Chapter 1053: Nobody Could Leave

The Japanese army had built a concealed military airfield on this small island. This airfield could originally accommodate more than 50 fighter planes, but now there were only 2 transport planes and 4 fighters here. These pitiful planes were parked in camouflaged hangars, and one more was unable to take off due to a lack of spare parts.

To expect this air force unit to pose a fatal threat to the U.S. Navy was an impossible matter. Even the commander of the Army Air Arm on this small island had already given up all efforts. He spent his days drinking in despair, no longer caring about or even asking after the war situation he was supposed to be in charge of.

Takemoto Tarō, after toiling for a whole morning, was finally rotated to a post at the port, a kind of rest. He held his Type 38 rifle, staring blankly at the ocean in front of him. That was a place he had once longed for. If it weren’t for the fact that he was the eldest son at home, he might have become a brave sailor, riding the wind and waves on a Japanese whaling ship.

But in reality, although he had been stopped by his family from becoming a sailor, he had, because of the war, ultimately not been able to stay away from a dangerous profession. He had become a soldier on this small island, one who could be killed in action at any moment. The island lacked the most basic medical care. Malaria could kill a person at any time. Adding to that the hundreds of wounded in the field hospital who could not be transported to the rear, it was not strange that this place could, at any time, deteriorate into a plague-ridden hell.

“Have you heard? The new seawater desalination machine on the island is broken,” a comrade said, chewing on a shriveled rice ball, his words muffled as he recounted the island’s news. That piece of equipment was very unstable and would break down from time to time, so most of the island’s drinking water came from rain, not desalinated seawater.

Takemoto Tarō was also holding a ball of rice that looked very unappetizing. He forced a smile from his dry lips. “It would be a real mystery if that thing actually worked properly. Compared to that unreliable machine, I feel like we don’t have to worry about having no water to drink now.”

“Why?” the soldier asked in confusion.

“You’re still asking why? The Americans will be here soon, and then we’ll all die here,” Takemoto Tarō complained. “Those bastards wouldn’t make us build those trenches and fortifications for no reason. So I’m telling you, this place is about to become the front line.”

“Then won’t we be transferred? They’re making us, who’ve only ever fired a machine gun, fight the Americans? Isn’t that too crazy?” The soldier looked around, and finally his gaze fell on the new soldiers who were walking out of the pier in the distance. His eyes widened. “My God, bakayaro! We have to fight the Americans, with them?”

While he was lamenting, on the distant hillside, a Japanese soldier on lookout duty cranked the air-raid siren in his hand. He cranked it for all he was worth, hoping to convey his urgent mood to everyone. Because in the distant sky, small black dots were rapidly expanding, then splitting, finally forming a terrifying black cloud.

“These American… bastards.” Without even having time to swallow the food in his hand, Takemoto Tarō scrambled to his feet, frantically stuffed the unpalatable rice ball into a clean pocket, and then, shouldering his rifle, he went to the pier to rescue the military supplies that had just been brought ashore. For the people trapped on this isolated island, every piece of these supplies was a precious treasure.

These American B-17 bombers, which had taken off from other, distant islands, were in a dense mass over this small island, spreading into their attack formation. The unsuccessful bombing of Norway had led the American high command to throw their newly produced B-17 bombers into the Pacific theater. These strategic bombers, with their astonishing range, had indeed lived up to expectations, immediately turning several of the small islands that the Japanese were defending into a pile of rubble.

The Japanese army had no weapons, like the German Air Force, to meet these terrifying flying gunships head-on. The Japanese fighters, which emphasized agility and dogfighting performance, were completely useless in front of these planes. The outcome of scrambling to intercept them would only be to add to the combat record of the Allied bomber force.

But what was baffling was that these bombers did not make any move against the port, which was made up of several exposed, simple piers. They only began their bombing after they had flown further into the center of the island, destroying the Japanese villages on the island and turning some of the cultivated sugarcane fields into a sea of fire.

After opening their bomb bays, these B-17 bombers had actually lowered their altitude, carrying out a precise bombing raid from a height of about 6,000 meters. A large number of bombs had destroyed several of the Japanese army’s important warehouses, and had also destroyed some of the newly built fortifications that had been constructed in the island’s mountain forests.

“Report, General!” A Japanese officer walked into Major General Ishida’s command post in a cave, and saluted at attention to Ishida and the lieutenant general beside him. “The Americans have bombed our warehouses and the airfield. Because we had already, according to orders, moved a portion of the supplies into the cave shelters in advance, the losses are not great.”

The Americans were clearly very interested in the piers and the port. They were more willing to capture facilities that could be used immediately than to completely destroy them. Apart from the 20 escorting American fighters who had strafed the Japanese ships docked in the port with their machine guns, the large-scale bombing had not been directed at the most vulnerable port and piers.

Another person who had followed him in was the commander of the new replacement troops. His face was still grim. Before Ishida could even ask, he had bowed his head and reported the heavy losses his unit had suffered in the air raid. “My troops have very limited training. This is the first time they have experienced such an attack, so they fell into chaos, which caused even more casualties… About 200 soldiers were killed, and more than 350 were wounded.”

Major General Ishida’s brow furrowed involuntarily when he heard this casualty report. He had just received 2,000 replacement soldiers, and on the very first day, they had lost more than a quarter. This kind of news, in front of anyone, would make them want to curse.

Unfortunately, when he heard that the island’s original 280th Division had also lost more than 100 men in the bombing, he no longer had the impulse to get angry. Major General Ishida had to accept the fact that his troops had no combat experience, and that he had to use such an inexperienced unit to stop the advance of the U.S. Marines.

“Your Excellency, General! You must leave this place,” Ishida said, putting aside the pile of difficult problems in front of him. He turned and pleaded with the old general beside him, “The American planes have already begun their bombing. It is no longer safe here. You must take that transport ship immediately. Go!”

“Ishida-kun! To tell you the truth, if I could choose for myself, I would personally prefer to die in battle here, to avoid having to face an even more unbearable future,” the old general said with resignation. After speaking, he felt that what he had just said was a bit too pessimistic, so he forced a smile and said to Major General Ishida, “I’m leaving… you, take care of yourself.”

Takemoto Tarō was on the pier, helping some of the frightened soldiers to move boxes of ammunition. He saw a small car drive past him. The car stopped at the end of the pier, and the officers on board, surrounded by guards and adjutants, walked up the gangway of the transport ship, which had already been emptied.

The bombing just now had made these ships not dare to stay any longer, so the seriously wounded, who had originally been scheduled to leave with the ship, had been replaced at the last minute by the lightly wounded. They could walk onto the ship themselves, so the boarding speed was a little faster. As for these wounded, they had already experienced all of this before, in the Solomon Islands or at Darwin—the seriously wounded were left behind, the lightly wounded retreated… and then, with the delay in treatment, and the lack of medicine and medical care, the lightly wounded eventually deteriorated into the seriously wounded, to be abandoned on some small island.

“Look, look! That general is leaving!” a comrade at his side said, putting down a box of heavy machine gun bullets. He wiped the sweat from his brow and spoke to Takemoto Tarō, who was beside him. “It seems what you said was true. We’re going to have to fight. These officers are running away.”

“I see it!” Takemoto Tarō really wanted to run over and board the ship with that general and leave this island that had been turned into a front line. But he couldn’t, because he knew that if he did, he would soon be dragged off the ship by the military police and then, in front of everyone, he would be shot as a deserter.

So all he could do was to envy, and to silently comfort himself, to tell himself that in this situation, to leave by ship was not a very safe thing to do. He watched as the transport ship sailed far away and finally disappeared on the horizon. He then withdrew his gaze. That was still the boundless sea, the place he had always longed for. But unfortunately, he would probably never have the chance to sail the seas in this life, because he had to, along with all the men who had been left behind, fight to the death to defend the island beneath his feet.

In the evening, the sky was still bright. Major General Ishida, in his underground shelter, received a condolence telegram from the navy. The transport ship that had left from here, along with several other ships, had been discovered by American carrier-based aircraft and had all been sunk a dozen or so kilometers away. Apart from a destroyer called the Yukikaze, which had been lucky enough to escape, with all on board unscathed, all the Japanese had been killed in action. The lieutenant general, who was supposed to have gone to Malaya to command the battle, now had only a name, left at the very top of the list of the fallen.

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