Samurai & Snipers полностью

Aboard the light cruiser USS Boise, General Douglas MacArthur managed the whole operation. There was still so much fighting going on that he had not transferred his base of operations to shore since landing and making his famous “I have returned” statement. The formidable “light” cruiser, named for the capital city of Idaho, was six hundred feet in length and carried an armament of fifteen six-inch guns that could spit a shell more than a dozen miles, along with antiaircraft guns and machine guns that could make short work of anything from a Zero to a Betty bomber. No ship was immune to a kamikaze attack, but so far USS Boise had not been targeted.

In addition to the security provided by the light cruiser, coordination with land forces and the US Navy was much easier from the ship. The living conditions weren’t so bad, either — at least compared to living on land. For starters, there were the three squares a day served up by the navy cooks — also plenty of hot coffee. There weren’t any mosquitoes to deal with at sea like there were on land. They did have to contend with flies that swarmed in through the portholes that had been opened to capture the ocean breezes and provide fresh air. Then again, this was no luxury cruise. No part of the ship was air-conditioned and not even the general had a fan.

MacArthur’s heart ached as he pondered the potential devastation that would befall the Philippines in the midst of war. His love for the islands and its people ran deep, rooted in their rich history that intertwined the culture of the Filipino people with that of the Europeans who had settled there. From the Spanish arrival in the sixteenth century to the American influence since 1898, Manila had become a charming blend of old-world charm and modern flair.

But now, the forces of Imperial Japan sought to leave destruction in their wake. MacArthur feared for the future of Manila and all its beauty. The city’s lovely avenues and historic buildings could soon be reduced to rubble and ruin by the cruel hands of war.

As much as he longed for victory, MacArthur knew that there was always a price to pay in times of conflict. Lives would be lost, farmland burned, towns and villages left in ruins, perhaps Manila itself would be destroyed. It was a harsh reality that the general never forgot, even in his moments of hope for a better tomorrow.

Captain Jim Oatmire had gotten a taste of conditions on shore, and he wasn’t eager to return. As one of General MacArthur’s junior staff members, he was more than happy to remain on the ship, with its regular hot meals and relative comforts compared to sleeping in a foxhole.

He had moved with the general’s staff to the new ship from USS Nashville, which had been hit by a kamikaze attack in December that had killed nearly two hundred sailors. All too well, Oatmire remembered that terrifying attack. Despite the Nashville’s many guns, it was hard to bring down a single Japanese Zero flying hundreds of miles per hour, with no other intent than to crash into the ship.

There had been no real warning. One moment was quiet, and the next moment the gun crews had been banging away. Two planes had been targeting the ship and the antiaircraft fire brought one of them down. However, the second plane had somehow run the gauntlet of flack and machine-gun fire. In the blink of an eye, the diving plane had struck the ship, erupting in a fireball.

Oatmire recalled how a tremendous shudder had run through the ship after the plane impacted on a five-inch gun battery, the explosion killing every sailor in the vicinity. Fire had quickly spread from the blast and the burning aviation fuel, but the skilled crew had brought it under control.

The crazed determination of the Japanese to destroy the ship using a suicide pilot was hard to fathom. Had the Japanese known that MacArthur was on the ship, they would surely have sent even more of the dreaded kamikaze planes.

At that moment Oatmire was sitting in the mess hall, enjoying his dinner as he read a tattered paperback novel, trying to ignore the flies. He had seen the flies swarming on the Japanese dead ashore, and he had the thought that maybe, or rather more than likely, a batch of the same flies had made their way to the ship, carried on an offshore breeze.

With that thought in mind, he finally surrendered the last few bites of meat loaf and mashed potatoes to the winged pests, pushing his plate away to focus on lighting a cigarette and sipping a mug of coffee. The flies seemed to have the good sense to steer clear of the thick navy coffee, even if Oatmire himself didn’t. In fact, he had come to rather like it.