Hunter Sniper

The men did as ordered, operating almost by instinct at this point. For a few moments they were too stunned to move, overwhelmed with shock and fear. Then, as if a switch had been flipped, their training kicked in, and they began to return fire. Though exhausted, they were all battle-hardened veterans who didn’t need to be told how to fight back against the Japanese.

While the enemy had taken them by surprise, it didn’t take long for the GIs to begin their own withering return fire. They shot back at the muzzle flashes in the gloom. Leaves and twigs rained down, but the Japanese kept firing.

Bullets tore through the foliage, and leaves and twigs rained down from the trees. The Japanese kept firing, and the GIs kept shooting back, the staccato burst of bullets joined by the sound of shouting and the occasional scream.

It was an intense and chaotic fight, the air thick with smoke, the tropical day suddenly filled with fire and thunder.

“Here I come, boys!” cried Private Frazier, firing his BAR from the hip as he advanced toward the grove. There were now so many falling leaves that it looked as if a whirlwind had taken hold among the trees.

But his magazine was soon spent, and in the face of heavy fire, he was forced to throw himself to the jungle floor. He rolled among the leaves, fumbling to get another magazine into the ammunition-hungry BAR.

The problem was that the column was now pinned down effectively by the ambush. There was no way to go except forward on the trail. Certainly there was no going back.

Deke found himself on the ground but had no recollection of getting there. He had been in something of a daze when the ambush broke out, and it was Yoshio who’d saved his bacon by grabbing hold of Deke’s shoulder and pulling him down just before the machine gun swept the line.

Several men behind them were felled or scattered by the burst of fire. Deke struggled to get up and reached for his rifle, but it wasn’t there. He suffered a moment of panic, realizing that Yoshio was still carrying the weapon over his own shoulder.

“Get down, you fool!” Yoshio cried out in a rare show of exasperation. “Just keep your head down and try not to get shot. Let someone else fight this war for a change.”

Deke realized that he didn’t have the energy to argue, much less fight back against the enemy onslaught. He simply pressed his face into the muddy trail, hoping this wouldn’t last forever. The smell of the earth and even the cool dirt against his face felt soothing. Ashes to ashes, he thought. Dust to dust.

It was a hell of a thing to be in a war and be too sick to fight.

Seeing that they were pinned down, Lieutenant Gurley decided that he’d had enough. Wielding a submachine gun, the lieutenant sprinted forward with it toward the coconut grove, screaming a mad battle cry and peppering leaves and trunks with a hail of automatic fire. It was brave, if foolish.

His attack suppressed the ambush just enough that it enabled the soldiers to pick themselves up out of the dirt and get into better positions.

Their rate of fire increased against the Japanese in the grove. It was impossible to say just how many enemy soldiers were hidden in there. They certainly did not outnumber the Americans, but there must have been at least a couple of dozen Japanese pouring fire at them. Also, the enemy had the advantage of cover, while the GIs were caught out in the open.

Lieutenant Gurley hadn’t slowed down, but was still charging at the enemy position. The lieutenant’s plan seemed to be to run all the way into the coconut grove and get in among the trees to scatter the Japanese.

“Look at that bastard go!” Philly shouted in amazement.

For the briefest of moments, it looked as if the lieutenant might succeed and turn the tide to put the Japanese on the run.

But in battle tides are treacherous. The fortunes of war swirled and ebbed at the whims of fate and chance. For the young lieutenant, the tide suddenly turned against him.

He had just reached the perimeter of the trees when a bullet caught him and spun him around. Gurley stumbled but kept going. Then he was hit again, finally collapsing with his submachine gun underneath him, the weapon’s hot barrel still smoking.

His death hadn’t been for naught. The sight of the fallen lieutenant enraged the soldiers, filling them with new resolve. Two more men followed Gurley’s example, leaping up and sprinting for the coconut trees. One man named Simmons went down almost immediately, caught by Japanese fire.

The other soldier got close enough to hurl a grenade that reached deep into the grove and detonated with an ear-shattering blast. Shredded greenery and shards of wood whirled out from the center of the blast. Then that soldier also went down.

“Goddammit!” yelled Captain Merrick. “I don’t want any more heroes. First Platoon, I want you to move around and flank that coconut grove. You boys in Second Platoon, see if you can get around there and hit them from the rear. These Japanese have got to go.”