The frontal attack having been neutralized, the Japanese now turned their machine guns on Patrol Easy. Bullets and tracers sizzled overhead, forcing them to keep their heads down. Deke and Juana had to duck behind the airplane wing to keep from having their heads shot off. The situation had gone from bad to worse.
Now what?
Deke tried to take a shot at the machine gunners in the nearest dugout, but that only provoked a burst of fire that raked the length of the airplane wing. They were pinned down, good and proper.
Like an answer to a prayer, Deke heard the rumble of a tank, then another. The cavalry had arrived.
For the Japanese, the tables had turned. The machine guns peppered the steel sides of the Sherman tanks, but the bullets bounced off. Tracer rounds slid off the armor and went flying through the air. The tanks lined up their main guns and fired at the dugouts. Surprisingly, the sandbags had been piled so thick that they absorbed the first few rounds. But the tanks rolled closer and hit the dugout defenses at nearly point-blank range, demolishing the wall of sandbags. The echo of the muzzle blasts and explosions was deafening within the confines of the stadium.
The main guns were more than enough, but the armored unit was taking no chances and wasn’t satisfied with simply pulverizing the Japanese. A couple of the tanks were equipped with flamethrowers. They let loose with burning streams of jellied gasoline, hosing down the dugouts with fire. This napalm was horrible stuff, a sort of sticky lava that clung to everything it touched. A few clumps of napalm fell short and hit the field, setting the tall weeds on fire. The breeze fanned the flames and carried the fire and smoke toward the enemy position. Even from the outfield, Deke was pretty sure that he heard screaming as the enemy soldiers were burned alive, either by the flamethrowers or the spreading brush fire.
Faced with the awful threat of the flamethrowers, some of the Japanese ran headlong from positions around the baseball dugouts. The limited visibility from within the tanks meant that some of the enemy had managed to slip away unseen by the tank crews. However, the fleeing Japanese didn’t get far because not all the GIs from the ill-fated attack had been killed. They popped up now out of the long grass and weeds, firing at any Jap who made a run for it, taking their revenge.
Deke picked out a runner and squeezed the trigger, hearing the satisfying
Another Japanese ran to escape the horror of the flames, his tightly wrapped leggings already burning. The motion of his panic-stricken legs only served to feed the flames. Juana swung up her rifle, but before she could fire, they heard the deep boom of a 12-gauge shotgun. The enemy soldier collapsed in a heap.
“Honcho,” she said with a wry smile.
They watched as the one-eyed lieutenant racked another shell into the shotgun and waited patiently for the next target. He might have been hunting pheasants.
Once the tanks had finished their grim business, there was still one task remaining for the foot soldiers. What followed next was like a gopher hunt as they mopped up the Japanese still trying to hide in the stands. With the Americans now controlling the infield and outfield, there was nowhere for them to go except off the high upper rows of the stadium. A couple of them tried it and fell to their deaths.
The Japanese rarely left themselves an escape route. There was no plan in the Japanese mind to fight another day. They fought to the death. The American soldiers were glad to oblige them.
Patrol Easy were joined by more GIs for the mopping-up operation. They spread out in a rough line, from the upper rows down to the box seats, and worked their way through to find any Japanese snipers trying to hide among the benches. Sometimes the Japanese leaped up and ran at them, screaming bloody murder in a singular version of a banzai charge. They were quickly shot down. Some put up no fight at all, but remained hidden in hopes that they might somehow escape their fate.
From up in the stands, the soldiers could see the bodies of several dead GIs sprawled in the weedy field where they had been mowed down by the machine guns in the dugouts. None of those American boys would ever be going home again.
As they hunted down the last of the defenders, nobody bothered to ask if any of the Japanese wanted to surrender, not even Yoshio.
