Chapter 770: Rivers of Blood

“Asami-kun…” The sergeant major gritted his teeth helplessly and drew the officer’s sword from his waist. According to his rank, not many were actually issued an officer’s sword, but his family had been samurai for generations, and this sword was an heirloom, so he wore it into battle.

When he had first put on this sword, his ambitious grandfather had hoped he could use it to achieve great merit. Who would have known that the first time this sword was drawn, it would be to strike down one of his own comrades?

He held the hilt of the samurai sword with both hands, hesitating whether to cut down the wounded soldier named Asami. Overcome with emotion, tears welled up in his eyes, but his trembling hands still could not bring the sword down on his comrade. “Asami-kun, we’ve been neighbors for twenty-seven years, I…”

Before he could finish, the Japanese soldier named Asami had already died from excessive blood loss. A twisted expression was still on his face, though it had relaxed slightly as he lost consciousness.

“Asami! Asami-kun! Baka! Baka! Bakayaro! You damn Americans, I’ll tear you to pieces!” The sergeant major roared, waving the sword in his hand at the endless sea.

But the only answer to his furious roar was another dense barrage of artillery. Shells landed on the beach, throwing up clouds of seawater and sand. The entire island of Midway had no weapons to return fire. The dozens of field guns deployed by the army were like toothpicks compared to the caliber of the navy’s shells.

In the face of the U.S. Navy’s overwhelming firepower, the brave and tenacious Japanese soldiers, relying solely on their bodies to fight, seemed to be struggling in vain. Thousands of Japanese soldiers were trapped on the beach, being tormented by the shells fired by the U.S. Navy. But because of tactical requirements, they had to stay there, waiting for the American attack to come.

The Japanese planes on Midway had counter-attacked the American fleet. A formation of 50 bombers had launched an assault, but due to a lack of experience in anti-shipping attacks, the raid had been unsuccessful. The only difference was that 32 fewer planes had returned to base.

“If we keep fighting like this, in three days at most, this place will be occupied by the Americans,” a division staff officer complained to Ando. “The trenches and fortifications are not very effective against large-caliber naval guns. Although our morale is high, the enemy is not landing… If we keep fighting like this, I’m worried the soldiers won’t have a chance to die for the Emperor.”

In a concealed trench, Ando looked at a map of the entire island of Midway. He also knew that this was not a sustainable solution, but for the moment, he could not think of any effective countermeasures. To have him abandon the beachhead and retreat his troops to an inner line, he did not have that kind of courage. Who would dare to so carelessly lose the first line of defense?

Tadamichi Kuribayashi’s defense of Iwo Jima was a tactical experiment born of desperation later in the war. At least in 1939, the standard model for resisting a landing was still to defend the beachhead. Its correctness was not something a mere division-level commander would dare to question easily. What’s more, Ando was originally a conventional, defensive-minded general. It would be easier for him to commit seppuku than to improvise on the spot.

So Ando was also at a loss now. Apart from sending telegram after telegram urging the Japanese Navy to send reinforcements quickly, he had no further countermeasures. Fortunately, the U.S. Navy did not make him wait for too long. On the morning of the second day after the Second Battle of Midway had begun, the U.S. Navy, after a full night of bombardment, launched its landing force.

Standing on the bridge of an aircraft carrier, the commander of the American landing force looked at General Spruance beside him, pointed to the U.S. Marines who were constantly boarding assault boats and landing craft, and said, “General, launching the landing force in such a hurry will result in very heavy casualties. Why not bombard for another day or two?”

“I’m still not very confident in the original attack plan. After all, this Yamamoto Isoroku is a very cunning and suspicious person. If he suddenly comes north to find trouble with us, it will cost us our entire fleet,” Spruance replied to the general beside him. “So I asked Admiral Nimitz for instructions last night, and he also felt that we should take Midway as quickly as possible.”

For the United States, Midway was also a crucial link. If they took Midway, then the U.S. Navy would gain a certain “momentum” in its strategic counter-offensive. To put it simply, it would create the appearance of a strategic counter-attack, which would have a morale-boosting effect on the entire American war effort.

Moreover, once Midway was back in American hands, the U.S. Navy would gain a larger operational space. The Japanese Navy would lose its strategic mobility and be pinned between the Marshall Islands and Wake Island. At that time, if the U.S. Navy wanted a decisive battle, it would become a very convenient matter.

So, for both the U.S. and Japanese navies, Midway was a strategically vital point that had to be held. Japan’s advantage was that Midway was already in its hands. The U.S. Navy’s advantage was that Yamamoto Isoroku’s Combined Fleet was not currently near Midway.

“Attack! This is what we must do now,” Spruance said, watching the navy’s landing craft spread out in a dense mass on the sea, his hands behind his back. “Admiral Nimitz has said that this is a war, and countless people must be sacrificed for the country to win the final victory. We are Americans, the strongest in the world. No one can defeat us. The Germans can’t, and the Japanese certainly can’t!”

The Japanese defenders on the beach finally saw a glimmer of hope, because the U.S. Navy’s landing force had begun to deploy on the sea. This meant that the seemingly endless bombardment was about to end, and a true, equal battle was about to begin. And so, many Japanese soldiers began to work the bolts of their rifles, their eyes filled with hatred as they stared at the landing craft that were bobbing with the waves on the sea.

Ring ring ring! Amidst the sparse sound of artillery fire, the phone in General Ando’s command post rang. He picked up the receiver and heard the first piece of relatively good news since the battle had begun. “Your Excellency, General, the U.S. Navy is landing directly in front of our main position on Midway. Our judgment of the enemy’s landing direction was correct. In a few minutes, I will give the order to counter-attack.”

“Very good! According to the pre-arranged plan! Drive these life-clinging Americans back into the sea! Long live His Majesty the Emperor!” Ando said murderously. He had been under too much pressure over the past day and night. At this moment, he could finally vent a little.

Although most of the defensive positions had been severely damaged by the American shells, the Japanese troops stationed inside still stubbornly held their ground in the ruins. They had many concealed bunkers and scattered strong fortifications on the beach. The Japanese soldiers, determined to fight to the death, suppressed the anger in their hearts and waited for the moment the Americans would charge onto the beachhead.

However, the U.S. Navy had clearly accumulated a wealth of landing experience during the battle for Kauai. In the few minutes before the landing, they had poured a large amount of ammunition onto the beach and had also deployed a huge number of smoke grenades. The vision of the Japanese defenders was severely obscured. The wide sea in front of them even disappeared. The entire beach was filled with thick smoke, as if a sandstorm had rolled in.

With the surging seawater, the first American landing craft approached the beach. With a metallic grinding sound, the huge front ramp was slowly lowered. The American soldiers who had been waiting inside began to pour out of the landing craft and then quickly dispersed to both sides in the knee-deep water.

Rat-tat! Rat-tat! A Japanese machine gun nest relatively close to the beach opened fire. They couldn’t see anything in front of them, but the sound proved that the U.S. Marines had already charged onto the beachhead. The aggressive Japanese soldiers, disregarding the danger of exposing themselves, decided to be the first to attack the American soldiers.

The bullets blindly swept through the smoke, hitting the water around the American landing craft and splashing up a spray of water. An unlucky American soldier was hit in the stomach by a bullet and let out a miserable scream. His blood quickly stained the surrounding seawater red, and he had stopped breathing before a medic could even be called.

The second landing craft charged onto the beach, and the American G.I.s inside quickly dispersed. The Japanese defenders had clearly realized that the situation was not in their favor, so they began to organize a dense fire attack. The rifles and machine guns on some of the frontline positions all began to fire blindly, and an increasingly dense attack fell on the heads of the U.S. Marines.

“Fire! Return fire! Move quickly! Take the favorable terrain! Quick!” a frontline commander who had landed with the soldiers shouted. More landing craft charged onto the beachhead, and hundreds of American soldiers, braving the thick smoke and the hail of bullets, launched an attack on the Japanese positions. The air was filled with the shouts of soldiers being hit, and heavy casualties began to appear on the entire beach.

Crossing a section of barbed wire that had been destroyed by artillery shells, the American soldiers jumped into a huge sand pit. This was a huge crater formed by the explosion of a shell of over 300mm caliber, and there were already a dozen or so American troops who had arrived here first.

An American soldier was on the walkie-talkie, calling for naval gunfire support. A few other American soldiers were hastily setting up a heavy machine gun on the edge of the crater. More American soldiers, holding their Garand rifles, were returning fire frantically. They didn’t aim at all, just fired a full clip of bullets at the blurry distance, and then ducked back into the crater to reload their rifles.

On the second day of the Second Battle of Midway, both sides on the beach had encountered difficulties. The Japanese were more tenacious than the Americans had imagined, and the Americans were more powerful than the Japanese had imagined.

And so, at this moment, the beach became a river of blood.

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