Pacific Sniper

The platoon leader was dead, stabbed to death with a bayonet, so Lieutenant Steele took charge of their section of the line—as much as anyone could take charge of chaos. He grabbed a couple of soldiers and shoved them toward the machine gun. “You two, get that machine gun back in action. I want a field of fire directly in front of us. Don’t let any more Japs reach this line.”

But no sooner had the machine-gun tracer fire begun spitting forth again than the gun fell silent. Both men slumped over the weapon, shot dead. Despite the chaos, no enemy had been nearby, so who had shot them?

“We’ve got us a sniper someplace out there,” Steele said, scanning the field before them in the growing daylight. “Deke, Philly, see what you can do about that.”

“You got it, Honcho.”

Chapter Twelve

Deke ran to a foxhole that was closer to where he thought the enemy sniper must be hiding. Philly followed. If they were going to take on a sniper, they needed cover. The foxhole was empty in the sense that a GI lay dead in the bottom of it, along with a dead Japanese soldier. The two lay entwined, almost like brothers, their faces serene.

Before he jumped into the foxhole, he noticed that Private Shimizu stood nearby, frozen in place, not seeming to know what to do. That dumb kid doesn’t even have a rifle, Deke thought. Don’t he know that he’s in the middle of a battle? He’s a sitting duck.

More troubling was the fact that aside from the uniform, Private Shimizu’s features were distinctly Japanese. How long would it be before a confused GI mistook Shimizu for one of the enemy? That was if a Japanese soldier didn’t find him first. Private Shimizu was in a double-jeopardy situation.

Deke grabbed the Nisei interpreter by the shoulder and shoved him toward the foxhole. “Get in!”

“What?”

“You heard me. Go on and get in there unless you want somebody to mistake you for one of these Nip bastards and shove a bayonet in your guts.”

That was all the explanation that Shimizu needed. He jumped into the foxhole just ahead of Deke but recoiled at the sight of the dead bodies.

“Keep your head down unless you want to join ’em,” Philly said. “We’ve got a sniper working us over.”

Deke pressed a pair of binoculars into Shimizu’s shaking hands. “Here, make yourself useful. See if you can spot where he’s shooting from.”

Shimizu nodded and started to stand up, binoculars pressed to his eyes. Philly grabbed him by the back of the belt and dragged him down. “What the hell? Stay down!”

“Sorry.”

“You are one dumb green bean, you know that? Besides, if you get nailed by that sniper and these binoculars get shot up, they’re gonna be hard to replace.”

Deke peered above the rim of the foxhole and scanned the landscape before them. The daylight was growing stronger now, dispelling the shadows and giving detail to the strewn boulders, shrubs, and even the jungle beyond. Truth be told, a sniper could be hidden anywhere. Japanese troops had finally stopped storming out of the jungle. A great many bodies lay scattered as far as Deke could see—perhaps hundreds of dead Japanese, cut down by the relentless machine-gun fire. He was a little awed by the sight. So many dead. But not all the prone bodies belonged to the dead. A few wounded enemy soldiers crawled through the grass on their hands and knees.

There weren’t any medics to treat these injured men—to be wounded was to be left behind and abandoned. Deke didn’t know the language, but it was clear that some cried out in agony, while many of the wounded still crawled forward, unwilling to abandon the attack. He noticed that there were no stragglers or even any wounded soldiers who had turned back. The Japanese seemed single-minded in their purpose of destroying the American position. For them, there was no retreat. The only way was forward to victory—or eternity.

Yet the sniper was still at work, unseen. In their short time on the island, the Americans had quickly discovered just how effective the Japanese were at deploying snipers. The enemy marksmen certainly took their toll, but they were a psychological weapon as well, operating in areas that the Americans thought were secure.

“I hate these damn Jap snipers,” more than one GI or marine had stated. “They’ll shoot a guy while he’s lighting a cigarette or taking a leak. Doesn’t seem right.”

Nobody wanted to die needlessly, killed by an unseen foe. It was hard to declare victory when you had to keep looking over your shoulder for a sniper.

“He’s still at work, all right,” Philly said, nodding toward a scene nearby, where a sergeant shouted for a medic after a radioman had been hit seemingly out of nowhere. The sniper had just proved the point that carrying a radio was hazardous duty—these men were always among the first to be targeted, right after officers.