Pacific Sniper: A World War II Thriller by David Healey

Author:David Healey [Healey, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Intracoastal
Published: 2021-08-09T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

General Takashina could see that his attack had failed. His troops had no choice now but to retreat into the jungle itself, where defenses had been prepared to hold off the enemy as long as possible.

“We will wear down the enemy’s resolve until they are forced to withdraw,” he announced to his staff. He would not call it a retreat. “They will wish that they had never set foot on this island!”

“We will fight to the end!” Colonel Iwasaki, Takashina’s second-in-command, agreed enthusiastically.

What both Iwasaki and Takashina knew, but would not say, was that the cream of their troops had been lost in the desperate banzai attacks against the American beachhead. If it had not been for the appearance of the US tanks, perhaps the tide of battle would have turned in their favor. As it stood, thousands of their best troops now lay dead.

But the Japanese Army was far from defeated. In the months leading up to the attack, fallback defenses had been built in the more mountainous areas of the island. Takashina’s claim that they would wear down the Americans was not an idle boast. The Americans had now firmly established their beachhead and even captured the airfield, but the fight for Guam was far from over.

Reluctantly, Takashina gave the order for his troops to withdraw. He climbed into one vehicle, with Colonel Iwasaki following in another. The convoy set off down the unpaved jungle road, headed deeper into the mountains.

But their convoy did not go unnoticed. From the air, the pilot spotted them and went into a dive, strafing the road with the plane’s powerful machine guns. Considering the speed at which the plane moved, the attack seemed to be over in an instant, and yet it had been enough.

Riding behind the general’s vehicle, Colonel Iwasaki watched in horror as the plane’s machine guns riddled General Takashina’s vehicle, which then went out of control and plunged off the road and into a deep ravine. The vehicle flipped several times before coming to rest upside down.

Somehow, Colonel Iwasaki had come through unscathed. “Get down there!” he shouted at his driver, hoping that by some miracle the general had survived.

But looking down at the wreckage, he knew the truth in his heart. General Takashina must be dead, meaning that Colonel Iwasaki was now in command of the forces that must somehow push the Americans back into the sea.

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