Operation Long Jump (Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series Book 2)

by William Peter Grasso

  Nobody’s bloody taking me by surprise.

  It wasn’t the nightfall that bothered the Japanese lieutenant. He had learned long ago darkness could be a good friend if a soldier learned to ignore his fears and use it to exploit the fears of his enemy—like they had been doing to the Americans ever since they landed on Papua. Nothing seemed to panic the Americans and make them give their positions away like a handful of scouts running around in the darkness, screaming their silly heads off.

  The fact that they were running out of everything—food, ammunition, medical supplies, even soap—wasn’t bothering him, either. He had heard the reports on Tokyo Radio of stunning Japanese victories at sea. Any day now, he was quite sure, the Imperial Japanese Navy would send the rest of the enfeebled American fleet to the ocean floor. Then, the supplies would flow into Port Moresby once more, and they would crush this pathetic Allied attempt to dislodge them once and for all.

  What did bother the lieutenant: the battalion in which he served had been ordered from their bunkers facing the American lines, the relatively safe and impregnable havens they had occupied for the last 10 days. Why had the colonel picked his battalion? Had they not stood up to the enemy well enough?

  He ignored the fact he had not really fought at all. His Nambu pistol had yet to be fired at an enemy—or even removed from its holster—since the occupation of Port Moresby began. Whatever the colonel’s reason, the lieutenant and his men were in the open now, maneuvering to destroy the Australian nuisance, and vulnerable to any sort of enemy fire.

  He took the picture of his wife from the liner of his cap and held it tenderly in his hands. It was too dark to make out the features of her pretty face, but it mattered little: even in broad daylight, the ravages of the tropical climate had taken their toll, washing away the contrast of dark and bright. The photo was now little more than a dingy rendering of a ghost. But it was all he had. His memory sketched in the details nature had erased as he spoke to her fading image:

  Do not worry for me, my darling. We have the darkness to shield us…

  And I’m quite sure the Australians fear the dark just as much as the Americans.

  The skeptical men of the US 82nd Regiment’s recon platoon had never before had a guest accompany them on a patrol—and he was a staff officer, a breed who usually preferred hiding out behind the front lines at HQ. This Major Miles from Division certainly seemed like an old hand who knew the drill, though, and he had a hell of a lot more knowledge of the Japanese dispositions than their own regimental S2. He’d seen them from the air, this major said. As they probed forward in the night from their own lines, trying to gauge the strength of the enemy still facing them, everything he had told them had been right so far.

  “They’re going to be very weak in this sector,” Jock Miles told the recon platoon. “We’re going to find gaps in their defenses that weren’t there before today.”

  He was dead right about the gaps: they had just walked right through one, without a single Japanese shot to protest their presence. Now, they were operating behind enemy lines.

  The platoon leader seemed a bit stunned by their success. Unsure how to proceed, he asked Jock, “How far do you think we should go, sir?”

  “Until we make contact,” Jock said.

  “With the Japs, sir…or the Aussies?”

  “Either one,” Jock replied.

  The Aussie patrol was anything if not quiet. They wore no helmets, only soft slouch hats that didn’t go clank if they bumped into something. The sling of each man’s weapon had been secured to the stock with tape so its metal hardware wouldn’t rattle. Everything carried on their person was firmly secured and padded if necessary to remain silent. Their feet seemed to glide on velvet as they crept without a sound toward the suspected Japanese columns.

  Their silence paid off handsomely: they heard the Japanese approaching while they were still a long way off: clumsy footsteps; spoken words—obviously Japanese—meant to be hushed but carrying great distances in the night; the constant clatter of personal gear.

  The ambush would be almost too easy, the Aussies thought.

  When the Japanese grew close, the sparse tree growth in this area allowed the moon to backlight their silhouettes. As each of the nearest Japanese soldiers was shot, the muzzle flash froze his dark outline like a photograph for just an instant. In each successive flash, the soldier’s shape crumpled to the ground in split-second increments as if the pages of a flip book were being riffled to the industrial beat of automatic weapons.

  It was all over in seconds. There was nothing else to shoot at except the screams of fleeing Japanese.

  “Cease fire, mates,” the patrol’s sergeant told his men. “Bloody well done.”

  Other voices rang out of the new silence, speaking English. They were Yanks.

  Challenges and passwords were exchanged in hushed tones; a joint perimeter was quickly established. As they shook hands, the Aussie sergeant asked Jock Miles, “Were you blokes stalking them, too, Major?”

  “Yeah, we were,” Jock replied, “but we weren’t planning on engaging, just reconning. Pretty ballsy of you to take them on like that, Sergeant, considering you can’t really tell their strength in the dark. Good ambush, though.”

  The Aussie didn’t bother to mention the warning he had received before going out on patrol: Avoid the American lines. They’re green troops just as likely to fire at you as the Japanese. At least that advice hadn’t turned out to be true, so far.

  Jock and the sergeant watched as two diggers checked to make sure the clustered, lifeless bodies of at least a dozen Japanese were actually dead and not just staging some suicidal trap. Carefully rolling over one of the bodies, a digger said, “Look at this, Sergeant…this one’s a bloody lieutenant.” He pried open the dead man’s clenched fist. It held a faded photograph of what appeared to be a young woman. “Should’ve been worrying a little less about his sheila and more about us wankers,” the digger said. “Poor bugger didn’t even have a chance to pull his bloody Nambu. Well, he won’t be needing it anymore.” He relieved the corpse of the pistol and stuck it into his web belt.

  Once the bodies were confirmed dead, the sergeant asked Jock, “Where do you suppose the rest of them went, sir?”

  “Toward the airfield, probably,” Jock replied. “They’ve still got a lot of heavy weapons up there. I don’t imagine they’ll be running to Port Moresby anymore. There’s no way out of that place now…if any of them are even still there.”

  They compared maps in the glow of red-filtered flashlights. “Watch your asses backing out of here,” Jock said. “I’m pretty sure we’re in the middle of a bunch of Japanese units that pulled back to meet you Aussies. They should have been on us like stink on shit once the shooting started, but we didn’t even get mortared, and that’s pretty standard procedure in their book. I know there are plenty of them around here—I saw them from the air earlier today—but they must be disorganized and not supporting each other.”

  The Aussie sergeant agreed, but with a decided lack of expectation added, “I just hope to bloody hell we can take advantage of the Nips while they’re cocked up like this. We could cut them up piecemeal if we moved our arses quick enough.”

  Jock couldn’t have better expressed his hopes and fears for what might happen next.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Day 15

  In Tokyo, bitter disagreement hung over the Imperial War Council like a storm about to unleash its fury. The day had brought bad news of the Australian landings near Port Moresby; as usual, the Army and the Navy held diametrically opposed opinions on the proper response. As the debate raged far into the night, General Sugiyama, Chief of the Army General Staff, sat red-faced as Admiral Yamamoto, naval Commander-in-Chief, patiently stated his position:

  “Gentlemen, since we decided many months ago we have neither the interest nor the resources to occupy Australia, Port Moresby is, therefore, of little strategic value to our forces. The harbor is far too small to supp
ort serious fleet operations. The New Guinea land mass simply is too vast and inhospitable to occupy anything other than the vital garrisons along the Bismarck and Solomon Seas, strongholds which protect our sea routes to the Solomon Islands.”

  General Sugiyama spewed his rebuttal: “The Army would have no problem holding every harbor in the southwest Pacific if the Navy would stop making excuses and deliver the necessary material.”

  The other Army men in the chamber muttered their agreement. The Navy men shifted uncomfortably in their seats. Ultimately, the men of both branches believed it was Tojo who determined the war effort’s direction—and Tojo was an Army man.

  Yamamoto refused to be ruffled. He replied, “Making excuses, you say? What excuse did you make when your army’s aircraft fled Port Moresby the moment it faced its first formidable challenge in this war?”

  Sugiyama waved away the all-too-accurate barb, replying, “Your naval aircraft fled just as quickly.”

  “The duties of our naval aircraft lie elsewhere,” Yamamoto said, “unlike your Army planes, whose primary duty was to defend Port Moresby. As to the Navy providing material support, let me say this: our fleet is strong but it is not invincible. Despite the happy talk being broadcast over Tokyo Radio, our Navy has not vanquished the Allied fleet, and it will never do so if we continue to allow reinforcements from America to arrive unchecked. It is essential we marshal our forces where they will do the most good, and right now, that is not at Port Moresby. Let me repeat: It is on the wrong side of that vast island to suit our purposes. Our highest naval priority is to drive off the Allied challenge to our dominance in the Solomon Sea and maintain our grip on the Solomon Islands. Once we can maintain permanent air and sea bases on those islands, we can prevent the flow of American resources to Australia and New Zealand. And if we can do that, we will be in unchallenged control of the southwest Pacific. Indefinitely.”

  “You give up on Port Moresby too easily,” Sugiyama said.

  “I’m not giving up, General,” Yamamoto replied, “I am merely allocating my resources where they will do us the most good and not be needlessly sacrificed. I suggest you do the same. There is no reason to wantonly discard the nearly twenty thousand troops you have in Port Moresby. The Americans and Australians, despite their lackluster performance so far, will inevitably starve your men to death. We should not let that happen. After all, they are not suicide troops, and we need them desperately in other, far more valuable places—”

  “Perhaps to reinforce your pointless feint in the Aleutians, Admiral?”

  “Please try to stay on topic, General,” Yamamoto replied.

  Sugiyama fumed for a moment before asking, “Are you suggesting, Admiral, that you will not supply naval vessels to evacuate my troops from Port Moresby?”

  “I’m not suggesting—I’m stating it plainly, General. I will no longer allow my surface fleet to transit the waters south of New Guinea—not while the American Air Force in Australia is allowed to become stronger every day. As the absence of your Air Force over Port Moresby attests, the American flyers are not the ill-equipped pushovers the British, Australians, and Dutch proved to be.”

  “Then how do you propose they evacuate?”

  “The same way many of them got there, General…over the Owen Stanleys. Just like they did when they chased the Australians out of Papua.”

  As General Sugiyama chewed over this distasteful suggestion, Yamamoto added the clincher: “Perhaps you are not aware this has already been discussed and agreed upon at the very highest levels of the Council.”

  The very highest levels: that meant The Emperor.

  “You’re bluffing, Admiral.”

  “I can assure you, General, I am not.”

  Sugiyama threw up his hands, rose from his chair, and began to storm from the chamber. On the way, he told the colonel chasing close behind, “Have the evacuation order transmitted to Rabaul at once.”

  “But, General,” the colonel said, “a plan must be drawn up first and—”

  Sugiyama cut him off. “Here is the plan, Colonel. They walk back to Buna over the Kokoda Track immediately. General Adachi can work out the details on his own.”

  Nestled in a grove a few miles north of Port Moresby, two Japanese radio vans hummed with activity late into the night. The radio operators had just completed their first contact with Rabaul since repositioning from the town, where their old hiding place had been compromised. They were still amazed they had not been bombed or shelled after that American spotter plane flew so low overhead he seemed to be landing on a rooftop. The aviators could not have helped but see them.

  The officer-in-charge fell silent as he decoded the message. He stared intently at the message form for a few seconds before telling a runner, “Get this message to General Adachi immediately.” Then he changed his mind and snatched back the message form. “No…I’ll deliver it personally,” he said, climbing from the van.

  One of the radio operators called after him: “May I ask what’s so important, Captain?”

  “You may not, Corporal,” the OIC replied, but then relented, adding, “but I will tell you this: prepare yourself for a few weeks of mountain climbing.”

  On the bridge of the small coastal freighter docked at a Queensland harbor, the ship’s captain was reading a different radio message. It directed the Australian merchant vessel Esme—now being loaded with ammunition—to take its place in a convoy forming in the Gulf of Carpentaria, which, in two days’ time, would sail northward through the Torres Strait to the vicinity of Port Moresby.

  Jillian Forbes smiled as she told herself, Port Moresby—couldn’t have picked a better port of call if I tried.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Day 16

  The sun hadn’t risen on the new day yet, but Jock Miles was already studying maps in the operations tent at Twenty Mile Airfield. John Worth walked in, still wiping the sleep from his eyes. He was startled to find Jock hard at work.

  “Get any sleep, Major?” Worth asked.

  “A little. Got back to HQ around oh-four-thirty.”

  “Got back? Where were you?”

  “Did a little patrolling with the recon platoon of Eighty-Second Regiment. We made contact with the Aussies. Found out that Jap pullback is all sorts of disorganized, too.”

  “Gee, that’s great news, sir. So you maybe got an hour of shut-eye?” Worth asked, suddenly feeling guilty about the five hours he had just bagged.

  “Sounds about right,” Jock replied. “Hey, I was just looking at the weather. A little low cloud cover and haze this morning…but I think we’re going to have great pickings the rest of the day.”

  A roar of engine noise shattered the pre-dawn silence. A few of the P-39s were being fired up.

  “What’s going on with the fighters?” Jock asked. “I thought they weren’t ready to fly yet.”

  “Who said that, sir?”

  “The air liaison at Division. He said they were waiting for their ground crews. The guys already here aren’t trained on the P-39.”

  Worth laughed and said, “That doesn’t mean they can’t learn. By the way, I was talking with the fighter jocks last night. They’re here to fly top cover.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means they’re supposed to keep the Jap fighters and bombers off us.”

  Now it was Jock’s turn to laugh. “Swell. Where were they when we needed them?” He turned serious: “I was kind of hoping they’d do some ground attack, though.”

  The first Aussie patrol to creep down the narrow streets and alleys of Port Moresby didn’t believe their luck: the Japanese were nowhere to be found. Some vehicles were still lying around—they were broken down, foiling the Aussies’ attempts to commandeer them—but those items were the only calling cards the Japanese left behind. Wary Papuan townspeople, expecting a battle but hearing no shots, filtered slowly onto the streets for a better look at what was happening. At first, they didn’t believe their luck, either. Gradually, though, rep
orts came in from all across the town: the Japanese occupiers had packed it in and marched inland during the night.

  The good fortune stalled the Aussie advance just as surely as stubborn Japanese resistance. They hadn’t expected this: by mid-morning they had secured the entire town, an enterprise that was expected to take up to a week. Another bonus: Fairfax Harbor was suddenly open to Allied shipping once again. Unloading of men and material no longer required amphibious landings.

  “What do we do now, sir?” a regimental commander asked General Blamey.

  Blamey replied, “We wait right here until we know what the Yanks are up to.”

  The picture from the American side was a bit more complex. The 82nd Regiment, capitalizing on the information gained in last night’s patrolling, quickly enveloped and finished off the weakened enemy still facing them across the long-stalled battle line. The Japanese bunker system, impregnable as it had been to the frontal assaults of the past week, became little more than ready-made tombs for the defenders now being overwhelmed from behind.

  “Something’s very interesting,” the commander of the 82nd reported to Division. “There were only a handful of Japs left on the line. It’s like they were just a rear guard covering a retreat.”

  General Hartman put a damper on his regimental commander’s optimism. “Let’s be careful about assuming they’re in retreat, Colonel,” the division commander said. “They just may have fallen back to secondary positions…and they’re trying to draw us into a trap.”

  At the advance’s current pace, the commander of the 82nd wanted to believe his men could race all the way to the airfield—some seven miles distant—and capture it by midday. American planes of any size and type would have a prepared runway to land on before sunset far more suitable than the rough, postage stamp-sized facility that was Twenty Mile Airfield. The general, however, was telling him to rein his wild horses in. The colonel did what he was told. His regiment’s brief, lightning-fast advance slowed to a crawl.