Chapter 656: The Second Battle of Kauai

Just as Lieutenant General Oshima was vowing to share the fate of Kauai, the cannons of the American fleet opened up, marking the prelude to the landing. A dozen cruisers and destroyers opened fire from all directions, pouring hundreds of tons of shells onto the Japanese positions on the island.

Shells struck the beach, throwing up smoke screens several stories high. The trenches the Japanese soldiers had painstakingly dug quickly collapsed under the devastation of these large-caliber guns. And the so-called large-caliber artillery of the Japanese seemed rather childish in comparison to the Americans’.

Most of the Japanese Army’s support artillery consisted of 75mm mountain guns. The Japanese Army did not have many larger-caliber cannons to begin with, and since this was a cross-sea landing operation, they had not brought any.

This legendary 75mm mountain gun was the main supporting fire for the Japanese Army on Kauai. But against the Americans’ uniform 155mm cannons, as well as the even larger-caliber guns of their cruisers and battleships, these small Japanese cannons had no room to fight back.

What’s more, the Japanese had not been systematically resupplied with ammunition these past days, and their stock of large-caliber shells was extremely limited. Faced with the overwhelming firepower of the U.S. Navy and shore batteries, the Japanese artillerymen could only hide in their shelters and pray that it would all be over soon.

Lieutenant General Oshima was not like the Japanese general Tadamichi Kuribayashi, who defended Iwo Jima in another timeline. He had not studied America’s level of mechanization and combat methods well, and he still held the unrealistic idea that Japan was strong and America was weak. He felt that Japan was only temporarily on the back foot in a localized area, not that it had lost the initiative on the battlefield.

And so, the Japanese soldiers on Kauai had not meticulously constructed underground fortifications or supporting tunnels. Most of their defenses were just trenches and simple shelters. Faced with the American saturation bombardment, casualties rose sharply. By the time Oshima decided to reinforce his positions, it was already too late.

With the American bombardment, a dense mass of American landing craft and barges appeared on the sea on the side of Kauai closest to Oahu, within the sight of the Japanese soldiers. At the moment the Japanese soldiers least wanted, the soldiers of the United States Marine Corps appeared in the position where they were most needed.

BOOM! As the American vessels drew closer to the beaches of Kauai, the Japanese positions were hit by another round of fire. A machine gun bunker, due to bad luck, was hit directly by an American shell. Under everyone’s gaze, the machine gun and the gunner in that position were all blown into the sky, turning into pieces.

Under the terrified eyes of the Japanese soldiers, the first U.S. Marine landing craft to reach the beach lowered its ramp. The American soldiers inside, holding their guns high, charged into the slightly cold water. The waist-deep water immediately slowed them down; they could only advance slowly, unable to dodge.

Crack! A Japanese soldier pulled his trigger. More Japanese troops began to fire frantically. The machine guns began to roar, and the bullets hitting the water looked like small cannon shells, splashing up tiny columns of water.

The first American soldier was quickly cut down by a bullet. His body shuddered and he fell into the sea. The Japanese machine gun continued its traversing fire, and soon bullets were flying into the open ramp of the landing craft. The American soldiers who had not yet jumped into the water were shot down one by one, their blood flowing down the deck and into the sea, staining a large area red.

As the Japanese defenders on the shore opened fire fiercely, the casualties of the U.S. Navy soldiers also continued to increase. After all, this was different from the German landing in Britain. At that time, Germany had to face a smaller number of British coastal defense troops, because the British had predicted that the Germans would land in other areas. But on Kauai, the Japanese had successfully guessed the American attack route, and their forces were more than enough to defend a small island. Therefore, the losses of the American landing force rose sharply.

But when another round of artillery fire slammed into the Japanese defenders’ positions, more American landing craft charged onto the soft sand. As group after group of American soldiers reached the beach, the firepower of the Japanese defenders was clearly dispersed. The sparse fire allowed more American soldiers to safely charge onto the beach, and a black mass of them began to attack deeper inland.

“Ammunition! Get me ammunition, quick!” a Japanese soldier holding a heavy machine gun shouted to his comrade, his eyes fixed on the distance. But the assistant machine gunner could only look down at the empty ammunition box and sigh. The American soldiers opposite were getting closer and closer, and the artillery fire was slamming into the Japanese positions round after round. Because more and more American soldiers were landing on the coast, the coordinates were being transmitted more accurately to the nearby U.S. Navy. The bombardment had shifted from saturation to precise, targeted fire, and the Japanese defensive positions began to collapse rapidly.

“There’s no more ammunition! Let’s retreat!” The assistant gunner was clearly unwilling to die in this foreign land. He looked at his comrade and shouted to remind him that they were out of ammo. On the other side of the machine gun embrasure, American soldiers were even beginning to pull the pins on their hand grenades.

“Bakayaro! Let’s get these American bastards!” the machine gunner fiercely picked up the rifle that was leaning to one side. But he was one step too late. The grenade in the American G.I.’s hand had already flown over and exploded in front of his machine gun bunker. Dust and shrapnel immediately flooded into the bunker, blowing the heavy machine gun to one side. And the machine gunner was now lying in a pool of blood.

“…” It seemed that the Emperor and the thousand-stitch belts could not guarantee one’s life after all. The assistant gunner quickly grabbed his helmet and scrambled out of the half-collapsed simple machine gun pillbox.

Not all Japanese were fearless, cold-blooded killers thoroughly brainwashed by the spirit of Bushido. In the face of absolute American firepower, many Japanese soldiers still wanted to flee. It was just that their opponents did not give them the chance, not even the chance to surrender.

When this assistant gunner crawled out of the half-collapsed machine gun pillbox, he saw American soldiers not far to his flank, firing fiercely with their semi-automatic rifles and carbines at the side of a Japanese trench. The Japanese soldiers inside were falling one after another, their screams incessant.

The slaughter was still going on, only now the roles had been reversed. The Japanese soldiers who had been fiercely firing at the American soldiers a moment ago were now the targets of American soldiers’ fire. A dozen Japanese soldiers left their trenches and ran towards the rear, but they were shot down by American soldiers halfway, rolling to the ground and not moving again.

The Japanese assistant gunner who had escaped death saw the scene in the distance and was terrified. He quickly grabbed his helmet and crawled out of the trench, hoping to escape the fierce American attack and get to the line of trenches behind him. He had seen that the Japanese soldiers over there were still fighting back and seemed to be able to hold out for a while longer.

Bang! Bang! Bang! He hadn’t run three steps before he was spotted by an American soldier. The enemy raised the M1 Garand rifle in his hand and fired three shots in one go. There was no way to dodge such a density of fire. The Japanese assistant gunner immediately felt something hammer into his back. He then pitched forward onto the ground, blood flowing from his mouth as he twitched and stopped breathing.

“The first line has been lost! The Americans are ashore! The artillery is out of ammunition! The suicide squad is ready, should we commit them to a counter-attack immediately?” the chief of staff of the Japanese 4th Division reported gravely, putting down the phone and staring at Lieutenant General Oshima, who was looking at a map. “The front line has suffered heavy losses. We have lost contact with about 1,100 soldiers. The battle is still going on, and the Americans have breached parts of the second defense line.”

“Commit 300 men to a counter-attack here. Try to drag the battle into the night. At that time, we will concentrate our forces and drive the Americans back into the sea!” Although Oshima still believed that the Japanese soldiers possessed a firmer fighting spirit and were more combat-effective than the weak American soldiers, he had also witnessed the terrifying power of American firepower. This was definitely not an enemy that Japanese soldiers could defeat with faith alone.

So Lieutenant General Oshima placed all his bets on a night battle, an area where Japanese soldiers were more skilled. After all, at night, the Americans’ firepower could not be fully utilized, and assault and bayonet fighting were a specialty of the Japanese soldiers. Not only would it save ammunition, but it would also better reflect the fearless spirit of the Japanese soldier.

But the forces Oshima had on hand were not as plentiful as he had imagined. Originally, he had at least 35,000 soldiers, but hunger and disease had reduced his force to less than 30,000. This had suddenly highlighted the problem of his insufficient troop strength.

In addition, the high-intensity fighting had consumed an unimaginable amount of ammunition reserves. The already low reserves had been stretched thin in more than an hour of high-intensity warfare. Many soldiers had been surrounded and annihilated by the Americans after running out of ammunition.

“Soldiers of the Emperor! We will never retreat! Let the American bastards see the might of our Great Imperial Japanese Army! All units, charge!” an army captain shouted, drawing his officer’s sword. He roared with a vicious voice, and the arm he held high in the air swung forward sharply. Following his sword, a hundred Japanese soldiers howled and charged towards the position the Americans had just captured.

“Bakayaro! Charge!” With gleaming bayonets fixed, the Japanese soldiers charged, one after another, a black mass rushing towards their objective. But what awaited them was not the spirit of Bushido and American soldiers with their own bayonets fixed, but a hail of bullets from machine guns.

Published: 2025-09-15T05:56:46.000+00:00
Last Edited: 2026-02-10T19:21:01.000+00:00
URL: https://www.patreon.com/caleredhair/posts/mtr-c656-second-138920597

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