The GIs already knew what they were up against because they had faced it before when it came to fighting in the Pacific. Back home in America, readers were getting a glimpse of the Pacific War thanks to reporters like Ernie Pyle in his newspaper accounts. If he had written about Patrol Easy, it might have sounded something like this:
In the unforgiving Pacific islands, where every inch is hard-won, I’ve come to know these soldiers in some way. They are similar to the men I got to know in Europe, and yet, like the war itself in the Pacific, they are different. In Europe they have mud, and snow, and Krauts. Here there are biting flies, the jungle, and Japs.
Maybe it comes down to the atmosphere. In the thick of the Pacific jungles, where the air hangs heavy with humidity and the soundtrack of war is unrelenting, the soul of the American fighting man shines with an indomitable spirit.
The men of the 77th Infantry Division are the epitome of grit and gallantry, pushing onward through dense foliage and fortified enemy positions. Every step forward is a battle won, every breath a testament to their determination. The sights here are far from the comforts of home — a world away from Main Street, USA — but the brotherhood formed in these crucibles is stronger than steel.
The nights are long, the days unforgiving, but through it all, the spirit of America marches on. Too often it must march through thick jungles or up the steep slope of a hillside covered by a Japanese machine gun. Sometimes the sun beats down, and five minutes later there’s a terrific downpour that soaks everyone to the bone. The boys just pick themselves up and move on. In this theater of war, our boys are writing history with courage and resilience that will echo through the annals of time.
Yesterday I watched as Sergeant James Toll from Missouri shared a brief, rare laugh with Private Eddie Ramirez from New York over a makeshift game of cards. I describe the card game as “makeshift” because the deck was cobbled together from two or three different decks. There was an extra ace, or maybe one was missing — it wasn’t really clear, and no one much cared. The card game was simply to pass the time.
“Who’s winning?” I asked, sticking my nose in.
“Anybody who’s not dead, that’s who,” Private Ramirez said.
It turned out that they were playing for bullets, not money. The pot kept growing until there was quite a pile of shiny brass cartridges.
Finally, Ramirez seemed to have turned out that missing ace and won the pot, but he was reluctant to rake it all in.
“Better keep some of those bullets, fellas,” he said. “No telling when you might need ’em.”
Shots sounded nearby. Reluctantly, the men picked up their rifles and returned fire at the Japanese hiding in the bushes. Then they went back to their card game as if nothing had happened.
It’s moments like these, in the heart of chaos, that remind us all of the simple joys and the camaraderie that fuels these men.
The other day I came across a group of tough customers. They called themselves Patrol Easy, and they were snipers who counted a few Filipino fighters among their number. Sniper warfare is a constant here in the Pacific, with the enemy popping out from holes in the ground or clinging to treetops in order to take a few shots at the advancing troops.
Patrol Easy can usually be found at the front of this advance, dealing with the snipers so that the army can continue gaining ground. They also conduct reconnaissance to see what tricks the Japanese have up their sleeves.
These snipers are commanded by a grizzled veteran of Guadalcanal and Guam and now the Philippines named Lieutenant William Steele, a one-eyed officer who carries a shotgun rather than a rifle.
I asked the lieutenant what the best approach was for dealing with these Japanese marksmen.
“Shoot first if you can,” he advised. “And if you can’t shoot first, then you’d better shoot better than the Jap just did. You’re alive because he missed. You’d better not. You won’t get another chance.”
That’s the thing about the advice here, which every soldier takes to heart, whether he’s playing cards or hunting snipers, You won’t get another chance.
It’s a reminder that in the Pacific war, no matter what you’re doing, going from one moment to the next is nothing to take for granted.
Pyle may not have written those actual words, but he had written similar ones about so many of the young men fighting in the Pacific. Sure, he was doing his job as a reporter, but it was also clear that he cared deeply about these men who were so far from home.
CHAPTER TWELVE
They fought in the streets, they fought in buildings, they took up positions on rooftops. But the strangest place that Patrol Easy fought turned out to be a baseball stadium in the heart of Manila.
In happier times, the Rizal Memorial Baseball Stadium, named for a national hero of the Philippines, had hosted the likes of Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth, playing exhibition games in the more innocent days before the world had been plunged into war. Local baseball fans still spoke of those games with dreamy eyes and a distant smile on their faces. Filipino boys had taken to the American sport with enthusiasm, playing barefoot and barehanded in vacant sandlots across Manila.
But like peace itself, those days were a distant memory. The place now resembled the sort of baseball field where the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse might pause for a game of catch. Since the start of the war, weeds had grown up and covered the field. The painted scoreboard had faded and flaked, with a few bullet holes showing where the numbers should have been.
Even worse, the baseball stadium was now a fortress, having been taken over by the Japanese. The concrete structures of the stadium made a solid defensive position. The dugouts had been turned into machine-gun nests. Snipers occupied the stands where fans had once rooted for the home team. A runner trying to steal a base risked being tagged out permanently.
“My best guess is that there are at least a hundred Japanese dug in here,” Lieutenant Steele explained. “We have armor on the way, planning to sweep out the Japanese, but they need infantry support. That’s where we come in.”
“What good is a tank if it needs us?” Philly wanted to know.
“They don’t want to get blindsided by some Japs with a sticky bomb,” Steele said.
On Leyte and now on Luzon, more than one Sherman tank had been knocked out by these bombs, known by the Japanese as Shitotsubakurai, which were technically lunge mines that made use of a high-explosive charge at the end of a pole. It was a simple and effective anti-tank weapon, the equivalent of a bazooka or Panzerfaust, but on the end of a stick.
One fatal drawback for the Japanese using these lunge mines was that these attacks were essentially suicide missions due to several pounds of HEAT (High Explosive Anti-Tank) charge exploding within a stick’s length of the attacker.
“I wouldn’t touch a tank with a ten-foot pole, but I guess a Jap would,” Deke said.
“With all that steel, you’d think it would take more than a Jap with a stick to take ’em out,” Philly said.
“When you attack it from the side, a tank might as well be a tin can. All the armor is up front. You know they don’t have a lot of visibility inside those tin cans,” Honcho added. “We’re going to be their ears and eyes, and tell ’em where to shoot.”
Orders being shouted to their right came from an infantry company forming up to attempt a frontal assault on the Japanese, hoping to simply push them out of the dugouts and stands. Farther away, tanks rumbled in the background, assembling for the attack. However, it would be the snipers who went in first, scouting out the enemy defenses.
The Americans were entering the stadium from the outfield — from the direction of the third base line, to be exact. One advantage of fighting at a baseball field was that it used familiar landmarks and features. In the annals of military history, it was probably the only time that a combat action had taken place on a baseball field. Somehow, it felt like an affront that the Japanese had taken something as American as a baseball field and cleverly transformed it into a fortress to use against them.
The lieutenant looked around at his team. For days now, Patrol Easy had been working in coordination with the guerrilla snipers that Father Francisco had brought them. Shortly after bringing them the sniper recruits, the priest had moved on to other corners of the city where his faith and organizational skills were needed. Father Francisco held no rank, but among the guerrillas he was as good as a general.
“I don’t know where he found these people,” Honcho said, referring to the Filipino sharpshooters. “But I’ll take another bunch just like them.”
After giving the new recruits a crash course in sniper warfare, Honcho grouped his troops into twos or threes, trying to pair at least one of the Filipinos with the more experienced Americans. More often than not, Deke had found himself paired with Juana. That was just fine by him. She was an excellent shot, she didn’t say much, and he had to admit that she was easy on the eyes.
Deke wasn’t easily distracted; when it came to fighting, he was like a tractor with a stuck gear. He had one speed and one purpose only, ignoring everything else. But when he looked into Juana’s soft brown eyes, it was as if he were transported by thoughts of mountain spring mornings, the smell of fresh-baked pies, the music of cool running streams, and something that he longed for but could not identify. He felt a similar warmth in Juana’s gaze, like heat off a cast-iron griddle, shimmering in the morning light. Though pleasant, he hoped the distraction didn’t get them both killed.