Pacific Sniper

Many samurai in ancient times had been renowned archers rather than swordsmen, and in his youth, Okubo had been an accomplished archer. Okubo considered the rifle to be his modern version of the bow. Time and again, he had proved his skill with this rifle. At Guadalcanal, for example, he had lost count of the enemy soldiers he had killed, striking terror into the invaders’ hearts. He had been lucky to narrowly escape during the rescue mission carried out by the Imperial Japanese Navy.

Okubo did not see Guadalcanal as a defeat but as a strategic withdrawal. Of what use was a warrior if he could not continue the fight? Meanwhile, he had helped make the Americans pay dearly for their victory.

As an officer, he had been tasked with training others in the art of marksmanship. Other officers grumbled that Okubo had no real command responsibilities, but with his family name and connections, the truth was that he could do as he pleased.

“Keep up, Private Kimura.”

“Hai!”

Behind him, he heard Kimura’s feet scrambling over rocks. Kimura was essentially his kosho, a soldier-servant who carried his gear and performed menial tasks. Although it kept Private Kimura out of the regular line of battle and from digging tank traps, it was a dangerous assignment. On Guadalcanal, Okubo had lost two such men, one to a burst of machine-gun fire. The other had been shot through the head by an American sniper, a bullet that had surely been meant for Okubo.

The two who had given their lives for Okubo and Japan had been good men and very capable. He suspected that Kimura was something of a screwup whom someone had been glad to get rid of by assigning him to Okubo.

He could have given the private his rifle to carry as the day grew warm, but he resisted the urge, because a samurai did not trust his weapons to the care of others.

One quality that Kimura possessed was good eyesight, which matched Okubo’s own eagle eyes. In that regard, they made a good pair.

Kimura pointed out to sea. “Captain, the enemy planes are returning!”

Okubo looked to where Kimura was pointing. He could just see the glint of sunlight on distant wings. Perhaps the young man’s eyes were sharper, after all.

“We must get to shelter. Hurry!”

With Okubo leading the way, they raced toward an outcropping that was being turned into a pillbox. But as fast as they ran, the enemy planes were faster, sweeping in low, almost touching the surface of the sea as they began their bombing run.

One of the American planes exploded, knocked out of the sky by the rapid fire of the Japanese antiaircraft guns guarding the airfield.

But the guns were not enough to stop the air attack. Machine-gun fire raked the airfield, scattering the men working to repair it. The Americans likely thought that they were shooting down Japanese soldiers, but almost all of those working to repair the airfield were Koreans or the Chamorro natives of Guam, who had been forced into slave labor. Bodies already dotted the tarmac before the first bombs fell.

Okubo dived into the shelter of the pillbox, Kimura right behind him, just as the first hot blast covered the ground.

“Get down, you fool!” Okubo shouted, dragging Kimura deeper into the pillbox.

A burst of machine-gun fire churned the ground like an invisible plow, not more than ten feet away. The noise of the antiaircraft guns and exploding bombs was deafening. Okubo’s ears rang, and dirt and debris rained down. The smell of cordite filled the air.

Pandemonium reigned across the airfield. Not only were the Americans targeting the concrete airfield itself, but they were also going after the aircraft on the ground. Hit by machine-gun fire, a plane exploded into a fireball.

Several pilots ran toward their planes, evidently hoping to get into the air. But first they had to run a gauntlet of fire. A burst caught one man, spun him around, and sent him to the ground.

With relief, Okubo saw that the attack had not taken the Japanese completely by surprise. There had been some warning, so that a good number of planes had gotten into the air with minutes to spare. Now those planes swooped in out of the sun to counterattack the Americans. The result was a spectacular dogfight in the skies over Guam.

A Zero dived toward the field, guns hammering, and flames erupted from an American fighter plane. It was a welcome sight, showing that the American planes were not so invincible, after all. The American plane crashed into a distant hillside. On the ground, Japanese soldiers cheered.

Beside him, Okubo heard Kimura gasp. “Sōdai,” muttered the private, using the Japanese word for magnificent.

Okubo had to agree. If he had not been a marksman, he often thought that he would have been a pilot. What was a plane but a flying sword to cut down the enemy?

There was not much that they could do to help the fight, but Okubo had an idea, now that the attacking planes had shifted their focus from the ground to the air. “Follow me,” he said.