A month after the Battle of Hawaii began, the four islands of Far Eastern Japan were also surrounded by gunsmoke. At this time, China had basically completed the blockade of Japan's key waterways, and in the Pacific, when the 1st Marine Division of the Chinese Marine Corps began to land on the main island of Hawaii, the Far East also launched an attack on the Goto Islands.

The Goto Islands are located at the westernmost tip of Japan, a few hundred nautical miles to the west is Jeju Island, and less than a hundred nautical miles to the east is Nagasaki Prefecture. The Goto Islands are arguably the last gateway to the west of Japan.

The first place for China's attack on the Japanese mainland was the Goto Islands, a group of islands covering an area of nearly 700 square kilometers.

Like the United States, Japan was heavily fortified here, amassing more than 200,000 troops, most of which were Ushijima's elite 32nd Army.

While the United States was preparing for a decisive battle on its home soil, Kantaro Suzuki's cabinet was also preparing for a decisive battle on its home soil, and decided to organize a national volunteer corps composed of men between the ages of 15 and 55 and women between the ages of 17 and 45. The press continued to publish a series of reports full of confidence in defending the homeland.

Once the Chinese army landed on the Japanese mainland, it was imperative to use the National Volunteers. A retired Navy fleet commander named Ando said: "The enemy's actions are exactly as we had estimated when we formulated the details of our plan to deal with the enemy, and there are many similarities between the strategy of allowing the enemy to occupy the islands around Japan and the strategy of the backwater formation." This strategy cannot be employed unless we ourselves are convinced of the strength to take the flesh of the enemy with my skin, and the bones of the enemy with my flesh."

However, half a month after China began its attack on the Goto archipelago. General Ushijima's 32nd Army had already suffered heavy losses. In two weeks of fighting, his most elite troops lost 7,000 officers and men. Although holding the Fukue Island defensive line, the Chinese Marines had occupied the northern half of the island, except for the main peninsula, where only two battalions (battalions) were defending.

On 16 March, after three days of fierce fighting, the Chinese army captured Jiuchong Mountain, which was 1,200 meters high and full of strange rocks. Standing on the hill, the entire peninsula can be seen in full view, and the capture of Mt. Kuju effectively ended the battle on the northern half of Fukue Island.

A few miles west of the Motobu Peninsula is a small island called Ie Island. This small island is oval in shape and five miles long. Except for a 600-foot-high extinct volcano near the center. The rest of the terrain is flat. The remnants of the Japanese army in this area were fortified on the volcano.

The task of occupying the island was given to the army. At 8 o'clock in the morning of the same day, after the naval artillery bombardment, the native soldiers of the Seventh Group Army of the Chinese Army climbed over the hill and pointed directly at the main target of the attack, the airfield.

When approaching a volcano. They encounter countless tunnels, caves and spider caves, as well as bunkers. Numerically inferior defenders. With the voluntary support of hundreds of ordinary people. Extremely tenaciously resisted the attack of the Chinese 732nd Division.

To the north of the Fukue Island defensive line, the Chinese army was preparing for a general offensive against the defensive system.

"This battle is indeed difficult to fight," the commander of the Seventh Army predicted. "At the southern tip of the island. About 65,000 to 70,000 Japanese troops were hiding in the caves. In my opinion, there is no other way than to blow them out yard by yard. ”

Naval support was brought in. At 5:40 a.m. the next morning, six battleships, six cruisers, and eight destroyers began shelling the five-mile defense system that traversed the island. Twenty minutes later, twenty-seven artillery battalions—with a total of 324 heavy artillery pieces and 270 rocket launchers—simultaneously fired at the enemy's forward positions, then raised their muzzles and fired five hundred yards behind enemy lines.

At 6:30 a.m., the muzzle of the gun was lowered and the front line was bombarded for another 10 minutes. In the battle for the islands, this one was the most intense in terms of one shelling, with a total of 39,000 shells.

The muzzle of the guns was raised again, and the attack team, consisting of two divisions, rushed forward, with the 731st Division in the east and the 733rd Division in the center. Fifty minutes later, the third division, the 722nd Division, rushed from the western end of the line towards the Jiashu Heights.

It is unbelievable that although the bombardment was unprecedented, the Japanese did not suffer much damage. The three assault teams rushed fiercely, but all of them were repulsed, and the casualties were not small, especially in the section of the 722nd Division, where all 22 tanks that had rushed towards the Jiashu Heights were destroyed.

By dusk, the number of killed, wounded or missing in the Seventh Army had reached 320. Over the next four days, the two divisions flanked were advancing slowly and with negligible success, while the infantry of the 732nd Division advanced more than a thousand yards, but only approached the heart of the Fukue Island line.

It is like the Great Wall of China, and the steep rock walls are like knives. This is Maeda Highland. The natural barrier of the cliffs makes it a veritable compliment. The Chinese army was repulsed at once.

The commander of the 73rd Army rejected the proposal to carry out an amphibious landing behind the Japanese lines, reasoning that the reef to the south was too dangerous, the beach was not suitable for loading and unloading supplies, and even if a beachhead was established, it was likely to be outnumbered and surrounded by superior Japanese regiments.

On the left, at the eastern end of the Maeda Heights, Chinese troops occupied two hills and spotted more than five hundred Japanese troops, just when Chinese tanks and flamethrower armored vehicles appeared on Highway 5, which bypassed one end of the heights. The crossfire of the Chinese army wiped out this group of Japanese.

Ushijima was afraid that the enemy would break through the defensive line with heavy troops and outflank him from behind the mountain, so he gave a brief order to the 62nd Division: "From about 13 o'clock, the enemy infantry will advance on the southern and eastern fronts of the Maeda Heights with tanks in advance. The 62nd Division had to send troops to both sides...... Attack the enemy forces advancing on the Maeda Line and resolutely repel them. ”

Ushijima also ordered the 24th Division to break the divisional boundary, assist friendly troops in sealing the gap, and "deploy the main force to the southeast of the Fukue Island defense line tonight." "Maeda Heights must be defended at any cost.

On the morning of 27 March, the Chinese army concentrated infantry, tanks, flamethrower armored vehicles and infantry fighting vehicles, and worked closely together to launch another attack on the remnants of the Japanese positions at the eastern end of the Maeda Heights, occupying two hills before dark.

Since the eastern part of the Maeda Highlands had fallen to the enemy, Ushijima ordered a wing of the 24th Division to wipe out the enemy from the entire highlands at once. The task of capturing the central part was given to a brigade commanded by Tsuneo Shimura, one of the youngest lieutenants in the empire.

Most of his 600 men had never fought before, for example, nineteen-year-old Goma Morizen, who had been a student at Fukuejima Normal School a few weeks before, but like many Fukuejima patriots, he had volunteered to the front.

That night, as the brigade slowly passed through the ancient capital, the native soldiers had to walk carefully. On the street opposite a large Catholic church, there were hundreds of corpses lying on the east and west, like "rag dolls" piled up horizontally.

It turned out that a Chinese Navy shell just hit a cart of ammunition. Outside, I saw a stone wall covered in human flesh. The cobblestone road was covered with blood. When out of town. The troops lined up in two lines and continued north along the dirt roads, but were forced to disperse through the fields due to shelling. At breaks. They opened the canned pineapple, which also had the Chinese logo on it. Each soldier was given a slice - this was the "last Chinese dinner" before he died in battle.

They didn't arrive at the starting line until after midnight. It was not until three o'clock in the morning that Shimura launched an attack with the strength of two squadrons. Almost simultaneously, mortar shells flew over the heights. Exploded in the Japanese army.

Shimura ordered his soldiers to advance cautiously in the face of artillery fire. As they climbed the steep slope in the morning light, Chinese tanks appeared on Highway 5 on the right like foraging tigers, and all tanks opened fire at the same time. More than 100 Japanese soldiers were killed in an instant. The surviving Japanese soldiers hurriedly crawled into graves and very unsightly bunkers, or hid behind rocks. Shimura and seven others squatted in a grave for a day.

As soon as the sun went down, the tanks departed. Shimura walked out of the cemetery to find a third of the earth soldiers dead, but the company insisted that he take the cliff that night. He tied a white cloth around his back as a sign and led his men along a dry riverbed. Halfway up the steep slope, he fell into a well-camouflaged hole.

Inside the cave were fifty Japanese soldiers—the remnants of Kaya's advance team, with only a few rifles, who had been driven down the cliff. As soon as Shimura entered the cave, they cheered, their eyes filled with tears. Kaya Osa breathed a sigh of relief and hugged Shimura tightly. "From now on, it's all up to you," he said, not wanting to discuss neither the battle situation nor the enemy's disposition, but offering a glass of wine. Shimura declined.

Shimura left the cave in anger and led his men to the edge of the high ground, where they hid until dawn, when they threw grenades and, under the cover of light machine gun fire, rushed over the ridge with a shout of bayonets, and rushed to the top of the high ground. The so-called top is actually a lonely piece of limestone standing on the top of the mountain, like a tower towering over a castle, and the Chinese army nicknamed it "Needle Rock".

Here, they repelled the few Chinese soldiers who were guarding the middle of the cliffs, then dispersed and hid behind rocks or in small caves, forming a two-hundred-yard defensive line. On the one hand, they were able to win a successful victory because of their vigor, and on the other hand, because after four days of tug-of-war, the combat strength of the Chinese troops who encountered them had been weakened to about 40 percent, and there were only five or six people left.

The fighting on the west coast is not as fierce as the cliffs, but the price paid by both sides is no less than that side.

The next day, 30 March, the 2nd Marine Division of the Chinese Marine Corps began to exchange guards with the 27th Infantry Division, which suffered 661 casualties in less than two weeks. The ranks of the Marines were lazily advancing, and from the front came the code words: "They're back." ”

The Marines immediately straightened their chests, slung their guns, and marched majestically. But the exhausted army infantry simply ignored the ranks of these "demonstratives". One of the Marines said a few cool words, and the others hurriedly stopped them, and maybe they themselves, if they survived, were just like that.

The newly transferred army also moved to the Maeda Heights. The infantrymen carried bags of explosives on their backs and climbed the mountain with ropes and cat's claw hooks, but were repeatedly repulsed by the Japanese troops who rushed out of the rows of caves.

Shimura held his position near the "Needle Rock" and repelled more than a dozen fierce enemy charges. Because of the beautiful fighting of his defense, the wing command ordered him to attack, and asked him to take the small hill on the right that night that the Japanese called "Devil's Hill".

He sent five squadrons on a mission. The squadron arrived at the top of the hill after midnight and flared to signal that it had taken the hill. Since the top of the hill was full of bare rocks, it was impossible to dig a bunker, and as soon as dawn they were surrounded by fire and could not hide. All were annihilated.

By this time, it had been a month since China landed on Fukue Island, and the number had increased to 170,000. Fukue Island has turned into a "Little China," roads have been widened and improved to allow the passage of tens of thousands of vehicles that have already landed on shore, supply points have been set up, antiaircraft artillery positions have been set up, and telephones have been erected between various facilities of the Navy and Army.

The Chinese army's rational combat methods left a deep impression on the Japanese army, which had received education that despised the Chinese army. The Chinese army was practically dressed, and there was a constant supply of ammunition and food. It seems to turn war into an adventure enterprise. Even the habits of the behavior of the Chinese soldiers interested them.

In a cave a hundred feet below Fukue Island Castle. Ushijima's chief of staff, Lieutenant General Nagayong, was clamoring for a full-scale counteroffensive. He was a fierce and courageous officer, and he was very good at smoking and drinking. His military career, like Tsuji, was full of "lower and higher" behavior. He participated in the aborted "Pennant Revolution" in 1931. After that, he was transferred to North Korea. Since he likes to play tricks on intrigues. As a result, the border war with Russia that broke out on the border between Korea and Russia in 1938 dragged on for a long time.

He has a short temperament. Slapping orderlies, adjutants or junior officers became commonplace. Now, he's in a battle with Ushijima, shaking his long cigarette holder like a weapon.

Ushijima listened impassively. From time to time, he paid tribute to Chang Yong. This unnerved those present – except for Chang Yong. The reason why Changyong is showing belligerence at the moment is because he has been drinking for a whole hour.

Ushijima's reservations were only supported by operational staff officer Hiroshi Yahara, and he was the only one who debated with Nagayong, who had repeatedly called for a decisive battle.

Hirodo Yahara — a gloomy man nicknamed "Death Stubborn" — was undeterred. "Attacking an enemy with overwhelming superiority with inferior forces is throwing stones from pebbles, which can only lead to an early defeat." In that case, he continued, we would have to attack the enemy's positions that controlled the commanding heights. The wiser way is to continue playing the way you are playing.

He believes that it is inevitable that they will be eliminated in the end, but that a strategy of holding on to it will buy valuable time for the base camp. The counterattack will only inflict only a small number of casualties on the enemy, and thousands of imperial troops will be killed in vain.

However, the instinct of the Japanese to attack when cornered was uncontrollable. The commander of the 62nd Division suddenly stood up and supported Chang Yong's opinion, and the other division commanders and brigade commanders all expressed their support for Chang Yong because they were disappointed by the defensive tactics imposed on them. Ushijima was still very worried about their opinion, but nevertheless ordered a counteroffensive to begin within two days.

The counteroffensive plan was both complex and ambitious. According to this plan, with the cooperation of "kamikaze" planes launching another large-scale attack on Chinese warships and with the support of strategic bombers, they should penetrate five miles to the north and penetrate the Chinese army's front like a wedge.

The road was opened under heavy artillery cover, and then two wings were used to attack east of Route 5, while the other company charged down the Maeda Heights and, supported by a considerable number of tanks, rushed along the road to the distant heights, and the 44th Mixed Brigade turned west after a half-mile of the charge. In order to confuse the enemy, amphibious landings will be carried out on the east and west banks behind the Chinese army front.

On the evening of 3 April, the bombardment of the positions of the Chinese army began, and the "kamikaze" group also attacked the Chinese army ships at the same time, sinking one destroyer, one landing ship, and damaging four ships of other types.

As soon as midnight passed, 60 Yaeyama heavy bombers began bombing the rear of the Chinese Seventh Army, while at the same time, the landing force was heading north along the east and west coasts by barge, and the amphibious forces on the west coast mistakenly landed near a company of the Chinese Marine Corps.

The Japanese shouted "Long live" alarmed the company, and they fired at the Japanese with dense mortars, machine guns, and rifles, inflicting heavy casualties on the Japanese troops. Few survived the attack, and were later cornered and wiped out.

The only captive was a carrier pigeon, which the Chinese Marines let with a letter when they let it go: "We return the pigeon to you, we are very sorry, we cannot return your demolition sappers to you as well." ”

This was a mockery of the Japanese by the Marines. The amphibious forces in the north along the east coast were spotted by a patrol boat of the Chinese Navy, which immediately fired flares to illuminate the coast in that area. Most of the barges were sunk, and dozens of people who had come ashore were wiped out.

An hour before dawn, the Japanese artillery bombardment reached its peak, and the sound of artillery was deafening, which lasted for half an hour. Then two red flares rose in the sky - the signal for the attack. The Japanese infantry rushed up like a tidal wave. The 2,000 Japanese troops on the right were quickly wiped out in an open area by the Chinese artillery. Those who were not killed still wanted to rush forward, but they were also wiped out one by one on the unsheltered flat ground.

The attack in the middle was a success. Backed by tanks. However, with the help of anti-tank rocket artillery, the medium and heavy tanks were all immobilized by the artillery of the Chinese army, and only nine light tanks drove behind the vanguard.

The vanguard was a brigade led by Captain Koichi Ito, with a total of 600 people. Ito's troops broke through the Chinese army lines in the pre-dawn darkness, but were suppressed by automatic weapon fire. Nine light tanks tried to rush up, but were hit one by one by artillery. Having lost the support of the tanks, Ito decided to continue the offensive and led his troops towards the first target. This target is a hill near Tanahara, a mile and a half northeast of Maeda Highland.

Forenoon. The command of the 32nd Army received sporadic reports. Claiming to have won a considerable victory, the Japanese troops in the cave under the ruins of Fukue Island Castle celebrated lively. However, with the exception of Ito. No one broke through the defense line of the Chinese army. Ito was given orders. It is necessary to attack the hill north of Tanahara, that night. He led his troops along both sides of Highway 5. But it was blocked by Chinese artillery fire.

The Japanese tanks drove up in the dark, and Ito, with the support of armored troops, continued to advance. The artillery fire of the Chinese army was fierce. Six tanks were destroyed, but Ito and his troops rushed through the Chinese lines. After a hard battle, Ito finally completed the one-kilometer journey to Tanahara. They mined the road through the town and built an arc on the hillside before daybreak. Then, he sent a telegram—the cipher had died—that he and four hundred and fifty men had reached their destination. He was ordered to stand by.

By noon on 5 April, even Chang Yong, who was strongly advocating the launch of this counteroffensive, saw very clearly that the counteroffensive had been defeated. Now he saw that Fukue Island had no glimmer of hope; Failure is a certainty.

Ito remained on the hill north of Tanahara, but under pressure from all sides, more than 100 people had been burned or killed by flamethrowers, mortars and grenades during the day. The next morning, the Chinese army continued its attack, and Ito repelled these attacks at the expense of manpower.

By this time, less than one hundred and fifty of the six hundred men at the time of the counteroffensive were left. Just as Ito himself was about to give up his life on the battlefield, a stone flew into his bunker, wrapped in paper. It was a retreat order he had just received from his operator.

When saying goodbye to the wounded, he handed them grenades. Then, gather the uninjured at the foot of the mountain. At midnight, they rode south in the dark. But when passing through a mile-long enemy position, quite a bit was reimbursed. Only Ito and a dozen others stood out from the encirclement.

The Japanese did their best in the counteroffensive, but they were easily crushed by the Seventh Army. China had achieved this victory at the same time as another, much more significant victory. At noon on April 8, all the artillery of the Chinese Navy and Army fired three times in succession - Hawaii was completely occupied.

It is one thing to defeat the Japanese when they are openly charging to their death, and it is another thing to destroy the Japanese troops who are secretly hiding in the cave to defend, and the battle is extremely hard. The Maeda Heights were stained red with blood, and the two sides took turns occupying the hills. The first battalion of an infantry regiment in China lost more than half of its strength in eight days, and lost eight company commanders in 36 hours.

The losses of the Japanese were even heavier. Take the young Captain Shimura's brigade, which had been guarding the hill with 600 men, but now there were less than 50 left, most of them seriously wounded. Although the order to retreat came, he still refused to retreat.

He was going to die where most of his men died. The wing insisted that he retreat, and a staff officer of the 24th Division sent him a handwritten letter, saying: "If you want to die, you must find a battlefield worthy of death." ”

Shimura told everyone the order that he would stay and fight guerrillas. "If you want to stay with me, you can stay. We will hold on to this hill to the death. "Some of them went underground, the rest retreated, and the Maeda Heights fell into the hands of the Chinese.

After capturing the Maeda Heights, the Chinese army then launched an offensive on the entire island, but the progress was slow. Two whole divisions of the Marine Corps controlled Western Hebei, and the 6th Division, after hard fighting, occupied the "Sugar Cube Mountain", which was at the western end of the defense line and less than a mile from Fujiang Island; The 2nd Division, which had moved from Guadalcanal, advanced along a narrow, rock-strewn valley that led to the former capital.

On the east flank, three divisions of the 14th Army Corps slowly advanced, taking the "Coffee Mountain", "Gaoding Mountain" and other hills to the east of Fukue Island.

By dusk on April 21, Fukue Island Castle itself was under attack on three sides. After dark, the fighting stopped, and it began to pour rain.

The Kanna Valley was a quagmire, where tanks and amphibious tractors were stuck and unable to move. Throughout the front, bunkers dug on hillsides began to collapse, and holes dug in flat ground were like leaky boats, requiring constant scooping of water. It rained heavily for almost a whole week. The food that could be delivered to the front was pitiful: it was impossible to sleep in the incessant rain, and the dead could not be buried, so they had to rot and stink.

Although the heavy rain gave Shogun Ushijima a respite, he decided to abandon Fukue Island. In the bloody battle to defend Fukue Island, Ushijima lost more than 60,000 soldiers. The core forces of his army, the 62nd Division, the 24th Division, and the 44th Independent Mixed Brigade were also crushed by naval guns, ground artillery fire, aircraft bombardment, and infantry and tank attacks.

Some of his subordinates were adamantly opposed to the retreat, and even a partial retreat was met with protests. Ushijima, however, categorically ordered a retreat, on the grounds that holding on to Fukue Island would inevitably hasten the fall of Fukue Island. (To be continued......)