Meat Grinder Hill

by Len Levinson

  “Yes, sir.”

  Colonel Stockton turned to accept a message handed him by Lieutenant Harper, and Major Cobb returned to his operations section to call Colonel Smith and tell him to clear up the mess on Hill Thirty-one.

  SIX . . .

  Bannon didn't know it, but he'd stumbled on the strongest Japanese defensive position on Guadalcanal, the Gifu Line. Manned by five hundred fanatical soldiers from General Hyakutake's Seventeenth Army, it consisted of forty-five interconnected pillboxes deployed in a horseshoe-shaped line between hills Thirty-one and Twenty-seven. Most of the soldiers were from the Gifu Prefecture on the island of Honshu, hence the name they'd given to their fortifications.

  The pillboxes were mutually supporting, dug deeply into the ground, built up with logs, and revetted inside and out with dirt. Each rose only three feet above ground level and was well camouflaged. The ceilings were three logs thick and covered with boulders and dirt, and the walls were two logs thick.

  Each pillbox contained one or two machine guns and several riflemen. Every approach to the Gifu was covered by inter-locking fields of fire, and the line was invisible from the air. Its only flaw was that it could not be reinforced or resupplied. Every Japanese soldier in the Gifu knew that he was in a suicidal situation, because any fortification, no matter how strong, could be overwhelmed if the enemy chose to devote sufficient men and material to the task. Another serious shortcoming was that the Gifu had no artillery.

  The Gifu was commanded by Major Yoshinari Uchikoshi, who made his headquarters in one of the larger bunkers. He was a sinewy man with an abrupt military manner. He sported a Fu Manchu mustache and his head was shaved smooth. Like most of his men, he was a fanatic, willing and anxious to die for his Emperor.

  It was sweltering hot inside his bunker on that afternoon in December, and he fanned himself with an old communiqué while reading a new one that had just arrived from General Hyakutake. It was an “Address of Instruction” to be read to all commands on Guadalcanal. It said:

  The Americans have thrown all their vaunted skill and equipment against the Seventeenth Army, and yet we are still here, full of courage, full of love for our Emperor, and determined to carry on until we win a great victory. I am aware of the suffering and deprivations of all of you, but I want you to know that we, your commanders, share the same suffering and deprivations and that we stand shoulder to shoulder with you in the fighting that lies before us. But the picture is not all grim. The Americans are a weak, cowardly people, and they are rapidly losing their fighting spirit. Your courage and determination has been too much for them. I urge you to be patient, to fight like demons, and to remember the great rewards for brave soldiers in the world to come. The Americans have only their firepower and material substance to sustain them in this fight, whereas we have our Emperor, our ancestors, and our fine Japanese spirit. In addition to that, we have air, ground, and naval reinforcements coming soon. So hold on. Have faith. Obey your officers and remember your training. A great victory will be ours if we just hold on a little while longer. Hail to the Emperor!

  The communiqué was signed by General Hyakutake, and Major Uchikoshi wondered how he was going to read it to all his troops. He was a conscientious officer and decided the only proper thing to do would be to go from pillbox to pillbox and read it personally to each group of men. He glanced at his watch to see what time it was, when he heard a burst of machine-gun fire in the distance.

  He jumped nearly two feet off his chair, because the machine guns in the Gifu Line had never fired before.

  “Sir!” said his radio operator, Private Takemoto. “Bunker Twenty-five has spotted an American patrol!”

  Major Uchikoshi snatched the earphones and microphone off Private Takemoto's head. “Who's speaking?” he commanded.

  “Sergeant Watanabe, sir!”

  “How many Americans?”

  “From twenty to thirty, sir! They're retreating now!”

  “They'll be back. Keep your eyes open!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Major Uchikoshi lit a cigarette and paced the floor. The inevitable had finally happened: The Americans had stumbled upon the Gifu Line. But they didn't know what they were up against, and a lot of them would die before they did. Perhaps by then the reinforcements General Hyakutake had promised would arrive.

  During the next half hour there were two more contacts with American patrols. Then everything became quiet again on the Gifu Line, as the patrols withdrew. Major Uchikoshi paced back and forth and deduced that the American patrols hadn't left the area but were still out there, waiting for reinforcements to arrive.

  Maybe it would be a good idea to send some of his own men out to wipe out the American patrols before the reinforcements arrived. Then the Americans would have to probe for the Gifu Line from scratch again.

  “Lieutenant Hatakeyma!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Come here!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Lieutenant Hatakeyma, only twenty years old, the son of a judge in Tokyo, sprang up from his mat of interwoven palm leaves and marched toward Major Uchikoshi.

  “Lieutenant Hatakeyma, take a company of men, locate that American patrol out there, and wipe them out!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Lieutenant Hatakeyma spun around and ran from the command bunker into the deep concealed trench leading to the next bunker to gather the men together. Major Uchikoshi continued pacing the floor and wondered how long the Gifu Line could hold out once the Americans arrived in force.

  It was late in the afternoon and the shadows were growing long. Bannon had learned from Butsko that whenever you stopped you dug in, and now the men in his platoon were hacking the ground with their entrenching tools, having a difficult time because of the thick network of roots beneath the surface.

  On his flanks the First and Fourth squads were also digging in. Listening posts had been set up in advance of the positions, in case the Japs tried something cute.

  In the Fourth Squad, the listening post was manned by Private Marion Gafooley, better known as Nutsy Gafooley, who had been a hobo before being drafted, and now sat alone in the middle of dense underbrush, his rifle lying on his lap, remembering those big freight trains roaring through the night from one hobo jungle to another, going clackety-clackety-clackety as he rode the rails in his mind. What a wonderful life of freedom it had been. He remembered the mulligan stew beside the railroad tracks. The Depression had caused a lot of young women to take up the hobo life, too, so a hobo could even get laid once in a while, but now all that was over for him, and he thought sadly of how low he'd fallen in the world.

  He heard the snap of a twig breaking in front of him, and it sounded as if a man's foot had come down on the twig. Peering through the bush in the direction of the sound, he saw nothing at first, but then the foliage moved and he watched a Japanese soldier emerge, carrying a long Arisaka rifle with bayonet affixed to the end. Nutsy Gafooley raised his M 1 to his shoulder, aimed at the soldier, and squeezed his trigger. Blam—the M 1 fired, the sound echoing across the woods. The soldier fell back behind a wall of gunsmoke, and Nutsy Gafooley was on his feet, running wildly toward the Fourth Squad.

  "Japs!” he screamed as he charged into the area where the GIs were digging.

  Everybody dived into their half-dug holes.

  Sergeant Stravopoulis grabbed his walkie-talkie and called Bannon.

  “Japs are coming!” he said excitedly.

  “How many?”

  “Don't know.”

  “We'll be right there!” Bannon looked around at the men of the Second and Third squads. “Stravopoulis is being attacked! Everybody over there on the double!”

  The men dropped their entrenching tools and grabbed their rifles, running through the jungle toward the Fourth Squad. Bannon called Longtree.

  “The Fourth Squad is being attacked. We're going to help out. You'd better come, too, because we don't know how many they are.”

  “We'll be right th
ere.”

  Bannon grabbed his rifle and jumped up, following the Third and Second squads with DelFranco close behind him. A volley of shots erupted from the vicinity of the Fourth Squad.

  Lieutenant Hatakeyma swung his samurai sword through the air. "Banzai!” he hollered. "Attack!”

  The Japanese soldiers swarmed through the jungle, heading for the Fourth Squad, who lay in their shallow holes, firing at the indistinct forms hidden by foliage. Their fusillades cut down several of the Japs, but the rest kept coming and erupted out of the jungle, holding their bayonets low, intending to stab the GIs lying on their bellies. The GIs sprang up and got ready as the Japs tore into them. Bayonets clashed against rifle stocks as the Japs overran the Fourth Squad. Private Clemow was felled by one mighty blow from Lieutenant Hatakeyma's samurai sword, and Lieutenant Hatakeyma then hacked off the arm of Pfc. Gary Petty. He turned again and found himself in front of Nutsy Gafooley, tall and skinny, who'd been in count-less rough-and-tumble fights in his life.

  Lieutenant Hatakeyma swung downward, and Nutsy Gafooley raised his rifle, catching the blow on the stock of his rifle, but Lieutenant Hatakeyma's sword was made of the finest steel, and it rang like a bell in a Buddhist temple. Nutsy Gafooley stepped back and danced from side to side, making himself a difficult target while Lieutenant Hatakeyma raised his sword for another blow. Nutsy lunged forward, pushing his rifle and bayonet toward Lieutenant Hatakeyma's heart, and Lieutenant Hatakeyma swung his sword to the side, blocking the thrust.

  Nutsy Gafooley's forward motion brought him to within inches of Lieutenant Hatakeyma, and the aristocratic young officer gazed into the bloodshot eyes of the former hobo, who knew every dirty trick in the book. Nutsy Gafooley raised his knee and hit Lieutenant Hatakeyma in the balls. Lieutenant Hatakeyma's eyes bulged out and he fought the temptation to fall down and give up. He stepped back to get some sword-swinging room, his groin hurting so much that he was half paralyzed, and Nutsy Gafooley lunged with his rifle and bayonet again. This time Lieutenant Hatakeyma could not block the rifle and bayonet streaking toward him, and the bayonet sliced into his stomach to the hilt. Lieutenant Hatakeyma sank to the ground and Nutsy Gafooley pulled out his bayonet.

  A rifle butt hit Nutsy Gafooley on the helmet, and he fell down in a daze. He saw a bayonet rocketing toward him and rolled to the side, but he was stopped by the dead body of Corporal Roger Gorham. The bayonet came toward him again and Nutsy thought, It's all over, but then a shot rang out and the Japanese soldier above him collapsed beside Corporal Gorham.

  The shot had been a wild one fired from the hip by Pfc. Danny Sheehan as the Second and Third squads hit the Japs from the side. The Japs had outnumbered the Fourth Squad, but now everything was even, and the Second and Third squads tore into the Japs.

  Sergeant Mitsui saw Lieutenant Hatakeyma fall and realized the raiding party was in danger. “Retreat!” he yelled. “Retreat!”

  Corporal Gomez hit Sergeant Mitsui over the head with his rifle butt, and Sergeant Mitsui's skull cracked apart. Blood poured from his ears, nose, and mouth as he dropped to the ground.

  The other Japs also had difficulty getting away, because the Second and Third squads had attacked in a line that would cut them off. The Japs fought valiantly for their lives, but they'd bit off more than they could chew. Then Longtree and the First Squad arrived, and it was all over in a matter of minutes. The ground was strewn with the bodies of the Jap raiding party and Bannon's Fourth Squad, which had nearly been wiped out in the initial stage of the battle.

  Bannon's bayonet was covered with blood, but he didn't have a scratch on him. He wasn't even breathing hard and had only been able to kill one Jap. But he didn't have time to gloat over the victory. He had to figure out what to do next, because more Japs might arrive at any moment. He decided to retreat down the hill and dig in.

  “Let's go!” he said. “We'll pull back and set up a defensive perimeter. Take the wounded but leave the dead. We don't have much time.”

  The wounded were hoisted onto the shoulders of the GIs nearest them. The recon platoon retreated down the hill, leaving behind a scene of horrible carnage.

  The GIs disappeared into the jungle, and one of the Japanese soldiers stirred. He was Private Yuto Kobayashi, bleeding from a slash on the left side of his face. His left eye had been cut open like a seedless grape, and he had a fractured skull, but he was alive. His first thought was that he must commit hara-kiri, because the raid had failed, but then he told himself he must return to Major Uchikoshi and report what had happened. He pulled himself to his feet, but his legs gave out and he fell to the ground, so he gritted his teeth and crawled toward the Gifu Line, looking ahead through his one good eye at the strange new perspective of the jungle.

  It took him a half hour before he drew close to the nearest bunker, and the Japanese soldiers inside, not recognizing him, opened fire with their two machine guns and five rifles.

  “It's me—Private Kobayashi!” he wailed. “Don't shoot!”

  The soldiers came out to get him, dragging him back to the bunker.

  “What happened?” one of them asked.

  “It was terrible. Take me to Major Uchikoshi.”

  “You need a doctor.”

  “After I see Major Uchikoshi.”

  They carried him across the network of bunkers and trenches to the command bunker occupied by Major Uchikoshi, who was conferring with his staff officers about the intrusion of American patrols into the area. Major Uchikoshi looked up as Private Kobayashi was carried in.

  “What happened?” Major Uchikoshi asked.

  “We were wiped out,” Private Kobayashi replied.

  "What!”

  “We were wiped out. At first everything went well, and we were destroying the American patrol, but then many more Americans arrived.”

  “It was a trap!” Major Uchikoshi said, gnashing his teeth. He cursed himself for letting his men walk into a trap.

  “I request permission to commit hara-kiri sir,” Private Kobayashi said weakly.

  “You will do no such thing! You will report to the medical sergeant for treatment and then you will return to your post!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Private Kobayashi tried to salute but fainted from loss of

  blood. The soldiers carried him away. Major Uchikoshi looked at his staff officers.

  “Our vacation is over,” he said. “The Americans are here.”

  SEVEN . . .

  The sun sank toward the horizon as the recon platoon was digging in. It was Christmas Eve, and they all thought about how strange it was to be on a far-off tropical island, fighting a war, far from their families.

  “Just don't seem like Christmas,” Homer Gladley said, shaking his head. “Last year at this time I was home, eating chicken. All the presents were under the tree and we was waiting for Santa Claus to fill up the stockings on the fireplace. My girl friend was there; everybody was there. I wonder if I'll ever see them again.”

  Nearby, the Reverend Billie Jones was resting, for they were taking turns digging the hole. “The Lord will provide,” he said.

  “I think he's forgot about us, Billie.”

  “He never forgets us. We forget Him but he don't forget us.”

  “Yeah, well he ain't done much for us lately.”

  Twenty yards away, DelFranco was digging a hole for him and Bannon, who was looking at his maps, marking the spots where he thought Japanese machine-gun nests were situated. He knew of three nests and wondered how many more there might be. It was going to be hell getting those Japs out of there.

  DelFranco was listening to the conversation between Homer Gladley and Billie Jones, because religion fascinated him. He also thought that Billie Jones was an idiot, with no realistic perception of God. Jones talked as though God was a benevolent old man with a white beard who lived on a cloud and did favors for people whenever he felt like it. Jones didn't understand that God was more powerful and subtle than that. Jones was too simpleminded. He had a fair
y-tale view of God.

  Bannon heard sounds in the jungle behind him, and his first reaction was that Japs were sneaking up on the recon platoon from the rear.

  "Hit it!”

  Everybody grabbed their rifles and dived into their shallow holes. The jungle became silent.

  “What's going on?” Shaw asked.

  “I heard something,” Bannon said.

  “Me too,” said Longtree.

  A voice came out of the jungle. "Who's there?”

  "The recon platoon!” Bannon replied.

  "Christmas!” shouted the voice in the jungle.

  "Tree!” replied Bannon.

  That was the challenge and countersign for the day, and a squad of American soldiers came out of the jungle, a sergeant leading them.

  “Which one's Bannon?” asked the sergeant.

  “I am.”

  “Colonel Smith wants to talk to you.”

  “Okay.” Bannon stood and slung his rifle. “Where's the rest of the battalion?”

  “A few hundred yards behind us.”

  “Saddle up, everybody!” Bannon told the recon platoon. “We're moving out!”

  “Hey,” said the sergeant, “the colonel wants to talk to you, not your whole platoon.”

  “Well, I'm not leaving them here. There's a lot of Japs in the vicinity.”

  The sergeant shrugged. The men from the recon platoon attached their entrenching tools to their packs and hoisted their packs onto their backs. Then they followed the squad from the Second Platoon back down the slope of Hill Thirty-one.

  Lieutenant Colonel Smith sat in a pine grove, looking at his map and trying to keep track of his companies as new positions were radioed in. A battalion commander is nothing more than a coordinator of warm bodies, he thought as he made marks on his map. The unlit butt of a cigar stuck out the corner of his mouth, and his lips were stained with brown tobacco juice. The faint odor of a saloon clung to him, because he never went anywhere without a flask full of the jungle juice brewed for him by his mess sergeant.