Pacifica Military History Free Sample Chapters.pmd

314 Pacifica Military History
lines, and those drew yet more fire. The quality and speed of the gunnery
paid deadly dividends.
*
The tiny parachute battalion, spared the previous night, bore the brunt
of a vicious head-on assault. The action on the ‘Chutes’ front began
when two mortar rounds landed in C Company’s lines, killing one trooper
and wounding another. The ‘Chutes responded by pitching hand grenades
down the steep slopes at the sound of voices.
As the action heated up and the Japanese routes of advance were
revealed, Capt Bill McKennan’s A Company was ordered for-ward from
its reserve position to man a secondary line on the re-verse slope of the
ridge, behind B and C companies.
Fearful that a powerful attack might breach his weak line, Capt Justin
Duryea, whose B Company was holding the cleared area in the center
of the ridge, directly beneath Red Mike’s forward CP, ordered smoke
pots ignited to screen his front. A red flare burst overhead at the moment
of ignition, and its light was reflected off the smudgy black curtain.
Someone yelled, “Gas attack!” Blood ran cold as the smoke oozed over
the red-lighted ground; everyone had long ago discarded his gas mask.
The Japanese struck as additional flares were lofted into the red
sky, surging down the spurs and wildly charging along the pro-truding
spine and the dark edges of the low jungle flats. They punched through
from dead ahead, officers waving swords aloft while yelling “Totsugeki!”
and “Banzai!” at the top of their lungs. Riflemen fired their .25-caliber
Arisaka rifles and 7.7mm Nambu light machine guns from their hips,
hurled grenades, and fired their strange little “knee mortars.” They
screamed their oaths and fired their weapons and sacrificed their lives
for their emperor.
Most of the B Company troopers held firm, and the Japanese rolled
away to their right front, hitting Capt Dick Johnson’s pla-toon-size C
Company. Cpl Ernie DeFazio, a squad leader whose squad had been
disbanded, was firing at sounds in the dark when he saw a red, glowing
light coming at him. There was barely time to secure his helmet with
his left hand and duck. The object, a grenade launched by a knee mortar,
burst overhead and badly lac-erated DeFazio’s left hand. DeFazio did