Paul pushed his way through the packed men to the ensign. From the scars on the LCI, she seemed to have made several trips to the Japanese shore. "Is it always this bad?"
Without looking at him, the naval officer laughed harshly. "Bad? Hell, buddy, this trip is a piece of cake. You should've been here yesterday when they threw all kinds of shit at us. I've made four trips in, and this is by far the easiest. I've heard that most of the guys in the first waves were wiped out and that half the people who went ashore yesterday are dead or wounded. If you're real lucky, you guys might even make it onto land before you get killed."
Finally, the ensign glanced down, and Paul saw the ensign was even younger than he was. "The sailor who just got shot is a replacement for another guy who got killed yesterday," the ensign said more gently. "Look to your left."
Paul did as he was told and saw a capsized LCI, and others that were bobbing, half-sunk, in the waves. Some were abandoned and burning, with bodies still in them. The sick-sweet stink of burning flesh was heavy in the air, and Paul gagged.
As they approached the shore, Paul called for all the men to check their gear one last time. A couple of them sank to their knees in prayer while others lowered their heads and moaned. More bullets clattered against the LCI, and a shell landed close by, spraying them with water and metal splinters, but neither caused casualties.
Finally, they felt the landing craft's flat hull scrape against the bottom. The ramp dropped quickly and the men ran through knee-deep water and up onto the steeply rising land. Jesus Christ, Paul thought with horrified disbelief as he clambered uphill, I'm in Japan!
Before the men's headlong rush could slow, a sergeant with an armband that designated him a beachmaster popped out of a foxhole and yelled at them to follow him.
"Move it!" he hollered. "Move fast or you're gonna stay here forever."
The platoon needed no further motivation. The beachmasters owned the landing sites, and regardless of rank they were to be obeyed without any hesitation. The platoon ran like furies where he directed them. Other LCIs had disgorged their human cargoes, and other beachmasters guided their reluctant flocks upward and inland. Paul ran with his troops toward a series of long, narrow trenches cut in the side of the hill. The beachmaster herded them in. On the way, they saw more dead. The majority had been badly mauled or burned, with parts of bodies strewn about with ghastly abandon.
Paul saw the disconnected head of an American soldier that appeared to be staring at the sky in some amazement. He'd seen the results of violent death in Germany and thought himself somewhat battle-hardened, but this was death on a scale that dwarfed his experiences and threatened to overwhelm his senses.
Inside the trench, Paul got himself under some semblance of control and checked his men.
Four were missing.
He turned to the beachmaster sergeant, who was breathing heavily and staring at the glowing end of a cigarette. "Four of my guys are missing, Sarge. Shit, we've just gotten here and I've lost four men!"
The beachmaster shook his head. "Maybe not, Lieutenant. There's a lot of confusion. More'n likely they just got lost or rubbed off onto somebody else's unit. If they're okay, they'll show up. If not"- he shrugged- "then there's nothing you can do about it anyhow."
He offered a smoke, which Paul accepted gratefully. His cigarettes had gotten wet. "Sarge, I thought we owned this place, or at least part of it," Paul commented, unconsciously repeating Collins's earlier comment.
"We thought we did too. But the Japs infiltrated back last night and set up shop with snipers and small mortars. That's why graves registration hasn't cleaned up the beach yet. Ain't no sense in getting killed trying to save a dead body. If we keep our heads down, we're safe from the snipers, and it would take a direct hit on the trench to cause any damage from the mortars. The Japs've got some bigger guns shooting indirect fire on us, but the navy's doing a good job of putting them out of business when they do open up.
"This is bad," the sergeant continued, "but it ain't nothing like yesterday, Lieutenant, nothing like it at all. Yesterday was all flying metal and GIs screaming as guys died. The Japs had troops in bunkers near the water that had to be burned out with flamethrowers. Sometimes a Jap would pop out from behind us and throw a grenade. Lieutenant, this is a walk in the park."
Paul took a deep breath and felt the smoke from the Chesterfield scorch his lungs. It felt good. As he smoked, two of his lost lambs sheepishly reported in. As the beachmaster had guessed, they'd run off the beach with the wrong group of GIs. The other two arrived a couple of moments later, shaken but okay. Paul took another drag on his cigarette.
"How far away's the front?" he asked the beachmaster. After all, the man was a veteran who'd been there a whole day and a night.
The sergeant looked about nervously. "Between ten feet and a mile. Kinda depends on who's counting and measuring. Snipers and infiltrators can be anywhere, so keep your guard up at all times. The big front's about a mile away. You're gonna see it real soon."
Morrell finished the cigarette and threw the butt away. I'm in Japan, he again thought in disbelief. I'm in Japan and thousands of Japanese are going to try and kill me. He looked at his men and saw similar fears reflected on their pale and frightened faces. He had landed and his platoon hadn't yet lost a man. It couldn't continue that way. The devastation in the ocean and on the shores told him that their turn was coming. And all he had to do was survive it.
CHAPTER 32
Marshall arrived at the White House with Gen. Omar Bradley in tow. Bradley, who had returned from Europe a few months earlier to take charge of the recently formed Veterans Administration, felt ill at ease in the White House. As a result of his new appointment, he no longer considered himself a full-time military man, and he found the change unsettling. The VA assignment was a chore Bradley had taken on with great reluctance.
Bradley thought it was incongruous to be worried about assimilating returning veterans when a climactic campaign was under way in Japan. Earlier in the year he had led a million and a half men into battle against the Nazis, and he felt he should still be their commander. However, his president had thought otherwise, and the lanky, popular, fifty-two-year-old West Point graduate had complied with the wishes of his commander in chief.
Bradley had grudgingly obeyed. He was also mildly concerned by Marshall's admonition that he should listen rather than comment during the meeting with Truman. It was what he would have done anyhow. Not only was he the junior member of the trio, but he had little knowledge of what was transpiring in the Pacific. He knew the general plans, of course, but not the details.
A few moments later, Admiral Leahy arrived and greeted the others with formal cordiality. He seemed surprised at Bradley's inclusion, which did nothing for Bradley's state of mind.
Truman bade the men to sit around a small table. He waved a piece of paper in their direction. "Gentlemen, I certainly hope you can shed more light on the situation than this imperious little pronouncement from General MacArthur does."
Marshall smiled tightly. The pronouncement had gone out from MacArthur's headquarters and to all members of the press as well as the White House. It was almost as if the president were included on the distribution list as an afterthought.
The message itself was painfully short: "On the morning of November 10, 1945, American ground forces under the command of General Douglas MacArthur commenced landings at several points on the shores of Kyushu, the southernmost of the four main Japanese home islands. Even though confronting stiff, and at times fanatical, resistance, General MacArthur's armies are pushing steadily inland. With God's blessing and through the bravery of our young men, we pray that the will of the United States will prevail."
Truman laid the paper on the table and looked about in exasperation. "This doesn't tell me a damned thing about the battle. It's a press release, nothing more. It also implies that only the army is fighting and ignores the efforts of the navy and, once again, the marines."
T
he latter issue was a sore point. The navy was separately commanded by Nimitz and could take care of its own press releases. On the other hand, MacArthur commanded three divisions of marines, who technically belonged to the navy but who were under his control for this campaign. The marines had landed on the southwestern side of the island while the army assaulted the southeastern part, and all were involved in bitter fighting. By implication, MacArthur had snubbed the marines.
He had done this before. Earlier in the war when the various units that had fought for him at Bataan and Corregidor were recommended by him for citations, he had left out the 4th Marine Regiment. The men of the 4th had fought with incredible bravery and had endured terrible casualties before ultimately having to surrender along with the other forces under Wainwright's Philippines command. When questioned, MacArthur had said that the marines already had enough medals. The intentional oversight had been corrected in Washington.
"Typical of that fella MacArthur," Marshall said, using his favorite phrase for MacArthur. It was not a compliment. He'd seen the statement before and concurred with Truman's assessment. "General Krueger is the field commander in charge of the Sixth Army, but you'd never know it from this statement."
"General," snapped Truman, "I really don't care how eccentric MacArthur is, or even if his ego is bigger than mine, just so long as he wins and wins quickly. Unfortunately, this scrap of paper doesn't tell me a damned thing. What is going on in Japan? Are we indeed pushing inland, and what are the costs?"
Marshall grimaced. "The landings are a little more than two days old and there is still an enormous amount of confusion. I can, however, tell you what we do know. At all three main landing sites, some penetrations have been made in the Japanese defenses for distances up to two miles. In other cases we are still stuck near the shore and the Japs are defending their positions furiously. It is going about as we figured. We do not have a beachhead in any depth, and we have not yet established a continuous front from which we can break out from the beachhead. At best that will take several more days."
"Casualties?" Truman asked softly.
"These are not firm figures," Marshall responded, "but we suffered between twenty-five and thirty thousand on the first day with between seven and eight thousand on the second. The first day of an attack such as this is always the worst. If history is our guide, about a third of the casualties will be dead or dying."
Truman moaned softly and looked toward the ceiling. In two days the United States had lost the equivalent of more than two divisions, almost an entire corps. No wonder putting the reserve forces in as soon as possible was urgent. The number of dead and wounded was far in excess of those suffered during the landings at Normandy in June 1944. But then, as he'd been reminded so often, the attacks on Kyushu were much greater in scope.
"MacArthur said the Japs would break," Truman said softly. "Has that happened?"
Marshall shook his head, while Bradley gazed in silence at a map on the wall. "No, sir, and in all fairness to General MacArthur, it is far too early to expect that to happen. There are some signs that the resistance will not be as fanatic as it has been in the past. In a few instances there have been withdrawals, and a small number of Japanese soldiers have actually surrendered. Only a couple of hundred so far, but it's a trickle that might someday become a flood. We think it's attributable to both the war-weariness of the rank and file, as well as to the poor quality of training that the newer conscripts have been getting."
"Lord, I hope so."
"Mr. President," Leahy injected, "are you aware that General MacArthur commands from the heavy cruiser Augusta, and that he is off Kyushu?"
Truman smiled tightly. "Yes, Admiral King informed me that the old warhorse had essentially commandeered the cruiser. King wasn't surprised and I agreed with him that there was no reason to deny Mac his ship. We certainly have enough of them. There was no way that MacArthur felt he could fight this battle from the safety of Manila, or even Guam." To their surprise, Truman chuckled. "And I can even see why he insisted on the Augusta. After all, it was the ship both FDR and I sailed on when we went to Europe. Hell, if it was good enough for two presidents of the United States, then it might just be okay for General Douglas MacArthur and his friends."
Both generals and Admiral Leahy smiled at the additional reference to MacArthur's monumental ego.
"Like I said," Truman added, "I really don't care how strange he acts and what he needs for his personal comforts just so long as he wins." He turned to Leahy. "Now, did you get anything from Admiral King regarding suicide attacks?"
Leahy would rather that King have delivered the information himself, but the other admiral was now trying to find additional transport shipping to send to the Pacific and had asked Leahy to carry the news. King's absence pointed out the desperate situation the navy was in.
"Mr. President," Leahy began, "over fifty ships have been hit by various types of suicide attacks, which include airplanes, small boats armed with torpedoes and dynamite, suicide midget submarines, manned torpedoes launched from rails that run to the water, and just about anything else they can think of to throw at us. Two of our larger carriers, the Ticonderoga and the brand-new Tarawa, have been badly damaged and have been pulled out of the battle. They may have to return to the U.S. to be repaired. One escort carrier has been sunk, and five others so badly mauled they are no longer serviceable."
"In just two days?" Truman gasped.
"Yes, sir. The rest of the damage was done almost entirely to our transports. As we feared, the Japs are concentrating on the carriers and the transports, and virtually ignoring the other ships. One troopship was hit by a suicide plane and badly damaged while it still had all its troops on board. There were more than five hundred casualties in that one incident alone, with many dead."
"Awful," Truman said, "just awful. Admiral, why didn't radar pick up the plane?"
"Sir, radar is good but far from perfect. Not all of our ships even have it, and it breaks down a lot. Then, with all the planes that are in the air at all times, the operators get fatigued and overwhelmed with information that can't be deciphered fast enough. With all that going on, they can't determine who is friend and who is foe. Last, the very way radar beams out in its searches leaves gaps. Low-flying planes will often get through and must be spotted visually."
Truman nodded bitterly. Yet another military marvel was proving itself to be astonishingly fallible. "If we've lost so many, how about the Japs?"
Marshall spoke. "We are confident that the preinvasion bombing and shelling killed or wounded large numbers. While the day of invasion, X-Day, probably cost us more than them, the Japs are paying for it now and will continue to do so in the long run."
Truman nodded. "And how long can the Japs keep it up?"
Marshall looked to see if Leahy wanted to add anything. The admiral did not. "Probably for quite some time. They appear to have more troops on Kyushu than we thought they did, and they continue to be able to feed more into the battle. They are coming across the mountains of central Kyushu in numerous but widely dispersed small groups that are virtually impossible to see by air, much less hit. There are a score of these rough trails and almost twenty thousand men a day can make it overland from northern Kyushu to the battle area."
"And," Leahy injected, "we are dead certain they are still able to bring reinforcements from both Korea and the main island of Honshu. They are using submarines as transports from Korea, and our intelligence estimates say they can bring over about two thousand men each day that way. During bad weather, which is getting more and more frequent as winter gets closer, they are attempting surface runs with troopships.
"Additionally, the straits between Honshu and Kyushu are only a mile wide at their narrowest, which means small boats can swarm across at night, take casualties from mines and planes, and still land a lot of men. During bad weather they are virtually unstoppable because they can't be seen."
"What about using our surface ships?" Truman asked.
>
"Sir," Leahy said, "using surface ships in the waters north of Kyushu or in the straits makes them terribly vulnerable to attacks by kamikazes. We have some of our own subs looking in the area, but bad weather hinders them as well."
"Mr. President," Marshall added, "through radio intercepts and our source on the ground, we've identified a number of divisions now on Kyushu as those that had been manning the defenses outside Tokyo. This supports our contention that the war will be won or lost for the Japanese on Kyushu. This is consistent with their doctrine of fighting the one Decisive Battle that will give them victory. But there is something very disturbing going on."
Truman looked at Marshall. The whole thing was disturbing. What else could be going wrong? "And?"
"Sir, it looks like some of the Japanese units coming across from Korea are passing through Russian defense lines to get there."
Truman sat bolt upright. "What?"
Marshall walked to a map of China and Korea. "When the Reds came in, in August, they launched a two-pronged attack. One quickly headed south into Korea, where it has stalled around the city of Seoul. This was no surprise to us. Northern Korea is really just an extension of Siberia. In a short while the weather will turn miserable and everything will freeze. The Russians will soon have a devil of a time keeping their very large army supplied and fueled over the totally inadequate Trans-Siberian Railway.
"The second prong headed south through Manchuria and into China to help Chiang and Mao Tse-tung fight the Japs there. Chiang has been complaining that the Russians are helping Mao fight the Chinese Nationalists rather than the Japs, but we've all felt it was Chiang exaggerating again."
To some, Chiang was highly unloved and considered capable of many duplicities to get additional American material help, which would then be stolen or used to fight the Communists and not the Japanese. It stood to reason that the Russian Communists would be far more helpful to the Chinese Communists than they would to the Nationalists, who were foes of the Communists.
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