Pacific Sniper

Chapter Fifteen

General Takashina could see that his attack had failed. His troops had no choice now but to retreat into the jungle itself, where defenses had been prepared to hold off the enemy as long as possible.

“We will wear down the enemy’s resolve until they are forced to withdraw,” he announced to his staff. He would not call it a retreat. “They will wish that they had never set foot on this island!”

“We will fight to the end!” Colonel Iwasaki, Takashina’s second-in-command, agreed enthusiastically.

What both Iwasaki and Takashina knew, but would not say, was that the cream of their troops had been lost in the desperate banzai attacks against the American beachhead. If it had not been for the appearance of the US tanks, perhaps the tide of battle would have turned in their favor. As it stood, thousands of their best troops now lay dead.

But the Japanese Army was far from defeated. In the months leading up to the attack, fallback defenses had been built in the more mountainous areas of the island. Takashina’s claim that they would wear down the Americans was not an idle boast. The Americans had now firmly established their beachhead and even captured the airfield, but the fight for Guam was far from over.

Reluctantly, Takashina gave the order for his troops to withdraw. He climbed into one vehicle, with Colonel Iwasaki following in another. The convoy set off down the unpaved jungle road, headed deeper into the mountains.

But their convoy did not go unnoticed. From the air, the pilot spotted them and went into a dive, strafing the road with the plane’s powerful machine guns. Considering the speed at which the plane moved, the attack seemed to be over in an instant, and yet it had been enough.

Riding behind the general’s vehicle, Colonel Iwasaki watched in horror as the plane’s machine guns riddled General Takashina’s vehicle, which then went out of control and plunged off the road and into a deep ravine. The vehicle flipped several times before coming to rest upside down.

Somehow, Colonel Iwasaki had come through unscathed. “Get down there!” he shouted at his driver, hoping that by some miracle the general had survived.

But looking down at the wreckage, he knew the truth in his heart. General Takashina must be dead, meaning that Colonel Iwasaki was now in command of the forces that must somehow push the Americans back into the sea.

When the tank charge began, taking Okubo by surprise, he had felt a sense of elation. As impossible as it seemed, the battle might now be won. The first volley of firing from the tanks had created pandemonium, so Okubo had crawled out of his sniper’s nest and crawled over to the wreckage of the tank to see if Kimura was still alive.

He had taken a grave chance in revealing himself to the American sniper. Perhaps he had been foolish in doing so. However, he had wanted to show the enemy that he did not fear him. That was the Bushido way, and Okubo was nothing if not a Bushido warrior.

To his surprise, the enemy sniper had also stood up and revealed himself. He had been wearing a broad-brimmed hat rather than a helmet. Through the binoculars, Okubo had seen that the man’s face was badly scarred. If Okubo ever saw him again, he would surely recognize the soldier.

Going to the wreckage of the tank, he peered inside but could see nothing moving in the darkness. He could, however, smell the decomposing bodies of the tank crew.

“Private Kimura?” he said sharply. “Are you alive?”

Something moved in the darkness. “Sir!”

“Come out of there.”

Kimura emerged from the wreckage. Okubo stepped back to give him room. Kimura was bleeding from a slight wound in his arm but was otherwise unscathed.

Private Kimura began to try to explain himself. It was clear enough that after being wounded, he had kept himself hidden away inside the tank. “Sir, I—”

“Never mind that,” Okubo said. He might deliver some punishment later, but for now he thought that there was nothing that he could do or say to Kimura that was as bad as cowering in the confines of the tank with the dead men.

He turned to join the fight, but to his surprise, the tank’s banzai charge had been met by a line of enemy tanks. The bigger, well-armored enemy tanks were making short work of the Japanese tanks. Behind the enemy tanks, he saw that a fresh wave of American troops had arrived. Already, the Japanese were being overwhelmed.

“Follow me,” Okubo said curtly. He began heading for the relative safety of the jungle. He knew that he could take up a position there and wreak havoc on the American troops who followed the retreating Japanese.

He ran hard and fast, carrying the rifle across his chest, Kimura running behind. In so many places, it was difficult not to step on the bodies of his dead or wounded countrymen. So many fallen, he thought. Their sheer fury had come close to defeating and overwhelming the Americans, but in the end, it had not been enough.

They reached the shelter of the jungle and kept going, pressing deeper into the shadowy interior.

As it turned out, it was a good thing that he did.

In the distance, he heard the telltale scream of incoming fire. The American navy had finally unleashed their big guns. They would not shell the field that was so close to their own troops. They must be targeting the jungle cover.

The jungle that he and Kimura were now in.

“Run!” he shouted at Kimura.

They plunged deeper into the jungle, heedless of the sharp-edged leaves that sliced at their hands and faces — or the vines that tried to trip them. He could hear the final scream of the first shells descending.

The resulting explosion picked him up off his feet and hurled him deeper into the jungle. He was thrown through the air, arms and legs flying, air ripped from his lungs. His mind flashed back to being a boy playing at the beach, when he’d been caught by a big wave that tumbled him underwater. Both then and now, he gasped for breath.

He landed among deep ferns and undergrowth. Dimly, he was aware of Kimura landing next to him.

The bombardment shook the ground. Trees shattered and splintered. Flashes of fire blinded him. Okubo saw no point in false bravado and burrowed as far as he could into the tangled logs and brush as the bombs fell.

Fortunately for Okubo and Kimura, they had been deep enough into the jungle to be spared. Any Japanese at the jungle’s edge had surely been obliterated. His ears ringing, Okubo extricated himself from his hiding place once the bombardment had ended. He inspected his rifle, pleased that it had escaped any serious damage.

“Let me see that arm,” he said gruffly to Kimura, who stood nearby, looking dazed. “If you lose too much blood or it becomes infected, you won’t be of any use.”

Deftly, he bandaged Kimura’s wound, given to him earlier by the American sniper when the private had been hidden inside the tank. When he was finished, he grunted in satisfaction, then started deeper into the jungle.

Wincing from the pain in his arm, Kimura followed.