The Old Breed

Chapter 47

Jichaku, Okinawa

May 2nd, 1945

We pushed forwards through uncharted territory until night fell, preventing us from moving forward. At dusk, we had reached a small village which Gibson said was named Jichaku, and dug in, preparing for whatever the night might throw at us. The NCOs had come around between foxholes, telling us to prepare for a Jap counter attack, which would likely come. We couldn't just push through the Nips' backyard and not expect retaliation. So, fearfully, we had set our rotations as usual, myself taking first watch, Lanky, my foxhole buddy as always, trying to settle into a sleep we both knew would likely never come. As darkness fell, I scanned the village of Jichaku, not much of a village at all anymore. Most of the village was gone, pummeled to dust by the Navy and our frequent artillery shelling. Here and there, parts of a stone wall rose a few feet above the mud, most of the wall gone, the stone scattered in chunks as far away as a few hundred feet, the result of a naval shell. Behind the wall, I could make out a part of a wall and window frame jutting up, and another piece of a hut behind that. In the middle of what appeared to be an sunken roadway, a wooden cart lay overturned, burning.

Although we spent the night sleepless, our fingers nervously tapping our rifles, our eyes feverishly scanning the land around us, waiting for the inevitable counter attack, it never came. With an almost regular routine, a Jap machine gunner fired at our position almost every fifteen minutes. Even with his shots being inaccurate, the tracers passing over our heads by feet, he was effective in keeping us on our toes and scared, each time assuming that maybe he was covering for the counter attack the infantry would send on us. Around two in the morning, someone had finally gotten tired of the machine gunner, waited until he had began his futile bursts of fire, then fired off a single shot. The lieutenant had told us not to fire on the enemy, to not reveal our positions, and we had jumped at that single shot. Neither Lanky or I believed that anyone in the company was good enough to fire one shot with an M1 in the middle of night, but sure enough, the rest of the night stayed silent. I never found out who the sniper had been, but I would have shook his hand and told him to keep doing what he was doing. We took a few potshots from rifles too, and some shelling by mortars, but neither was extremely heavy, our foxholes deep enough, good cover. Over the course of the night, we sustained only one casualty, a shrapnel wound to the shoulder of a poor Marine.

With tired eyes, we watched the sun begin to rise, the bright red and yellow rays blinding, lighting up every muddy detail of the land. Past the village the ground sloped away, a wide expanse of water taking its place, connecting to the ocean, a river. To our right, I could just make out a bridge crossing the river, stone, wide enough to accommodate at least two Sherman tanks. To the left, the river continued pushing deeper, splitting this small portion of Okinawa, the river slowly tapering off as it made its way farther into the land. Past the river, the ground stayed flat for a good distance, a wide village in the middle, behind the village, steeper, taller ridges rising against the horizon.

The village of Jichaku looked even more destroyed in the daylight, chunks of stone littering the once grassy fields, only two relatively intact houses, huts, really, left standing, most of the other huts partially destroyed or completely gone. The village had been placed at the junction of three roads, which were more of wide muddy lanes than roads, nothing like back in America. The burning cart I had noticed the night before was nothing more than charred debris now, the orange flames and black smoke gone. Close to the field, I noticed large lumps sticking out from the mud, strange, realized they were the carcasses of livestock, mainly cows, a horse off to the side of cattle. We were just far enough away that we couldn't smell the stink of the decomposing animals, and probably Jap bodies too, although several times a strong wind was able to carry the stench, which wrinkled our noses and caused our eyes to water.