One thousand and one hundred kilometers southeast of Rabaul, on the east coast of Malaita Island, Captain Alexandre Archer Van der Grift crouched quietly in his foxhole, his gaze scanning back and forth at the beach shrouded in night, but the rustle of the waves in his ears was like a lullaby, luring him to sleep. ww）

Thirty-year-old Captain Vandergraft, who came from a family of building contractors in Virginia, grew up listening to adults tell stories about American wars, and even more so after school that he joined the Marine Corps after graduating from the University of Virginia at the age of twenty-two.

Before the war, Vandergravet had served as a military academy instructor and participated in the landing operations that intervened in the revolutions in Cuba and Nicaragua, and on Christmas Day 1914, when Chinese planes over Pearl Harbor swept over the masts of American warships, he had just received his lieutenant promotion order in Puerto Veracruz, Mexico.

In Vandergrift's view, the war was conspired by the Chinese and German militarist cliques to impose on the American people - until the attack on Pearl Harbor, the vast majority of Americans were shy away from the newly deadlocked European war, and few people thought that the war would first break out in the Pacific and burn to the American mainland in the first place.

In just a few weeks, Hawaii fell, the Philippines was lost, the Panama Canal and West Coast cities were bombarded with air raids and shelling, and the American public was suddenly dominated by anger and fear.

Fortunately, the rumors did not come true, and Vander Grift was also ordered to leave Mexico and go to Naval Base San Diego in California to become the commander of Company B, 1st Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment, newly formed Marine Corps.

Vandergraft vividly remembers that when he first inspected the company, the only weapons in B Company were a few dozen Spanish-American War-era 405-inch (10.3 mm) Winchester M1895 lever bolt rifles, plus a hundred or so wooden guns that were rougher than toys.

Vander Graft immediately protested to his superiors. Under the harassment of his company, his superiors quickly made a remedy: more than a hundred Civil War-era single-shot black powder rifles were allocated to his company, a large part of which were requisitioned from the local population.

Vandergrift couldn't help but soon saw hope: all the latest and greatest infantry weapons began to be prioritized for the Marine Corps, and he realized that the Marines would have to be the first to fight against the militaristic enemy in East Asia.

In September 1915, when Vandergravet's company embarked from Vancouver. When he went to Alaska to participate in the counteroffensive on Kodiak Island, the whole company was two hundred and four. It was equipped with dozens of 45-inch (11.43 mm) Browning M1911 semi-automatic pistols, more than 150 30-inch (7.62 mm) Springfield M1903 pull-up bolt-action rifles, four 30-inch Lewis M1915 disc-fed air-cooled light machine guns, and eight "grenade rifles" fitted with "French-style" grenade firing devices.

When necessary, B Company, as a rifle company, was also provided with two to four 30-inch Vickers chain-fed water-cooled heavy machine guns reinforced by the battalion's machine gun company, and in general, the equipment level of B Company at that time was no less than that of the British or French infantry companies on the European battlefield during the same period.

On Kodiak Island, Van der Grifft's company was confronted by a rì army with a very different equipment and organization than the jīng gods, and the soldiers of the rì army were on the verge of bewilderment. and the "grenadiers" in their hands, which far exceeded the grenade grenade generators, left a deep impression on the fledgling marines, or rather, a painful memory.

After another nine months, when Company B boarded the ship from Port Vila to Malaita Island, the company had two hundred and fifty-six men, except for pistols and rifles. Eight Lewis light machine guns, eight grenade rifles, and four 2-inch (51 mm) "East Asian-style" grenadiers were equipped, with an average of two light machine guns, two grenade rifles, and one grenadier per rifle, which was even higher than the infantry companies of the U.S. Expeditionary Force sent to France during the same period.

In addition, with the approval of the regimental headquarters. Other infantry heavy weapons that could be reinforced directly into a company included a 30-inch Browning M1916 water-cooled heavy machine gun, a 37 mm Pito M1916 light infantry gun that fired shè 1-pound (0.45 kg) heavy artillery shells, and a 3-inch (76.2 mm) Stoke mortar.

Within two weeks of landing, B Company had changed three defensive positions, one farther away from the landing field, and at this moment, this small stretch of coast at the foot of Van der Grift. It was the fourth position that B Company had entered just 24 hours earlier, and it was five miles (about eight kilometers) away from the landing site at Zhōngyāng in Ulu Bay.

Time was of the essence, and Company B had not had time to dig a coherent trench or lay mines or barbed wire barriers on the beach, and all personnel and equipment were temporarily sheltered in waist-high foxholes and improvised bunkers.

In order to effectively defend this stretch of 1,600 feet (about 500 meters) of beach, B Company received two heavy machine gun squads, one light infantry gun squad, and one 3-inch mortar squad reinforced by the regimental headquarters, for a total of four Browning heavy machine guns, two 37-mm infantry guns, and two 3-inch mortars, and the total strength of the reinforced company exceeded 300 men.

Vander Grift placed heavy machine guns and infantry guns on either flank of the line to form cross-vertical fire on the front of the main defense. Three infantry platoons, armed with light machine guns, grenade rifles and grenadiers, lined up to hold the frontal front. At the rear, mortars and an infantry platoon as a reserve were placed behind the defensive line for support.

The telephone of the company headquarters can be directly connected to the shore defense artillery command, and it is possible to mobilize dozens of 75 mm to 155 mm caliber cannons at any time to inflict a "baptism of death" on the "yellow monkeys" who have landed on a large scale -- such an "epic" scene, Vander Gravet has naturally been fascinated for a long time.

The sound of the waves was still there, and just when the captain and company commander were half-asleep and half-awake, a gunshot was faintly heard, which made his heart flutter, and the sleepiness that had been entangled for half the night suddenly disappeared.

The gunfire came from the north corner of the position, what happened? Is it the sentinel misfired, or is it ......

Without waiting for Vandergrift to think about it, an unfamiliar burst of gunfire followed, sounding like some kind of weapon that fired in bursts, but it was neither like the muffled thud of a water-cooled heavy machine gun, nor like the crisp clatter of an air-cooled light machine gun, the sound was softer and denser, but like a swarm of hornets that had exploded their nests roaring.

Could it be that this is the legendary "hand-held machine gun" or "submachine gun" unique to the Jīng Rui unit of the Chinese army?

"Whew~~~"

A 3-inch mortar flare lit up the night sky, and the beach in front of the position suddenly seemed like daylight, Vander Gravet raised his telescope and looked at the north corner of the position, only to see a few black and slimy things floating faintly on the waterline of the beachhead, and dozens of strange figures swaying around, neither like people, nor animals, nor like some kind of machinery, but like some kind of evil thing that had just escaped from hell......

"Fire, fire! Where's my flare gun......" (To be continued.) If you like this work, you are welcome to vote for recommendation and monthly passes, and your support is my biggest motivation. )

PS: Author's note: Alexander. Archer. Alexander Archer Vandegrift, nicknamed Archie, was the commander of the 1st Marine Division of the United States Marine Corps during World War II. In August 1942, he led his troops to launch an attack on Guadalcanal, landed successfully, and made great achievements during the famous Battle of Guadalcanal: in November 1943, he commanded amphibious troops to land on Bourganville Island. On January 1, 1944, he was promoted to commander of the 18th Marine Expeditionary Force. On April 4 of the following year, he was promoted to major general. He was awarded the "Distinguished Service Medal" on June 30, 1946, and retired from active duty on December 31 of the same year. A US Navy Perry-class missile frigate, commissioned in 1984, is named after it.