Chapter 1064: The Suicide Ritual

“Burn it faster! Not one of these important things can be left for those damn Americans!” an officer said, looking anxiously toward his commander’s shelter. “We don’t have much time. Everything that needs to be done must be finished!”

A major beside him, his face pale, seemed to have gone mad. He suddenly stood up and roared at his colleagues, who were all trying to keep their heads down. “You bunch of cowards! We believe in Amaterasu, His Majesty the Emperor will protect us, make us invulnerable to blades and bullets! We should be at the front, launching a final charge! Not squatting here burning these useless scraps! Anyone with courage, follow me! We’ll go fight the Americans…”

Before he could finish, a bullet passed through his head. The immense force shattered his skull; he wasn’t wearing a helmet, so nothing stopped it from bursting apart. His body quickly knelt, his head gone from the jaw up, the rest vanished. The mangled corpse swayed and then toppled onto the side of the crater, silent.

Everyone was stunned by the sudden scene. They stopped what they were doing, watching their comrade become a cold corpse. The officer in charge swallowed hard, then resumed his work. “Don’t just stand there, hurry up and burn!”

It wasn’t that he was numb; it was that all of them knew that in a few minutes, their end would be much the same. There was nothing to be shocked about. They had all given up on the future.

In his trench, Takemoto Tarō did not, like the soldiers in the distance, leap from his foxhole shouting “Long live His Majesty the Emperor!” He just peered through a tiny gap at his shouting comrades, watching them fall, one after another, under the dense hail of bullets.

“An order from Commander Ishida. All units are to counter-attack. Those unwilling to attack are to be ‘shattered like jade’ (commit suicide) in their trenches.” An officer, his body bent low, moved through the trench, delivering the final mission to the soldiers pressed against the walls. He slapped each soldier he passed, trying to get them to pull themselves together and contribute one last bit of strength to their motherland.

“To be shattered like jade for His Majesty the Emperor! After death, our souls will return to our homeland, to be enshrined and worshipped by our descendants!” he shouted, trying to rally the soldiers, whose eyes were filled with panic and resignation. “Anyone left behind will be killed by the Americans. They don’t take Japanese prisoners!”

Driven by this lie, many Japanese soldiers had no choice but to resist to the end. They would empty their magazines from their shelters, then either commit suicide with a bayonet or choose a suicide charge. A few officers would commit seppuku with their swords, but most would fall with their men on the path of a mad charge against the American positions.

The Japanese counter-attack had reached its peak last night. Over 4,000 soldiers, having run out of ammunition, had opted for a covert bayonet charge. The fierce battle had lasted the entire night. The Americans had even lost some of their positions, but after daybreak, those positions had fallen back into American hands. In a single night, the Japanese had lost over 3,000 men.

This massive loss of life had also cost the Japanese many defensive positions, further shrinking the territory they controlled. If it weren’t for their dwindling ammunition, the Japanese could have held out on the island for at least another ten days. But this hypothesis did not become reality, and the Japanese army had indeed not sent any more ammunition to this besieged island.

Major General Ishida had known three days ago that he had been abandoned, and abandoned completely. The submarine resupply he had been desperately hoping for never arrived, not even by the time he had given the order to blow up the pier. A division lacking ammunition and heavy weapons couldn’t possibly hold a position for a month. The so-called “hold for one month” was just an enormous, empty promise that High Command had given him.

The soldiers at the entrance had already taken their rifles and gone to fight the Americans to the death. Inside the shelter, only one adjutant stood behind Major General Ishida. When a samurai committed seppuku, he needed a “kaishakunin” (a second) to stand behind him, to deliver a final cut or shot to end the suffering if the suicide failed. From this perspective, it was quite humane, avoiding the awkwardness of cutting one’s belly open and still being alive… only to lie in a room watching one’s own intestines, in agony, for three and a half days before dying.

“Our soldiers are very brave, are they not?” Ishida suddenly asked the adjutant standing behind him.

“Your Excellency, General, yes. They are all fighting to the death. No one has chosen the shame of surrender. We will all be shattered like jade here, contributing our lives to the rise of the Empire,” the adjutant replied, his head bowed, his voice firm.

“Yoshi. With that, I am relieved. It was my incompetence that burdened them, that kept them from tasting victory. But my heart, loyal to the Great Japanese Empire, has not changed. I hope my soul can return to my homeland.” Ishida wrapped the white silk cloth around the middle of his sword’s blade and placed his hand on it.

In ancient times, when a samurai committed seppuku, he used the short sword at his waist, called a “wakizashi.” In those days, a proper samurai was generally equipped with two swords: the long sword (katana) for killing, and the short sword for disembowelment—though, of course, in daily life, it might be used to cut an apple or a chicken wing. But in modern warfare, if a commander wore two swords at his waist… that wasn’t a samurai, that was an idiot. So the Japanese had also moved with the times, and had begun to make do with the seppuku methods of the poor samurai of old to satisfy the needs of their Bushido spirit.

This was the method Ishida was using: wrapping a cloth around the middle of his officer’s sword blade, holding it there, and using only half the blade’s length to cut his stomach. He gripped the blade, and the adjutant behind him also drew his own sidearm, aiming it at the back of Major General Ishida’s head.

“Long live His Majesty the Emperor!” Ishida plunged the blade into his stomach. At almost the same time, the adjutant behind him pulled the trigger of his pistol. The bullet struck the back of Ishida’s head, and he immediately collapsed to the floor of the shelter, his death a far uglier sight than his chief of staff’s.

The adjutant did not move. He pressed the muzzle of his still-bloody pistol to his own temple and pulled the trigger. A second gunshot echoed through the room. Unfortunately, there were only three corpses on the floor. No one was left to hear these sounds.

“Long live His Majesty the Emperor!” In a trench, a Japanese soldier pulled the pin on a hand grenade he had just taken from its crate. He forcefully struck the grenade on his helmet, and then pressed it to his own chest. This kind of suicide was said to be painless, at least, that’s what the propaganda said.

BOOM! An explosion erupted in the trench. A body, mangled by the shrapnel, lay at the bottom of the trench, surrounded by blood and fragments of limbs. A second Japanese soldier, in this atmosphere, did the same thing. The sound of explosions began to echo from all over.

This method of suicide was an extravagant one. At least, many units did not have the capital to do so. They had no ammunition to use for the act of “being shattered like jade.” They could only clutch their rifles in their trenches and wait to take the charging Americans with them. Or, more simply, just charge the American lines and be cut down by bullets on their way.

This, in fact, was risky. The enemy’s bullets would not guarantee a clean hit to the head. It was possible to be shot five times, to fall to the ground, to feel a heart-rending pain, but not to die immediately. This was countless times more painful than suicide. So, soldiers who had the means would still choose to be “shattered like jade” themselves. At least this way, they could decide to die without suffering.

“Takemoto-kun… I’ll go on ahead.” In the trench, Kimura, clutching a grenade, spoke to Takemoto Tarō, who was already completely disoriented. “See you in heaven. To have met you at this final moment has been my, Kimura’s, honor. Sayonara.”

“Ah…” Sighing, Takemoto Tarō could only take a few steps back and watch this new friend he had known for only a few days tap the grenade on his helmet, and then press it to his chest, waiting for death. He then saw Kimura explode into a bloody mist. He instinctively clutched the grenade in his own hand. This grenade was perhaps his last straw, his salvation. It was so precious that, although he was afraid, he could not bear to throw it away.

But he did not have the courage to commit suicide. He had never doubted this. He did not have the courage to press the grenade to his chest, did not have the courage to shout “Long live His Majesty the Emperor,” to fantasize about the nonsense of his soul returning to his homeland after he had been blown to bits. He clutched the grenade and moved through the trench, which was filled with corpses. He didn’t even know what his purpose was.

The Americans were getting closer. He could even see the netted helmets moving not far away. And so he pulled the pin on the grenade, struck it on his helmet, and threw it in the direction of the Americans. He still had three rounds in his rifle. He felt he had not yet reached the moment when he needed to be “shattered like jade.”

He raised his rifle, aimed in the direction the Americans were coming from, and pulled the trigger, feeling the recoil of the Type 38 rifle slam into his shoulder. He worked the bolt, chambered a new round, and then, continuing to aim, he fired a second shot at the distance. As he aimed again, he hesitated slightly. If he fired again, he wouldn’t even have a bullet left for himself.

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