Chapter Fifty-Six: A Failed Night Attack
Waiting, this is the only thing that can be done in the river at the moment, time passes little by little, the hour hand on the watch quickly points to 5 o'clock in the afternoon, the dusk sunset appears in the river's sight, it is about to get dark. Kawama had always been impressed by the fierce machine-gun fire of his opponents, and his squadron would have to face machine gun fire if they wanted to cross the open ground between the jungle and the trenches, and he didn't think that his 200 men would be able to rush through the enemy's machine gun fire, so it would be a good idea to sneak around at night.
"Eat, rest, and wait until it gets dark." Kawama's orders were as simple as ever, and his soldiers had long been accustomed to following Kawama's orders. Two cold rice balls and a pot of cold water, this is Hejian's dinner, as simple as the soldiers' food, Hejian has no complaints about this, but while he chews on the rice balls that are already a little rancid, he mutters in his heart to express his dissatisfaction with the food. Kawama is just a small young man, with only one squadron under his command, and those guys with higher ranks than him in the military headquarters and division headquarters will not eat such rancid rice balls.
Swallowing the rice ball in his mouth hard, Kawama took out a cigarette, night has fallen, lighting the fire will only expose the target, but Kawama, who is addicted to smoking, has another way. Tearing open the cigarette roll, Kawama pinched a pinch of tobacco and stuffed it into his mouth, chewing the shredded tobacco can also achieve the effect of smoking, which Kawama learned from veterans in the army, especially the old smoking gun that is quite addicted to smoking is the most effective. The smell of the tobacco stimulates Kawama's nerves, allowing Kawama to concentrate on sneaking around the night for a while in his mind.
The soldiers who had eaten the rice balls sat quietly, and after about half an hour, Kawama, who had been chewing tobacco with his eyes closed, suddenly gave the order to start the operation. More than 20 soldiers who volunteered to serve as death squads stripped their shirts and took bundles of explosives and tied them to their bodies, these daredevils would be the first echelon of stealth, and their task was to use themselves as open-path bombs to provide cover for their follow-up sneaking companions after they were discovered by the other side. Behind the death squad were 40 veterans under Kawama, all of whom were veterans of a hundred battles who had survived life and death, and were the main force for Kawama to break through the opponent's defense.
Kawama and the rest of the soldiers are the third echelon, and when those death squads and veterans rush into the opponent's trenches for a melee, the third echelon under his command will immediately follow up and use the number of people to expand the advantage of the side. All these steps of action, Kawama had already deduced in his mind several times when the soldiers were resting after dinner, and it was after he was sure that there were no more omissions that he gave the order to start the operation. The daredevils with explosives bags strapped to their bodies slowly crawled forward against the ground, followed by veterans with bayonets in their mouths, and the night was their best cover, and Kawama believed that the crawling advance of his soldiers would definitely not alarm the other party.
Things seemed to be going the way Kawama had expected, and as he watched the last veteran disappear into the night, Kawama made a gesture of preparing to attack. The soldiers who watched the night with wide eyes began to prepare for the attack, the machine gun bullets were loaded, the bayonets had been added to the rifles, everything seemed to be ready, just waiting for the signal from the daredevils who had set off in advance. A fireball suddenly bloomed in the "boom" night, and the other daredevils and Japanese veterans who were crawling on the ground were all exposed to the firelight.
Seeing this scene, Kawama couldn't help but curse in a low voice, this was not a good signal for him to talk to the death squad, it must have been discovered by the enemy by the death squad. At such a time, waiting will only passively lose the best opportunity to attack, and Kawama, who is bent on breaking through the opponent's defense line and making a great contribution, does not want to wait any longer, "Attack, right away." Under the strong order of the river, the soldiers who were waiting for the follow-up rushed out of the jungle and pounced on the enemy trenches a few hundred meters away.
"Whew" There was a light again in the night, this time it was a fire dragon blocking the enemy trench, the despicable guy actually made a shallow ditch outside the trench, the shallow ditch must have been splashed with oil, otherwise this fire dragon would not have caught so quickly. Knowing that the sneaking has been discovered by the other party, Kawama can't take care of it so much, and personally carries the command knife to direct his soldiers to charge, and it doesn't take much time to open the ground of a few hundred meters, as long as the death squad in the front detonates the explosives bags on their bodies, Kawama has enough time to rush through this open area to reach the opponent's trench.
"Boom", "Boom", "Boom" A series of explosions made the night sky unusually bright, and the expected explosive package was detonated, but the explosions almost all happened at the same time, making it impossible for the veterans who followed up to get close to the other party's trenches. The machine guns in the trenches were fired, and the dense rain of bullets fired against the surface made the Japanese veterans under Kawama suffer, because of the lighting of the fire, the Japanese veterans who were crawling on the ground had nowhere to hide, and could only become a live target for the opponent's machine gunners.
The 40 veterans selected by Kawama suffered more than one-third of the casualties just by taking a look, and the rest were all suppressed on the ground by the barrage and unable to move, and the night attack carefully planned by Kawama was a complete failure. "Retreat, retreat" As a last resort, Hejian could only order a retreat, all the advantages had turned into disadvantages, and if he continued to fight, Hejian didn't know how many people would be left in his squadron.
The retreat was wishful thinking on the part of Kawama, but his opponents did not seem to intend to let them go, and the machine guns in the trenches began to fire extendedly, and several of the soldiers who were slightly taller as they retreated were knocked to the ground. When the Fifth Division cleared the remnants of the U.S. Army in the Philippine jungle, Hejian's squadron exchanged fire with the U.S. troops using this machine gun, so he knew the super firepower of this American machine gun.
"Boom" "Boom" "Boom" The mortars left at the starting point between the rivers began to bombard the opponent's machine gun fire points, and the gun flames from the muzzles of the machine guns were the best guidance for the Japanese gunners. "Withdraw, withdraw." The brief pause of the machine guns allowed Kawama to retreat into the forest with his soldiers, and by the time the machine guns in the trenches rained down again, all the soldiers who were still alive had withdrawn, but the daredevils and 40 veterans did not return.
The trees in the woodland were their best cover, and the wounded soldiers sat together, helping each other to treat their wounds, while the river looked gloomily at the light of the fire in the distance. With 20 daredevils, 40 veterans of a hundred battles, and the dozen or so soldiers who were hit by the enemy's machine guns during the retreat, the squadron in the river lost a squad of troops at once, and his squadron had already suffered more than half of the casualties by the enemy guerrilla troops.
"Boom" and "boom" two explosions interrupted Hema's contemplation, two fireballs blooming in the night exposed Hema to the bright light, "Oops" Hema realized that this was an attack, "Da Da" A dozen flickering gunfire towards Hema They kept spitting bullet rain towards Hejian, but his reaction was still no faster than the dark red bullet rain that pierced the night sky. The thick smell of blood began to spread through the woodland, and with the help of the firelight, the blood mist that rose from the bullets of his soldiers could even be seen in the river.
"Bang" Kawama's body shook, a bullet passed through his chest, breath-holding and dizziness surged into Kawama's head at the same time, and the massive blood loss in an instant made Kawama's body soften, if it weren't for the soldiers around him to help, Kawama was afraid that he would have fallen to the ground at this time. "Shaozo was shot, cover, cover." The soldiers around the river shouted loudly, and two strong soldiers carried the river and retreated deep into the woodland, while the other soldiers raised their guns to provide them with fire cover.
The fire in the woodland burned more and more, and the Japanese soldiers who were exposed to the light fell one after another in the rain of bullets, and some people thought about extinguishing the fires, but no matter what other way they used grenades to blow up, the fire in the woodland still could not be extinguished, which meant that they had to continue to be exposed to the light of the fire and suffer from the rain of bullets. Kawama, who was carried away by his soldiers, did not seem to have escaped the tragic fate, only escaped only a few dozen meters away, and the three of them were knocked to the ground by the bullets behind the back of their trousers, especially in the middle of the river, three bullets were hit in a row, and before his body completely fell to the ground, he had become a corpse.
The soldiers who had been withdrawn from the night raid were quickly killed and wounded, and even those who survived were lying motionless on the ground with bated breath, and the attackers did not show up until it was dark, and the surviving soldiers of the Kawama squadron did not see the shadow of the attackers, as if they had never appeared. There are still unextinguished sparks in the scorched woodland, and the green smoke rising from the curls makes this woodland more popular, if you don't care about the corpses in the woodland, maybe this forest looks good.
The two soldiers of the Hejian squadron, who had narrowly escaped the attack last night, lifted the corpse pressed on them and sat up, using the corpse of their companion to sit and cover it, which was a last resort, and before life and death, they had no choice but to live. The two men looked at each other, then gestured inquiringly, and after making sure they were safe, they began to look through the bodies in an attempt to find their injured companions.
"I knew you damn Japanese would play dead," a playful voice appeared in the woodland, and the two Japanese soldiers who were looking through the corpses subconsciously grabbed the rifles next to them and aimed at the place where the sound sounded. "Pap", "Pap", "Pap", "Pap" Four gunshots rang out in succession, and the two Japanese soldiers who were shot in the shoulder sockets on both sides fell on their backs, "Since you don't want to live anymore, then wait here for death." "Four more bullets fired from the depths of the woodland shattered the leg bones of the two Japanese soldiers, but the owner of the voice never showed up.