Authors: Japanese Reaping the Whirlwind: Personal Accounts of the German,Italian Experiences of WW II
The fire was so intense that they were forced to withdraw without them.
They do not return. At the time we were under enemy fire, it seemed to me that no one was hit. Still, were they, after all, killed by those enemy bullets, or wounded, or fallen victim to guerrillas? Such are the unpleasant thoughts that float unbidden through my mind.
But eventually the three men made it back, uninjured – ‘then there is a warm lump constricting the throat and suddenly hot tears begin to flow’.
This was our baptism of fire under American bullets. It has been good experience, and serves to reinforce our determination that they shall be destroyed without loss to ourselves.
Despite the success of the infiltration raid, the enemy hit back harder than ever with bombing, shelling and strafing. Obara’s men were forced to dig in. They no longer dug fortified trenches as they had earlier in the war. Instead they dug ‘individual “spider-trap” foxholes or cave-type tunnel dugouts’.
The Greater East Asia War, especially since Guadalcanal up to the present, is a story written in blood. The design of our present shelters has been drawn in the precious blood of countless war dead. In these dugouts which we dig with only pick-axe and shovel, and in these arms streaming with sweat, there lives the blood and sweat of veteran officers and men who have gone before us. It is these spirits of heroes who died in defence of the fatherland that inspire us.
On 2 March, they were ordered to recapture Yamata and Shikishima Hill, which had been overrun by the enemy.
At 2400 hours on 4 March, as ordered, we attack Shikishima Hill, recapture and hold it. However, in spite of the success of our assault, the enemy comes rolling back as irresistibly as a landslide, penetrating our positions and compelling our withdrawal to Mount Mukyu. Their assault is indescribably ferocious, both in mechanized force and artillery fire.
The enemy were quick to press home their counterattack.
Since 9 March we have been besieged on all sides by the enemy, encircled and cut off from reinforcements … Meanwhile, the enemy’s lavish use of shot and shell and incendiaries has to an amazing degree denuded the mountains and even the marshes of the surrounding area … Our telephone lines to the rear have at last been cut. We must from now on fight completely on our own initiative: if we are to get back, we must break through the enemy … Of the men in the units who were dug in among the surrounding hills and valleys, the greater part has already died a hero’s death … When I think of what we could do if only we had aircraft, or if only we had artillery comparable to the enemy’s, I taste tears of anger. We are few, but we will fight on with whatever weapons and ammunition we have left. The enemy continues to destroy our positions one by one with deluges of shells and bombs, lavishing many thousands of rounds on the capture of each little hill. In the attacks on Mount Shori and Mount Mukyu, they blasted each with about 50,000 projectiles. It was a weird sight in full daylight to see these mountains become obscured from view by the intensity of the bombardment … From the skies overhead, bombs follow shells in a continuous rain as the intense bombardment continues. Meanwhile we behold roads constructed regardless of the steepness of the gradient, followed by a flow of vehicles, one after another bringing more ammunition to the summit. No matter how unpleasant it is to admit it, I see before me with my own eyes the enormous strength of mechanized power. It is said that at Saipan, the shelling attained a rate of about one ton per square metre. I really believe what we are seeing here exceeds that.
Some of the incoming whistlers end in a tremendous explosion, while others produce nothing at all because they are streaming over our heads to pour down on our positions in the rear … Three or four or even five of our men are lying dead out there, and it affects me deeply that, because of the intensity of the fighting, we cannot recover their bodies. I pray the gods to send us some planes. Even one plane would help …
Each time a barrage is heard coming closer, each of us in this dugout wonders, ‘It this it? Is this it?’ I think this feeling must be how it feels to mount the steps to the scaffold one by one. Regardless of how one feels mounting the scaffold, the steps must be climbed. Simply stated, one climbs without faltering because it is in the defence of the noble land of our ancestors …
We have gone through all undestroyed dugouts gathering and sorting everything edible from the inedible … By tomorrow night they will all be consumed. When our supplies are finally gone, then will come the time for each of us loyally to offer up his blood for Emperor and country.
17 March: Another day and I am still alive. I say to myself, I am still alive, and yet it is strange, such a thin line separates death from life. There is life beyond death; is there not also death in life? We live from moment to moment, and while we live, we live only to fight the enemy. It seems that beyond the smoke of battle, I can see a broad highway extending to the limits of heaven, and it leads to the Yasukuni Shrine. It is in my thoughts that this is the place and this is the time of my death.
Obara did not die. Instead he watched a bird in the treetops. Its feathers were bedraggled, but ‘when it sings, its voice is quite lovely’. Then the thought struck him, ‘This ordinary patch of trees may be my home for eternity.’ Meanwhile, ‘Today three of my men blacken their faces and cheerfully set out to find and attack the enemy.’ But he himself began to reveal misgivings:
One mission certain of achievement is the command, ‘Forward to death!’ I cannot conceive of myself as the person who might have to issue such a tremendous order. ‘Go die!’ ‘Come die!’ Short words that carry an eternity of meaning. One speaks readily enough of right of command, supreme authority and so forth, but am I, upon whom this role has fallen, a person who could issue orders of such finality? Our mission, in any event, is to strive for victory, Whatever comes, we must win and win and win again.
Nevertheless, he conceded: ‘Sooner or later, we must take the road that leads to Yasukuni Shrine.’
Despite the overwhelming odds, the Japanese counterattacked and returned to their positions on Mount Hoshuku. Even so, shells and bombs continued to rain down on them.
Let them come. We will destroy the enemy with one blow. Our morale is extremely high … Somehow we will triumph. Yes! For the sake of victory, we will endure all.
And there was plenty to endure:
Shells from heavy guns, medium guns and light guns, mingled with white phosphorous incendiaries, are falling incessantly. In a period of 30 minutes, the area of the mortar squad and my command bunker was hit by approximately 750 to 800 bursts, of those about 80 or 90 close to my command bunker … I tried counting them. After five or six minutes I had reached 170, but then had to give up because shells seemed to be exploding three, four, five at a time. We were hit, not by one shell per square metre, but by three or four. Even in the side hole of my bunker I was stunned by the excessive ferocity of this shelling. All around us, the air is filled with shell fragments, bursts of dirt, the flaring of phosphorous incendiaries and smoke. Inside, there is darkness and the choking stench of phosphorous. I think, this is the end, and put on my gas mask. The concussion that follows the explosions shakes my anti-blast curtain and makes it flap, and then the pressure seems to stop my breathing. I keep wondering, ‘Is this the end? Now? Now?’ I have lost all feeling of being alive.
This intense barrage continues for about an hour and then seems to taper off, but the shells continue to come in at a rate of 200 or 300 an hour. After about two hours, the rate of shelling had diminished. I creep out of my side hole, through the crumbling foxhole, and stick my head out to survey the situation. The hillside into which we have dug our position now appears ploughed and harrowed beyond description. Directly before me are trees torn out by their roots. Even our reserves’ foxholes are mostly crumbled or buried.
However, a miracle has come to pass – no, not a miracle, it is divine aid. Not one of my men has even a scratch. Wonderful! Wonderful! The men, all plastered with dirt, cannot help laughing as now here, now there, another blackened face pops out of the ground …
This afternoon an attack using flame-throwers is mounted against our Futaba Hill positions, but is repelled by the spirited fighting of our reserves supported by fire from our main force, and the enemy retreats in confusion. We prepare to repel attack but have nothing to do but observe as the enemy retreats in disarray with loud howls of pain. No matter how they are hurt, what a disgrace to bawl like that. Several of their voices sounded incredibly like babies who have burned themselves. Grown men crying as they ran away! It is a farce, ridiculous in the extreme for the enemy to bawl in view of the Japanese Army. It is too much even to speak of it. After watching and waiting for a worthy opponent, it makes one feel as if a treat had been snatched away. We feel puzzled and let down.
Repeated attempts were made to take Futaba Hill, each of which was fought off with high American casualties. Then the Japanese heard of the ‘unprecedently great victory off Okinawa’. On 1 April, US troops had landed on Okinawa, the first of Japan’s home islands to be invaded. But on 4 April, 700
kamikaze
pilots attacked the invasion fleet, sinking 13 ships. In the Philippines, the Japanese were feeling bullish.
Judging by information gleaned from enemy classified documents, the bulk of the enemy forces now facing us on the Philippines battle front apparently consists of draftees who were called up in America around January and immediately put on transports … May the time be soon at hand when they will all be dealt with …
With such an inconsequential enemy on its way, there was time to appreciate the natural world:
The sky is so blue it hurts the eyes. There is not even a wisp of cloud.
The Americans resumed their tactic of heavy shelling of the Japanese positions, killing or wounding many of Obara’s men – though his troops had some successes of their own.
Our raids on the 8th killed nearly 50 of the enemy, and yet … the stream of shells continues unabated and by ones and twos our number continues to diminish. Rank upon rank of the enemy is spread into the distance before us. We are day by day, moment to moment, on the steps between life and death.
Nevertheless, the news from Okinawa lifted their spirits, along with the hope that this might herald the return of Japanese fighters to the Philippines to challenge the US in the sky. It did not on dawn on Obara that the
kamikaze
attacks were, in fact, depleting their stocks of aeroplanes.
If only it were not for the enemy planes, no matter how intense their shelling, their land forces would be no great problem for us. It angers me to think that these wretches, who howl when struck by bullets, are able unceasingly to deluge us with an astronomical number of shells, while we are barely able to reply. Sometimes I pick up enemy propaganda and look it over, but generally it is so childish, it is as painful as it is funny. ‘Final Surrender Proclamations’ are stuck up on trees, telling us to come and give ourselves up, but to come in daylight, not at night, and not in large groups, but a few at a time, so that they, the American soldiers, can see us coming. It is utterly ridiculous. From this we see all the better just how much the enemy fears our night raids. To me this is an admission of weakness.
Every so often the guns fell silent.
The extraordinary stillness at such times … gives one an indescribably weird feeling. But just as one had begun to wonder, can this really be the field of war? the interlude of some ten or 20 minutes is again shattered by the same maddening roar.
On 13 April, Obara came down with malaria and lay shivering in his dugout while P-51s bombed and strafed it so intensely that he began to worry that his foxhole might crumble. Even the elements seemed to be against them:
Last night this field of battle was deluged by heavy rain. It was a terrifying chaos of thunder mingled with the roar of guns and the explosion of shells. Water collected two or three inches deep in our foxholes, so that even in the midst of the downpour of water at shells, men found it necessary to get out and bail.
But then came more good news.
News from abroad tells us that our great victory at Okinawa has led to greater consequences, and our hearts leap up … Roosevelt has dropped dead of a stroke, most likely brought on by the shock of having so many ships sunk. It serves him right.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt had indeed died on 12 April; he was replaced by Harry S. Truman. US troops again tried to take Futaba Hill and were beaten off with heavy casualties. They then withdrew completely, leaving Obara time to write a long poem hailing Japan’s inevitable victory. More men were killed and wounded, but Obara’s spirits were raised once again on 22 April:
More details of the great victory off Okinawa have been announced. At least 400 ships were sunk. Estimating over 1,500 men per ship, a total of almost 800,000 men were sent to the bottom off Okinawa. The faces of our men light up with joy.
Despite this ‘great victory’ the Americans still had the wherewithal to shell, bomb and strafe the Japanese on the Philippines, causing inevitable casualties. Obara recorded how much he admired his comrades who died with ‘
Banzai
!’ or ‘Long live the emperor!’ on their lips. There were attacks and counterattacks, both equally costly, and the endless shelling had completely denuded the mountain.