!” Lieutenant Steele shouted, running along the line. “We can’t fight tanks!”

And just like that, Deke’s duel against the samurai sniper was over. The pile of boulders where the enemy sniper lay hidden was suddenly obscured by the shower of debris.

There was no time to wait around. The battlefield had instantly changed and turned against the Americans, like a table with a leg that had suddenly snapped. Everything had tilted and slid out of place. Deke and Yoshio crawled out of the foxhole and ran with the others, trying to stay ahead of the oncoming tanks and screaming Japanese soldiers.

With the surprise and force of the tank banzai charge, the entire American line was in danger of collapse. Those who could got out of the way. Fear had given some of the men swift feet, and they ran all the way back to the beach, stopping only when the waters of the blue Pacific gave them nowhere else to run.

But the majority of troops quickly regrouped.

“The marines didn’t run, and we’re not going to either,” Lieutenant Steele shouted, rallying any man he could find, in addition to the sniper squad, once they had reached a fallback position. “Get some grenades up here. Get as close as you can and try to knock out their treads.”

It seemed like their only chance, but it was a futile effort. Brandishing a grenade ready to throw, a soldier crouched and ran at the tanks from the side, but was cut down by a burst of machine-gun fire from one of the tanks. The thirty-seven millimeter guns were not the only weapon that the tanks employed to deadly effect.

Soon it looked as if the squad would be forced to join those who had already run for the beach.

Deke aimed at the tank carrying the Japanese flag, seeing the tank spring even closer through the telescopic sight. Although the tank had a hatch from which a man could direct the tank, the tank was buttoned up tight.

In the armor he could see a slit that the tank crew used to see out, but the motion of the tank over the rough ground made that gap a very difficult target. He put his crosshairs on the gap and fired, not sure if his bullet had gone through or not. The tank kept coming.

Firing as it rolled, the tank’s round struck the wreckage of a Jap plane that a group of soldiers had taken cover behind. The group disappeared, scattered and broken. Pieces of the plane and worse rained down.

“We’ve got to move,” Steele said. “We’re sitting ducks out here.”

It didn’t help matters that the American line was in complete disarray. Everywhere they looked, soldiers fought against small groups of Japanese who had been part of the first banzai wave. The fighting was vicious — up close and personal.

As Deke watched, two Japanese soldiers used their bayonets to attack a GI who found himself caught in the open. It was a strange sight, because the Japanese were so small and diminutive — they looked like children compared to the tall GI they were attacking. But there was nothing childlike about their bayonets or the twisted looks of hatred on their faces.

The soldier managed to shoot one down, but not before the Nip had managed to ram his bayonet through the man’s guts. Deke’s own guts clenched just thinking about it.

He raised his rifle and shot the Japanese soldier. As for the wounded GI, there was nothing that could be done for the man as he sank to his knees, head bowed, clutching his belly.

Deke worked the bolt and looked in the direction of the attack. He could see more screaming Japanese running behind the tanks, coming for them with their bayonets and their frenzied hatred of the Americans.

“Sir!” The soldier pointed, and they all looked behind them, in the direction of the beach.

Deke and the rest turned, half expecting to see more Japanese attacking from what was supposed to be their own beachhead. Instead, what he saw gave him a sense of relief.

A line of Sherman tanks was approaching.

“I guess they didn’t unload all those tanks for nothing,” Lieutenant Steele said with satisfaction. However, they soon saw that they were about to find themselves in the middle of a tank fight. “Everybody down!”

The GIs didn’t need to be told twice to hit the deck. They stayed there until the Shermans had advanced past them.

Krang! The lead tank fired its gun. More tanks fired. The tank guns were high-pitched and oddly muted, sounding like a hammer blow against a big iron pipe. Krang! Krang!

For the tanks, it was almost point-blank range. The Shermans moved much faster than the Japanese tanks and quickly closed the distance between them.

A round hit one of the Japanese tanks, and fire poured from every crack and seam in the armored beast.

Nearby, Philly whooped at the sight. “Give ’em hell, boys!”

Krang! Krang! More rounds struck the Japanese tanks. One or two rounds hit at an angle and glanced away into the jungle, but the direct hits were devastating. Deke watched another Japanese tank burst into flame, halted in its tracks. He found it more than a little amazing to be witnessing a tank battle on a tropical island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. War was a strange thing to wrap your head around, all right.

One of the Shermans rolled to a halt nearby. The hatch opened and a head popped out to reveal a grinning tank commander.

“I heard you boys needed some help,” he said.

“Yeah, we were about five minutes away from making a swim for it back to the ships,” Lieutenant Steele admitted.

“We didn’t come all this way for nothing,” the tank commander said. “Fall in behind me, will ya? Make sure these sneaky yellow bastards don’t come at me with any grenades.”

“You got it.”

The Jap tanks were not helpless victims. They fired back with telling accuracy, but for the most part their rounds exploded uselessly against the more heavily armored Sherman tanks. The Japs did get in a lucky shot now and then that knocked off a tank track and disabled it. Just as the tank commander had feared, a few brave Japanese soldiers hid in the long grass and then launched attacks at the tanks, trying to wedge grenades into the tank tracks or crawl beneath them with satchel charges. Deke and the rest of the squad shot them down before they could do any harm.

The Japanese were outmatched and outgunned. One by one, their tanks were destroyed. Then the tanks pressed on, going to work against the second wave of banzai attackers. The heavy machine guns cut the enemy to pieces.

More troops came from the beach, rushing to reinforce the line. These weren’t regular combat troops, but clerks, maintenance crews, even cooks. But they all had rifles, and they were full of fight. In a frenzy, they fell upon the groups of Japanese who were now finding themselves isolated behind the Sherman tanks that had pushed the line of battle back.

As Deke watched, a big man with his sleeves rolled up and black grease on his hands — clearly one of the tank mechanics from the beach — swatted aside a bayonet heading for his belly and punched his attacker so hard that the Jap was lifted clean off the ground.

He grinned. Now it was the Japanese who were on the run.

Deke lifted his rifle and started picking off the retreating soldiers. At this point, he didn’t care about shooting a man in the back. It just meant one less enemy soldier to fight later.

The desperate Japanese attack had faltered, but their destruction was not complete. Overhead came the scream of incoming shells. The fleet offshore had finally gotten into the act.

“Incoming!” Lieutenant Steele shouted. “Everybody down!”

The shells from the navy guns instantly turned the jungle boundary — the jangle — into a hell of smoke and flame. Chunks of trees, rocks, and the remaining tanks were blown sky-high. Whatever Japanese had retreated into the jungle were now in a world of hurt.

Once the barrage had ended, the mopping-up action began. There were wounded everywhere, both Americans and Japanese. The courageous medics did what they could for the Japanese, but it soon became clear that most were eager to take their own lives rather than surrender. Some shot or even stabbed themselves, but by far, the favorite means of ending their misery seemed to be the grenade. Across the battlefield, there were small explosions as grenades went off — ending the lives of the wounded Japanese and taking any nearby Americans with them.

It became clear that the strategy of the wounded Japs was to let the Americans come close before blowing themselves up.

They watched as a US medic ran to a Japanese soldier who lay on the ground, calling for help.

“Here I am, buddy,” the medic said, kneeling beside the enemy soldier to stanch his wounds. “Just take it easy. The war is over for you.”

No sooner had the medic leaned over him, however, than the Japanese soldier suddenly shouted maniacally and raised a fist that held a grenade. From a safe distance, Deke and the rest of the squad watched in horror as the grenade exploded, killing both the Japanese soldier and the American medic.

“That sneaky son of a bitch!”

The carnage of the attack had been bad enough, but the killing in its aftermath seemed more like an act of revenge — or murder. Unfortunately, it was not an isolated case. It was as if the Japanese had been trained to use every dirty trick in the book.

Once again, it was hard for the Americans to grasp the mindset of an enemy that seemed eager to destroy themselves rather than surrender, no matter how badly wounded they were. It also felt like an affront, as if the Americans weren’t good enough to surrender to. Considering that the majority of the young American men had been raised as churchgoers or had been taught that the Golden Rule mattered above all else, they were ready, willing, and able to help the enemy wounded. The Japanese attitude was a mystery.

“Crazy bastards,” Philly said, amazed and angered by the sight of the wounded Japs trying to take out a few more GIs. “I wouldn’t get too close to any of them.”

“You know what to do,” Steele agreed.

Instead of trying to help the wounded Japanese, they began shooting them from a safe distance.

Yoshio had been trying to reason with the wounded, encouraging them to surrender. The Japanese shouted back at him, clearly angry. Some tried to shoot at him, but they were too weak to get a grip on their weapons.

“What are they saying?” Deke wondered.

“They are calling me a traitor and a liar,” Yoshio said, clearly frustrated. “All that I want to do is help them.”

Deke took out his pistol and handed it to the Nisei interpreter. “You know what? I reckon this might be the best way you can help them.”

Crossing back the way that they had come, they reached the initial line of foxholes. Bodies and abandoned equipment lay strewn everywhere. They kept their eyes open for wounded men, but in this part of the battlefield, there seemed to be only the dead.

Cautiously, Deke approached the pile of boulders where the Japanese sniper had been hidden. He half expected to find the sniper’s body among the rocks, but all he saw were empty shell casings. A lot of them. It reminded him a little of the husks of dead insects under an old spiderweb in the Cole family’s barn back home — at least, before the bankers had come along and stolen the farm away. You didn’t see the spider at all until he darted out and claimed another victim, adding to the pile of dead insects and growing fatter as summer went on.

He reached down and picked up one of the cartridges. It was much smaller than one of his own rounds. He even sniffed at it, trying to detect some difference between the Japanese gunpowder and his own. He couldn’t smell any. Hard to believe that the Jap sniper’s fingers had handled this cartridge. He looked more closely and could see a single, oily fingerprint on the brass.

He thought about how the Jap sniper had stood up and challenged him.

He heard Yoshio come up behind him.

Thinking out loud, Deke said, “The way that he stood up like that was…” Deke sought for a word, but his vocabulary failed him. He wasn’t a man used to expressing himself verbally. He settled for, “Right strange.”

Yoshio nodded, understanding what Deke meant. “Welcome to the samurai mentality. My family had stories about the samurai that they brought over with them from Japan. I would say that the samurai were feared rather than revered. They could be quite harsh and cruel to their own people.”

“Samurai, huh?” Deke shook his head. “I guess he’s the Samurai Sniper.”

“That is who we are up against. Men like that sniper consider themselves to be like ancient samurai warriors. They follow the Bushido, which is the warrior code.”

“You make him sound like something special. He’s just another Jap sniper.”

“If you say so,” Yoshio said. “I just hope we don’t run into him again.”

Deke looked toward the line of jungle. If the Samurai Sniper had managed to survive, he was somewhere deep in the jungle by now. For Deke, not knowing what had happened to the Jap sniper made it feel like unfinished business.

“We’ll see,” Deke said.