Chapter 606: Is There Anything I Can Help You With?

“Your Excellency, Marshal Yamamoto, a message from General Fukuda, commander of the marines. The first wave of landing troops has seized a beachhead, but casualties have been extremely heavy. He requests continued artillery support and air cover for their advance,” an officer standing behind Yamamoto reported loudly.

Yamamoto stared at the sea surface not far away, remaining silent for a moment before asking, “What are the losses for the landing force?”

“General Fukuda’s message says 6,100 soldiers were gloriously sacrificed… and approximately 1,500 American soldiers were killed.” The officer clearly felt this number was too high. He lowered his head as he answered, his voice growing quieter.

Yamamoto gave a bitter smile. His landing force had suffered disastrous losses in just three hours. Even with such an overwhelming advantage, attacking a heavily defended American island still exacted such a terrible price. This showed that the Americans’ strength was growing, while Japan’s offensive power was waning.

“Continue the bombardment!” Time did not permit him to dwell on it. Under the gaze of the officer beside him, Yamamoto gave the order to attack. He knew the losses were great, but once a battle began, it could not be stopped; that was unchangeable. Yamamoto understood very well that if the Japanese offensive was halted by the Americans, then everything that followed would be dictated by the Americans, not the Japanese. He had to fight for the initiative.

Boom! With a massive explosion, a Japanese naval shell landed deep in the interior of Kauai. The American defensive positions began to collapse with this tremendous blast. Three hundred American soldiers were surrounded on the beachhead, while another 1,100 were engaged in a fierce firefight with Japanese soldiers on the second, inland defense line. They had no room to retreat, because behind them was the core area of Kauai, which included concealed ammunition depots and other hidden trump cards.

Ten American M3 Lee tanks drove out from hidden shelters. This was the Americans’ final counter-attacking measure. For the Japanese, especially a landing force with few heavy weapons, these ten M3 Lee tanks were an absolutely troublesome counter-attack force.

From the cover of the woods, the American tanks quickly approached the beachhead. When they appeared before the Japanese soldiers, it was no surprise that the landing force fell into a state of panic. An American tank had a combat weight of 27 tons, and because they were designed to face German tanks, many had thickened frontal armor, bringing their weight closer to 29 tons. To the Japanese army, which only had light tanks, they were absolute behemoths.

Boom! The 75mm cannon mounted on the side of the M3 Lee, while somewhat lacking against German tanks, was more than enough to attack Japanese infantry. In an instant, a dozen Japanese soldiers were hit by the tank’s cannon and fell to the ground, their fate unknown. At the same time, the machine guns on the tanks also began to roar. More Japanese soldiers who had crossed the trenches to advance could only retreat back into them, hiding from the hail of bullets.

“Get as close to the beach as you can! Drive the Japanese soldiers back into the sea!” a tank commander radioed to his comrades. Beside him, the gunner was loading a shell into the 37mm turret cannon; they had just used it to take out a constantly firing Japanese grenade launcher position.

As the American tanks charged among the Japanese troops, running rampant, several Japanese fighter planes on patrol nearby began to dive down. These planes all carried small bombs for ground attacks. Although their accuracy wasn’t great, they made up for it by being timely and powerful. The planes dropped all their bombs, destroying four American tanks. Now out of ammunition, they could only return to base, leaving the remaining tanks to continue wreaking havoc among their comrades’ positions.

“You are His Majesty the Emperor’s proudest warriors! For our homeland and the great Emperor, we must achieve victory! Even if you die here, your souls will return to the shrine to be revered and worshipped day and night by all the people of Japan!” a Japanese officer stood ferociously before his soldiers, roaring loudly.

In front of him, a dozen Japanese soldiers with white cloths tied around their heads were tearing off their mud- and dust-covered uniform jackets. Soon they revealed their white undershirts and the senninbari—thousand-stitch belts—wrapped around their stomachs. These soldiers raised their hands high, shouting “Long live His Majesty the Emperor!” as if at that moment they were truly invincible.

Then, these men took explosive packs from their comrades behind them and ran towards the American tanks that had already drawn near. They moved closer to the American tanks from within the trenches, then either waited for them to approach or carefully crawled out, using the tanks’ blind spots to get close to the giant steel monsters.

This was a tactic learned from their opponents in Nomonhan in the Far East and in China. The Japanese had paid for this lesson in blood, learning from the Battle of Nomonhan that their tanks were no match for those of European nations. So, the Japanese used the same methods the Chinese had used against their tanks to deal with Soviet tanks, and now they were using the same trick again to destroy American armor.

Crude methods are sometimes effective, especially when lives are thrown away. The Americans clearly had not expected the Japanese to send out fearless suicide squads to blow up their tanks. They constantly provided covering fire for each other, but the Japanese suicide squads still managed to get close, destroying three M3 Lee tanks. The remaining American tanks were finally forced to retreat, and the plan to rescue the surrounded American soldiers was declared a failure.

However, the Americans did not give up on Kauai. They fought to the death in the remaining areas of the island. The two sides battled fiercely for 36 hours, and the sound of gunfire on Kauai remained intense. The Japanese Navy had to abandon its plan to occupy the entire Hawaiian archipelago within three days, ordering its troops to completely pacify Kauai before launching an attack on Oahu.

The struggle for Kauai gradually intensified. The number of American troops was constantly decreasing, while the number of Japanese troops landing on the coast was steadily increasing. The balance of power began to tip in favor of the Japanese army, and American soldiers began to be cut off and surrounded due to insufficient numbers, their positions compressed towards the direction of Oahu.

On September 1, 1938, Japan finally killed the last 17 resisting American soldiers on Kauai, completely occupying the small island. However, compared to the 2,900 American soldiers killed and 900 captured on the island, the Japanese lost a staggering 9,700 men, almost wiping out an entire marine division.

Unlike the American forces in the Philippines who routed after brief contact, or other Allied forces elsewhere, this was the first time the Japanese truly felt the formidable military power of America’s homeland defense system. The Americans began to fight for every inch of land, and the firepower and number of their defensive forces put immense pressure on the Japanese.

Subsequently, Japan had to postpone its attack on the nearby island of Oahu due to a shortage of troops. For the invasion of the Hawaiian Islands, Yamamoto Isoroku had assembled two marine divisions, totaling about 34,000 men. Losing more than a quarter of that force on the small island of Kauai was something no one had expected.

In the end, Imperial General Headquarters decided to divert two nearby Army divisions to reinforce Yamamoto’s expeditionary force for the continued attack on Oahu and the other islands. This plan used troops that were originally intended for Australia, which in turn affected the speed of the main offensive there.

Of course, Japan’s halt in the attack gave the Americans more time to prepare. Unlike Kauai, Oahu was the command center of the U.S. Pacific Fleet and an important American military base in the Pacific. Therefore, the American force on Oahu reached a staggering 20,000 men, a full four times greater than the defensive force on Kauai.

These troops had sturdy fortifications, and even the cover and support of coastal artillery batteries. The scale of artillery on Oahu was also much larger than on Kauai. For the Japanese army to occupy this place, they would have to pay an even more tragic price. Based on the loss ratio on Kauai, the Japanese might have to sacrifice as many as thirty thousand men to capture this important American military base.

On September 20, 1938, the hot summer of that year was about to pass. Besides the fiercely contested Balkan Peninsula, the world’s largest battlefield was not in Europe, but on the calm Pacific Ocean.

On the sea far from Sydney, Australia, a destroyer flying a red flag with a black swastika slowly approached the somewhat desolate port city. The destroyer cautiously drew near, its masthead signal lamp flashing a message in international code.

“I am a British destroyer, from Scotland! Requesting permission to dock! We have no hostile intent! We have no hostile intent!” Over and over, the destroyer repeatedly sent this signal identifying itself.

Finally, the destroyer docked safely at a pier in Sydney. A German officer wearing an Iron Cross walked down the gangway. Following him was another officer dressed in a British naval uniform but wearing a German naval cap.

“You are the first warship to come here since the great withdrawal began,” an Australian army officer greeted them. The Australian navy had already retreated to the United States with their families, and most of those left behind were pitiful souls who had been abandoned. However, this officer was neatly dressed and did not seem nervous as he spoke. “I am the senior defense commander here. Is there anything I can help you with?”

Published: 2025-09-10T05:15:26.000+00:00
Last Edited: 2026-01-19T15:55:22.000+00:00
URL: https://www.patreon.com/caleredhair/posts/mtr-c606-is-i-138561353

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