by Gee, Colin
“Here, from Gulping to Mulezhen. Suwabe has positioned his 3rd Brigade.”
Neither Soviet officer was any the wiser.
“3rd Special Obligation Brigade is partially armoured Sir.”
Something broke through the haze in Lomov’s mind.
“They are a new formation, aren’t they, General?”
The nod was full and unequivocal, as was the broad smile that accompanied it.
‘Ah, one of those new formations.’
Vassilevsky relit his pipe.
“Then it seems we have no problem of note there. Proceed, Comrade Lomov.”
1255 hrs Monday, 13th August 1945, 3rd Imperial Special Obligation Brigade ‘Rainbow’, Nanjincun, near Guiping, China.
Captain Nomori Hamuda stood silently in front of his tank, his crew lined respectfully behind him. The five of them stood in silence as the Shinto priest performed the Harai ritual of purification, a small array of fruits and vegetables placed on the vehicles hot armour plate.
Despite the fact that the metal beast had been their virtual home for the last month, it was only now, on the verge of action, that Hamuda had permitted them time to conduct the important ceremony.
Like most of the men of the ‘Rainbow’ Brigade, Hamuda had been a member of 3rd Japanese Tank Division, fighting a long and bitter war against the two distinct armies of China. Communist and Republican forces had cooperated and come together to oppose the Japanese occupation in a little known war that claimed millions of lives since its start in 1937.
When volunteers were called for to train with a secret unit, Hamuda immediately put himself and his crew forward for the mission, plucking them from the 17th Tank Regiment and into the unexpected delights of getting to grips with the new presents their covert allies had bestowed upon them.
The five men dutifully bowed on cue, honouring their own particular vehicle as the Harai drew towards its close.
Hamuda appreciate its beauty, but knew nothing of its history.
First, it had been known simply as the VK3002, the product of design work within MAN, or Maschinenfabrik Augsberg-Nürnburg AG as it was more properly known. This particular vehicle had been salvaged from the ruins of the 6th August 1944 Allied Bombing raid on the MAN production line and had been sent off for operational duties on the Russian Front. It was assigned to the commander of 2nd Platoon, 1st Company of Panzer Regiment ‘GD’ of the elite Großdeutschland Panzer-Grenadiere Division. It was lost in its first action during the counter-attack on Wilkowischken in the autumn of 1944. The new Soviet owners used it against the former owners, claiming five kills before the vehicle found its way into the hands of new masters once more. Bulgarian tankers employed her in limited action before she was again sent east on a railway flatbed, but this time, further than even those German engineers who had designed and built her could have envisaged.
To Hamuda and his men, she was affectionately called 'Masami’, the 'Elegant Beauty’, and in the Rainbow Brigades’ 1st Tank Company she had thirteen sisters, all equally loved and equally deadly.
To the Germans, she was officially known as the Sonderkraftfahrzug 171, Panzerkampfwagen V Ausf. G.
To any allied serviceman who had encountered her or her sisters before, she was simply known as the Panther Tank, and she was very much to be feared.
The 3rd S.O. Brigade 'Rainbow’ was the right flank of a Japanese attack intended to cause consternation in Allied circles, aiming as it was for Nanning and points westwards. It was intended to reinforce the excursion that had previously secured a route to the Indo-Chinese border, and to threaten US-Chinese supply routes from India into the vast hinterland of China itself.
The main strike unit had been the Japanese 3rd Tank Division, but concern over the disappearance of an American armoured unit had resulted in the Rainbow Soldier’s temporary reassignment from the Suwabe Detachment to provide strength if a stand-up fight took place.
Leading the 3rd Division’s drive on Nanning was the 6th Japanese Tank Brigade, and it had successfully overwhelmed every impediment posed by the Chinese Nationalist forces, inflicting huge casualties.
This brought cries for help, which prompted the swift redeployment of the 1st Provisional Tank Group, a mixed Chinese and American armoured force.
The Japanese armour was not capable of holding its own in a stand-up fight with modern enemy tanks, and 1st Provisional sported many Shermans and a handful of Hellcat Tank-destroyers, which were all capable of dealing with the standard Type 97 with ease.
Nationalist officers assured the US officer commanding 1st PTG that the Chinese 22nd Division would hold north and south of Xingye, where more favourable terrain meant that the Japanese armour advantage was greatly reduced. A further division of Chinese troops was promised to reinforce the position, especially as the Japanese tank force had been successfully halted and it was likely that a different approach would shortly be made.
Indeed, intelligence suggested that the attacking Japanese forces had moved up two infantry divisions to carry forward the assault, which bottleneck of forces looked particularly inviting for the US officer commanding 1st PTG and for which he planned a stellar coup.
1st Provisional would strike over the Yujiang River at Guiping, driving straight down Route 304, seemingly aiming at Wuzhou.
In reality, leaving the 6th Chinese Tank Battalion to secure their rear, the bulk of the Group would turn right near Baishahe, and follow Route 211 all the way to Rongxian, cutting the Japanese supply lines and placing a powerful force behind the attacking formations.
Some of the armoured infantry, supported by the 4th and 5th Chinese Tank Battalions, would then be detailed to hold the area around Rongxian, securing the area against any Japanese counter-attack.
Lieutenant Colonel Albrighton would then lead his remaining three tank battalions and infantry into the rear of the Japanese assault forces and cause havoc.
The plan was bold and relied on speed and surprise, but the roads were familiar to Albrighton’s Chinese second in command, and Japanese reconnaissance capability was almost nil.
1325 hrs, Monday 13th August 1945, YongYang near Guiping, China.
American-Chinese forces:-
1st Provisional Tank Battalion of 1st Provisional Tank Group, 2nd Battalion, 66th Infantry Regiment and 22nd Artillery Battalion of 22nd Chinese New Infantry Division, all of 56th Chinese Corps.
Japanese forces:-
1st Tank Battalion, 3rd Special Obligation Brigade ‘Rainbow’, temporarily assigned from Suwabe Detachment, attached directly to 63rd Special Army.
The ceremony completed, Hamuda detailed his men to the routine maintenance tasks needed to keep his new thoroughbred operational. With the work in full swing, he moved towards the tank of his second in command, Lieutenant the Marquis Hirohata, who was in conference with the company’s senior NCO, Sergeant-Major Kagamutsu.
As ingrained in them since birth, the two junior men acknowledged their leader with respectful bows as he approached, which were returned in kind.
Kagamutsu and Hirohata had been arguing about the best way to stow their Katana swords when on the road, an argument which had been going on ever since the Company had first received its new vehicles.
Kagamutsu argued that there was no place for a sword inside the fighting compartment, preferring it outside in the tube container holding the barrel cleaning equipment.
Hirohata, carrying his family’s heirloom, a priceless blade crafted by legendary sword smith Hikoshiro Sadamune, preferred to keep his closer to hand, and secured it against the cage stanchions within the tank’s turret.
Thus far, Hamuda had avoided being dragged into the argument, and had every intention of continuing to avoid the on-going squabble by dealing with more mundane military matters.
Despite the differences in station, Hirohata and Kagamutsu were committed friends. The former was a member of the peerage, his father having been granted the title under the Kazoku system for military services to the Emperor, the latter w
as the son of a fisherman, and even though they had both been brought up within ten miles of each other, they had lived very different lives.
Their relationship was built on soldierly comradeship and shared dangers. That Hirohata still drew breath was solely down to the bravery of his Sergeant-Major, whose face bore the burns caused by the fire that should have killed the young Marquis. The blaze claimed the lives of the five other officers of 3rd Tank Division who had bunked in the wooden hut, but Kagamutsu had plucked the young Lieutenant from the building, even as it started collapse on top of them. The young Chinese culprit had been apprehended swiftly and was brought before the unit commander. Major Kaneda had beheaded the youth on the spot.
Unfolding his map, Hamuda cleared his throat noisily to draw a line under the pair’s ritual squabbling.
As the business of the march was being discussed, a shouted warning stopped them abruptly, eyes swivelling upwards to confirm the friendly nature of the approaching aircraft.
Around the positions, AA gunners tensed, ready to hurl death into the air.
Private Asego had been the man to shout and his eyes were the finest in the unit. It was a full ten seconds before any of the three could verify that the aircraft were indeed friendly.
A Mitsubishi Ki-46 reconnaissance plane was being shepherded back towards friendly lines by a group of four Ki-84 fighters, having conducted a mission to gather information about Chinese forces around Xingye.
Two of the fighters broke off from the formation, circling back to port over the Heights of Jianzhuding and lazily lost height, heading away from the Rainbow tankers to the south.
Sounds of firing followed and the keener eyes of Asego confirmed that the aircraft were strafing something on the ground.
Lacking any means of swiftly communicating with the troops on the ground, the flight leader had ordered two of his pilots to attack the enemy force on the road, in order to try and warn the tank force that they were not alone.
Hamuda swiftly grasped the situation and ordered his unit to readiness. Correctly assessing that the attack had been carried out the other side of the river, he ordered his tanks to prepare to move out.
On arrival at his command tent, a sergeant passed him the radio handset, unit commander Major Yamashio already informed and planning his own response to the obvious Chinese advance.
Fig #33 - Yujiang River dispositions.
1st Company was ordered to take up positions bordering the river, oriented to the west, remaining silent for a flank ambush when Yamashio ordered it.
2nd and 3rd Companies had crossed the river previously and would remain in position, guarding the approaches to Guiping. 4th Company would remain in situ as a reserve.
With the improved communications offered by all the newly-arrived German equipment, Yamashio expected to be able to better control his battalion’s responses, and so was light on specific orders, enjoying a freedom of operation and command almost unheard of for a Japanese tank unit commander.
Hardy hated the Chinese with a passion. They were useless soldiers, so he told himself, unable to digest the simple soldierly arts let alone the complexities required of the tank man.
And yet here he was, commanding an M5 light tank with Chinese crew, and leading his whole unit into battle.
The unexpected strafing attack by the nip fighters had been ineffective, killing solely one useless chink tank commander who couldn’t keep his head down.
Apart from that, the advance had been uneventful as the column pushed up Route 304 towards their first objective, the Yujiang River bridges at Guiping.
Raising himself out of the cupola, he brought his binoculars to his eyes, taking in the relatively open landscape into which he was driving. Hardy shuddered at the memory and quietly thanked his god that he wasn’t back in France, where such terrain meant Paks and Panzers, which always brought death and destruction in equal measure.
As they passed the left hand junction with the county road Teo Li, his gunner, began chattering excitedly and the tank halted abruptly and without orders. Whilst Hardy could normally manage to issue orders and could understand much of what his crew said, at this moment, his ability to comprehend the increasing pitch and rapidity of his crew’s agitated conversation was non-existent.
The gunner alternated between looking down his sights and sending an imploring look directly at his American commander, accompanying both with increasingly panicky words. Hardy shook the man’s shoulder and calmly used his best Chinese to find out exactly what the problem was.
He was in the process of isolating key words like 'Japanese’, 'Tank’ and 'big’ when something sounding like an express train rocked his tank as it passed close by.
Fig #34 - Yujiang River ambush positions.
Ordering his tank to head for some isolated buildings just off to the right, he stuck his head back out, the binoculars again probing for enemies.
A second shot betrayed the enemy position.
The radio was in his hand in an instant, sending back a contact report as his tank dropped in behind the farm building, screening him from the Shinhoto Chi-Ha that had engaged the Stuart tank.
He dismounted and moved to the corner of the building, from where he immediately spotted a second Shinhoto. The 47mm gun was engaging the next US vehicle in line, with more success it seemed, as a burst of smoke followed the sound of metal on metal.
Climbing back into his tank again, he informed the unit commander of the latest development and was told to reconnoitre further forward around the flanks, if safe to do so. Which order he immediately interpreted to his own ends, determining the move totally unsafe and electing to remain in place until the medium tanks took care of business.
Li’s mouth was still working overtime, but the man was clearly calming down, as his pitch started to descend to more normal levels.
Cigarettes appeared and Hardy tried to calm his men further, all made jittery by the panic of their gunner. He spoke softly to the man.
“Ok then, Teo Li, you've been in action before. What on earth got into you? You’ve seen a Shinhoto before, haven’t you?”
The look from the frightened Chinese was a mix of disbelief and contempt. “That no Shinhoto, Hardy Sergeant. That bigger tank.”
This started the rest of the crew off again and the chatter again climbed in pitch and intensity. Hardy, his dislike of serving with the Chinks reinforced, dismounted once more and moved to watch the armoured exchange.
An M4A4 had stopped to engage the Japanese tanks and was rewarded with a first shot hit, splitting the track of the stationary tank adjacent to the road. A well aimed reply struck the Sherman on the glacis and ricocheted skywards with next to no damage done, a gleaming scar the sole testament to the strike.
The American gunner nonchalantly adjusted his aim and dispatched the Shinhoto through the hull, watching as three panicked crew members abandoned their tank before putting a second shot into the smoking vehicle.
Hardy thought the shooting was impressive and nodded approvingly when the second Sherman killed the other Shinhoto with its first shot.
Inside the two lead Shermans, the relaxed atmosphere generated by easy kills evaporated in an instant as first one then the other gunner brought their sights to bear on a third enemy tank.
The first gunner remained speechless, transfixed by the sight.
The second gunner had the presence of mind to report the new target.
“Enemy tank, two o’clock, range 900 yards.”
The Commander looked for the new target and found it, euphoria turning quickly to fear.
Never having seen one in the flesh before didn’t mean that the vehicle wasn’t instantly recognisable, and every man that saw it knew that death was a moment away.
Hardy had turned back to his own vehicle when the sound of a heavy gun reached his ears, accompanied by the thundering whoosh as it slid closely by its intended target.
“What the fuck?”, although somewhere in the recesses of his memory he recogni
sed the sound and his stomach flipped.
The two M4’s were reversing, smoke pouring from their labouring engines and from smoke grenades lobbed by the crew to cover the withdrawal.
Hardy knew the answer before he looked, just in time to hear the big gun roar again and the first Sherman explode into a fireball from which no-one escaped.
It was the sound of a Tiger I’s 88mm gun that he had recognised, and sat on the road eight hundred yards away, was a fully operational example of the deadly German tank.
By the time Hardy had composed himself, the tank had eaten fifty yards off that distance, firing on the move without success.
The American battalion commander contemplated relieving the idiotic Lieutenant who was screaming about Tiger tanks. Before he made the decision, the man’s radio transmission ended abruptly.
The second Tiger’s arrival gave Hardy the impetus he needed, and he was in his tank in seconds, issuing orders, anxious to get his tin can out of the way of the leviathans.
Swiftly conversing with the unit Commander, he pushed out to the right, heading towards the river, looking for a way round on the right flank, as other’s were looking on the left.
Hamuda calmed his men, listening intently to the reports of combat coming from the tanks of 2nd Company, marrying them with the evidence of his eyes.
The American Sherman and Stuart tanks were expanding their line and firing rapidly, presenting excellent flank targets to his company’s Panther tanks. A fact he reported, keen to get into action before 2nd Company claimed too many. Through his episcopes he could already see six American tanks burning, but there were plenty more.
An American M5 Stuart tank emerged from the buildings five hundred yards to his front. Fearing discovery, Hamuda asked for permission to open fire, and his headset crackled with a new voice, that of Major Yamashio, giving 1st Company permission to engage from their flank position.
