by Len Levinson
General Adachi wasn’t afraid to die. In fact he was looking forward to it. He was sick of life, sick of the world, sick of the war. His life had become an endless round of frustration. He’d been defeated because the Americans outnumbered him in every way. He could receive no more supplies or reinforcements, because the Americans controlled the seas and air around New Guinea. He suffered from the pain of stomach ulcers, which grew worse every day. He thought the pain of the knife entering his stomach couldn’t be worse than his stomach ulcers, and Dr. Nojima had told him there was no cure for stomach ulcers.
It also pained him to think of his soldiers lying dead in the jungle not far away. There were thousands of them, enough to populate a small city, and he’d sent them to their deaths, for the Emperor. He’d been low on ammunition, and there’d been little food. Forward units had been subsisting solely on a diet of sago palm starch. All he could offer them was a glorious death for the Emperor, one last banzai charge, and winner take all.
The Americans had won. They’d stopped his attack. General Adachi no longer could conduct large-scale operations. The effectiveness of his army as an army had been destroyed last night in the jungle of New Guinea.
General Adachi held the knife in his right fist and aimed the point at the left side of his stomach. He wrapped his left fist around his right fist. Soon it would all be over. He’d push the knife into his guts and rip the blade from left to right, so his soul could escape. That should kill him, but if it didn’t he’d order his aide, Lieutenant Ono, to finish the job. Lieutenant Ono was waiting in the next office for that call.
General Adachi’s hands trembled as he brought the tip of the knife closer to the flaccid flesh that covered his concave abdomen. His guts wrenched in pain even though the knife hadn’t been plunged in yet; his ulcers were acting up again. Soon I’ll be gone, General Adachi thought. Soon the nightmare will be over.
The point of the knife touched his flesh, pricking his consciousness into finer focus. He looked at the photograph of the Emperor on the low table.
“All I’ve done, I’ve done for you,” General Adachi whispered. “I apologize for having failed you, Your Excellency.”
General Adachi reserved his final thoughts for his men, whom he loved and admired. They’d fought so well with so little. Their gallantry had ennobled his life. Now half of them were dead and the other half waited for the American counter-attack that would come at any moment. His soldiers would have to fight on without him. The command of the Eighteenth Army would fall to Brigadier General Tatsunari Kimura, General Adachi’s executive officer, and at that point the knife in General Adachi’s hand faltered.
General Adachi knew that General Kimura was not a great strategist or leader of men. He was a fine executive officer, but it was difficult for General Adachi to imagine General Kimura commanding the Eighteenth Army on its last campaign. General Adachi’s beloved army would fall apart, to be chewed up piecemeal by the Americans. His men would starve like dogs, instead of dying like soldiers, with their weapons in their hands.
Am I taking the easy way out? he asked himself. He knew he was demoralized and in pain, but did he have the right to abandon his army now in their hour of greatest need? Those poor soldiers out there never had failed him. Was he failing them?
General Adachi didn’t know what to do. It was his duty to commit hara-kiri, but from another point of view, his duty was to his men as long as they were capable of waging war. Am I justified in abandoning them? he asked himself. What can I do for them?
He increased the distance between his skin and the point of the knife, then lay the knife on the table next to its sheath. What can be done? he asked himself. Is it possible that my men still can die with glory?
General Adachi sighed. He felt weak, tired, and his stomach hurt. He thought of the battlefield as it had been before his offensive of the previous night. His Eighteenth Army had been on the east side of the Driniumor River. The American forces had been on the west side. The strategic objectives in the area were the Tadji airstrips behind the American lines, and the port of Aitape. The main purpose of General Adachi’s attack had been to capture these two objectives. A secondary purpose had been to capture as many American supplies as possible, especially food supplies.
General Adachi didn’t have to look at his map to see what had happened. The map was engraved on his mind, he’d studied it so much. His soldiers had attacked across the Driniumor River and made good progress, until being stopped a mile or two on the American side of the Driniumor. Many of the soldiers still were on the American side of the Driniumor. He’d believed that if he failed to capture the Tadji airfields in his first push, his attack would be a failure, but was that in fact the case?
His brow wrinkled in thought. He thought maybe he’d better take another look at the map. He pushed his hara-kiri knife into its sheath and stood up, walking in his jockstrap-like underwear to his desk, sitting behind it.
The map was spread out in front of him, just as he’d left it. His ashtray was full of butts. He took a cigarette from a pack and lit it up. A mosquito landed on his shoulder and bit him, and he raised his palm, squashing the mosquito to death against his skin.
He looked down at the map and puffed the cigarette. It was true that he hadn’t captured the Tadji airstrips. It was also true that he’d lost ten thousand men. But he had ten thousand left, and that was nothing to sneeze at. Many of those men were on the American side of the river, and presumably they’d captured enough food to keep them going for a few days. Those men could fight. They should be given a chance to die with glory under the supervision of a great fighting general, which General Adachi believed he was.
General Adachi knew he could do the obvious. He could order another headlong straight-on banzai attack, and his men would die with glory. They’d be slaughtered like the lucky ones who’d died last night, but at least they’d die like soldiers, fighting to the death.
But was that necessary? Was there a better way?
General Adachi was a student of military history. He knew history was replete with examples of small armies who’d defeated larger ones due to superior positioning, leadership, and tactics. Last night he’d ordered a banzai attack at the center of the American line, hoping to cave it in, and in fact it had caved in briefly. Could he be more subtle this time and perhaps achieve his strategic objectives anyway?
General Adachi puffed his cigarette nervously. He thought that perhaps he still might snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. It would be a longshot, but what did he have to lose? There was plenty of time to commit hara-kiri. He didn’t have to die just yet. Perhaps he should try once more, for the sake of his brave soldiers, and also for the sake of his badly tarnished military reputation.
He knew that the Americans had been rocked back on their heels by last night’s offensive. They’d taken heavy casualties too. They were dazed and bleeding this morning just like the Japanese Eighteenth Army. A huge hole had been punched in the American lines and still was there!
General Adachi’s heart beat faster as he realized his situation wasn’t nearly as bad as it could be. He’d merely lost the first phase of the battle, and that was all. Military commanders in the past had rebounded from such defeats, and so could he.
He looked down at the map. It was very possible that the Americans were ready to crack. Perhaps the right move at the right place could force a withdrawal. But what would the right move be? General Adachi saw no point in doing anything at the center of the American line. The Americans reinforced that sector and probably expected to get hit again in the same place. What would the Americans do if they were hit on one of their flanks? They might very well get rattled. They might pull back, leaving valuable supplies behind them, supplies that could rejuvenate the Eighteenth Army.
Japanese commanders believed Americans weren’t very good soldiers. They thought American soldiers fought fairly well when they had superior numbers and the battle lines were clearly drawn, but General Adachi wondere
d if the Americans facing him could be routed by an unexpected flank attack, or an attack to their rear. There was nothing more frightening to soldiers than the knowledge that enemy troops were behind them.
General Adachi wondered which flank to attack. The American flank to the north abutted the ocean, and the one to the south was near the foothills of the Torricelli Mountains, where the village of Afua was located.
General Adachi realized instantly that he couldn’t attack the north flank, because the ocean wouldn’t give him much maneuvering room. That left the south flank, where he’d have the entire jungle at his disposal. He could pull back troops from the center of his line and send them to the south, where they’d hit the Americans in flank and roll it back.
General Adachi puffed his cigarette and stared at the map. It appeared to be a reasonable plan, worth a try anyway. He could always commit hara-kiri afterward if it failed, but perhaps it wouldn’t fail. And if it did fail, at least his men would have the chance to die honorably.
I’ll do it, General Adachi thought. Why not?
“Lieutenant Ono!” he shouted.
Lieutenant Ono, his beaver-cheeked young aide, bounded through the tent flap. He’d thought General Adachi was committing ritual hara-kiri, and it was time to finish him off, but instead he saw General Adachi sitting behind his desk, half-naked. Lieutenant Ono stared at him in disbelief.
“Please notify my staff that a meeting will be held here in this office at exactly twelve noon!” General Adachi said. “There will be no exemptions to this meeting! Is that clear!”
“Yes sir,” stuttered Lieutenant Ono.
“You’re dismissed!” General Adachi said.
As General Adachi sat at his desk studying his maps, his American counterpart, General Charles P. Hall, sat at his desk studying his maps.
General Hall was commander of all American ground forces in the Aitape area, code-named the Persecution Task Force, and from his perspective he’d had a very close call last night.
For a time it had appeared as though the Japs would break through his line and forge onward to the Tadji airfields. The Japs had been delayed by the Eighty-first Division, which took the full brunt of the attack, and the 114th Regimental Combat Team finally stopped the attack. If the Eighty-first Division hadn’t slowed down the Japs, or if the 114th RCT hadn’t come up on the line when it did, the Tadji airstrips might very well have been lost. It had been touch and go for a while last night, and now General Hall had no idea of what the Japs would do next. Would they attack again, or had they shot their wad last night? It appeared that they shot their wad, but there was no way of knowing that for sure. Military intelligence was nothing more than an educated guess. General Hall’s intelligence experts knew before the battle that the Japs didn’t have much left, but they’d had enough left to wreak havoc against the center of the American line. The Japs should be on their last legs after what they’d done last night, but General Hall wouldn’t bet men’s lives on that.
General Hall knew that his lines were shaky, particularly his center. He wanted to pull the Eighty-first out and give them a rest someplace where it was quiet, because the Eighty-first had been chewed up badly last night. He’d fill the center of his line with fresh units that very afternoon, because he didn’t think the Japs would be able to mount anything major for at least another day. He’d also order a few counterattacks here and there to keep the Japs off-balance while he was reorganizing his line.
He wondered what to do after he reorganized his lines. American intelligence had broken the Japanese codes long ago, and the American high command had known all about the Japanese attack in advance. General Hall had been ordered to stop the Japs at the Driniumor and then launch an immediate vigorous counterattack of his own.
But General Hall hadn’t stopped the Japs at the Driniumor, and the Japs had made a huge bulge into his lines. Many Jap units were on the loose behind his lines. He didn’t see how he could launch an immediate vigorous counterattack until he cleared those Japs out and straightened out his lines.
General Hall scratched his head. He wasn’t pleased with his performance last night. He thought now, in hindsight, that he could’ve been better prepared for the attack. The Army often had been criticized by the Marines in the Pacific for not carrying their share of the load. The Marine commander in chief of the Saipan campaign had relieved his top-ranking Army officer of command, precipitating a major interservice scandal that finally had to be resolved at the highest levels of the Pentagon.
General Hall didn’t want to make the Army look bad. He couldn’t let the battle in his area linger on, tying up troops that could be better utilized elsewhere. He knew that General MacArthur was watching him from his headquarters in Brisbane, Australia. General MacArthur wanted to get the New Guinea campaign out of the way so he could concentrate all his forces for the invasion of the Philippine Islands. General Hall didn’t want to be the one to hold up that invasion.
A lot of pressure was on General Hall, and he hadn’t slept at all last night. Although the battle in the Aitape area was practically unknown to the American people, General Hall knew how crucial it was to the overall Pacific campaign. He had to tie up the loose ends and produce a victory for the Army, and he couldn’t take forever to do it.
But he couldn’t do it all in a day. He needed to rest for a while. It would be enough to put into motion the decisions he’d just made. His eyes half-closed, he wrote out the orders on a sheet of paper. The Eighty-first Division would be transferred south to the quiet area around Afua. The 114th RCT and the 845th RCT would take its place. Patrols would be mounted throughout the center of the line to seek out and destroy Japanese units trapped behind American lines. A meeting would be held in his office at 1800 hours that evening to discuss what to do next.
“Sergeant Bunberry!” General Hall shouted.
“Yes sir!” replied a deep voice on the other side of the tent flap. A few seconds later the tent flap was brushed aside, and stout, florid-faced Master Sergeant Seymour Bunberry, the sergeant major of the Persecution Task Force, entered the office.
General Hall handed him the orders. “Have these typed up and distributed.”
“Yes sir.”
“I’m going to get some shut-eye. I don’t want to be disturbed unless it’s an emergency.”
“Yes sir. Anything else, sir?”
“No.”
Sergeant Bunberry did an about-face and marched out of the office. General Hall stood behind his desk, tucked in his wrinkled shirt, and lifted his helmet off the peg. He put it on and headed toward the rear door of his office, opening it and stepping outside. The two MPs on guard snapped to attention and brought their carbines to present arms. General Hall saluted and passed them by as he shuffled toward the shack that was his official residence in the area.
TWO . . .
It was nearly high noon when Private Yabalonka returned to the recon platoon bivouac, and it was a mess. The ground was pockmarked with gigantic shell craters, and trees were blasted to shit. The men were in their holes sleeping, and nobody bothered them because they’d been up fighting all night. Yabalonka passed the foxhole occupied by Lieutenant Dale Breckenridge, the platoon leader, and he was snoring beside his runner, Private Randolph Worthington. The next foxhole was occupied by Private First Class Morris Shilansky; he had the entire hole to himself because the soldier who was supposed to be sharing it with him, Private Joshua McGurk from Skunk Hollow, Maine, was at the division medical headquarters, having a bullet removed from his back.
The next foxhole contained Charlie Bannon from Pecos, Texas, the leader of the first squad; he’d been promoted to buck sergeant that morning. Beside him, his mouth wide open, was Pfc. Frankie La Barbara, the former gangster from New York City. Every foxhole Yabalonka passed was occupied by sleeping soldiers, and Yabalonka wondered who was minding the store. He found out when he approached his own foxhole and saw the Reverend Billie Jones inside, gazing into no-man’s land. The Reverend Billie Jones e
vidently was the eyes and ears of the platoon while everybody else was asleep.
Jones turned to the side as Yabalonka approached. “Where you been?” he asked.
“I had something to do,” Yabalonka replied, jumping into the foxhole.
The foxhole was six feet deep and four feet in diameter. A grenade sump had been dug into its bottom.
“Lieutenant Breckenridge was wondering what happened to you,” the Reverend Billie Jones said. “He thought you might be dead.”
“I ain’t dead.”
“What was it that you had to do?”
“Look at this,” Yabalonka said.
He pulled the Bible out of his pocket and handed it to the Reverend Billie Jones with the cover side up, showing the hole the bullet had made.
“What happened to this?” Jones asked.
“Take a good look at it.”
Jones saw the smashed-in cover. He opened the Bible and saw the chunk of flattened lead inside. His forehead wrinkled as he narrowed his eyes and looked at the pocket on the front of the shirt that had the bullet hole.
“Well I’ll be damned,” the Reverend Billie Jones said.
“The Bible you gave me saved my life, Billie.”
“No shit!”
“No shit. You gave me the Bible, so I guess I owe my life to you. Then you carried me back here when I was unconscious, so I owe my life to you twice.”
The Reverend Billie Jones shook his head. He was a big man, about the same height as Yabalonka but with more meat on his bones, although Yabalonka was pretty hefty himself. Jones had red hair and a big round head like a basketball.
“It wasn’t me who saved you,” the Reverend Billie Jones said, pointing to the sky. “It was the Lord!”
“How do you know?”
