I Became Stalin?! - Chapter 151:

Chapter 151

“Come on! Let’s go! Let’s give those bastards a taste of our power!”

“Kill Japs! Kill Japs! Kill more Japs!”

The crew of the aircraft carrier Enterprise were more spirited than ever.

“We fought Japan by ourselves. But now our comrades are back. The comrades who will crush and kill the Japs!”

Of course, there were three battleships that survived Pearl Harbor, but the Enterprise was the one that annihilated the Japanese carrier fleet one by one.

The Enterprise, which barely survived the air raid by the Japanese naval aviation, sank the carriers one by one. They started calling the Enterprise Lucky E.

The Japanese navy still had the upper hand at sea, but they were scattered. They pulled some back to prepare for the decisive battle. They also sent out a fleet to eye the British India.

As the Japanese losses accumulated, the balance tipped as the new Iowa-class battleships were launched.

Of course, there were always ‘guardians of balance’ everywhere.

***

“Damn it, isn’t it common sense to lure them into a battlefield that is favorable to us?”

“…That’s a battlefield that’s favorable to the US, not to General MacArthur, isn’t it? Haha…”

“I was short-sighted. Damn it!”

The navy’s top brass gritted their teeth at MacArthur’s rampage.

The US was clearly inferior to the navy. At least for now.

The Enterprise and the fast task force were ‘reducing and intercepting’ the Japanese navy, and the shipyards were literally printing new ships day and night.

But MacArthur was pouring this fleet into reclaiming the islands in the South Pacific one by one. He said he had to secure the land airfields.

“Why bother if we can harass the mainland… No, General MacArthur is greedy for that damn new command.”

Admiral Nimitz spat out his saliva. MacArthur coveted the throne of the enemy, and even above that. He needed a splendid military record for that.

Burning Tokyo, starving Japan to death, these things could certainly help win the war.

But they didn’t help MacArthur’s career much.

FDR was aiming for a fourth term beyond his third, and if he wanted to be president, whether it was a general who led the war to victory or a president who led the war to victory, wouldn’t the latter be more important?

MacArthur wanted ‘military achievements’. He reclaimed an island, and rescued a few residents. He won a battle, and the US won somewhere!

In the process, it didn’t matter much if the US soldiers died. It was hard to blame the general for people dying in war, as long as they didn’t die too much. But it could be the fault of the politician who dragged the country into the war.

He wrapped himself in a brilliant military record and dumped all the blame on the political arena.

Could there be anything more advantageous for entering politics? Of course, the subordinates who were nagged by him were disgusted by him.

MacArthur liked to discuss all kinds of military affairs and operations with his Philippine faction in a closed room and then notify them unilaterally, without knowing whether they were dissatisfied or not.

Only his aide, General Eisenhower, was sent to appease the navy.

“Anyway, we are winning, aren’t we? Your Majesty.”

“Too much unnecessary blood is flowing…”

Nimitz seemed to have cursed something, but it was buried by the sound of the battleship’s firing.

The nine 16-inch guns mounted on the Iowa-class fired a huge roar that shook the heavens and the earth, pounding the island where the Japanese were stationed.

Perhaps in the bunker of that small island, the Japanese were hiding together, betting on when the shelling would end and waiting. Then they would crawl out and shoot when the US landed and launched an assault.

The navy didn’t want this situation.

“Now the Japs have to keep up with this wide battlefield and fall exhausted. With a decisive naval battle, we can drag them to a place where we have the advantage and trample them…”

It was proven that air force operations alone could inflict effective damage on Japan’s economy. Intelligence reports that the air force’s mine laying and defoliant spraying were shaking the Japanese Empire.

Although there was Soviet manipulation behind it, it was never beneficial for the war that strikes broke out in the colonies and the domestic workers also went on strike and caused riots.

It was much better to skip over the islands where the Japanese were stuck and suffer, and harass the mainland.

“Look. Here…”

Nimitz grimaced and pointed with his finger.

“General MacArthur wants to go around like this, to the Philippines. But isn’t that going back! Rather, like this, like this…”

If the US succeeded in defending Papua New Guinea and went straight north, there were Guam and the Mariana Islands. Using long-range bombers, they could directly attack the Japanese mainland from here.

Of course, the Japanese fleet would flock to eliminate this advance base, but the US could lure the Japanese out of hiding and fight a naval battle.

The naval battle was what the Japanese had hoped and hoped for, but they had set the wrong premise for the operation from the beginning.

Now, even if one of the US navy’s fleets was annihilated, the Japanese could not win.

The battleships that had been under construction since the end of ’41 were now completed. If they accumulated similar damage, the US’s overwhelming victory was scheduled.

Not like now, attacking the islands for nothing and getting hit by suicide torpedoes.

“Anyway… I’ll try to tell him.”

“Ha! If he was someone who would listen to us, we would have ended it by now.”

“Hahaha…”

Eisenhower smiled awkwardly with his characteristic good-natured laugh.

‘Do I have to be like that to be an aide under him?’

***

The US had many complaints, including MacArthur’s unilateralism.

But that didn’t mean Japan was winning. If the US dug a hole with a shovel, Japan dug a hole with two shovels! That might have been the most fitting expression.

Anyway, Japan forced damage with the troops they had stuck on the island, but if the US had to dig the ground with a shovel to stop them from coming with all kinds of means?

While the big ships were playing separately for the naval battle or the Indian Ocean advance, the Japanese had to fight isolated and eventually die or become prisoners.

“Here, take this!”

“Huh?”

“Take it!”

The soldier, who suddenly received a long wooden stick with a heavy object attached to the end, looked at the platoon leader with a bewildered expression.

The platoon leader declared with a very solemn face.

“Are you ready to fight for the invincible emperor?”

“Yes! I am!”

The answer to every question from the superior was yes. The Japanese army had injected that into them with great effort, and almost succeeded.

The soldiers now answered ‘yes’ to anything anyone asked. Whatever the question was.

Like Pavlov’s dogs, the soldier who received the stick also shouted reflexively.

“Then, look over there. What do you see?”

“I see the tanks of the despicable British and American bastards!”

“Very good. Our invincible emperor is fighting to protect this… island, but the Yankees, who are worse than the despicable ones, have cowardly mobilized tanks for the landing!”

If there was anything cowardly in war, it would have been firing the first shot without propaganda. Anyway, that wasn’t very important.

If he said no here, he would have been beaten like a dog, so. The soldier just nodded his head to whatever the officer said.

“So go and destroy the tank with this!”

“Yes…?”

“Go!”

Destroy that lump of iron with this stick? The soldier’s face clearly showed that expression.

He looked closely at the thing attached to the end and it looked like a mine. But now, in the battlefield where bullets were flying, he had to avoid the tank’s machine gun and the infantry’s shooting and go there?

“Can I… throw this?”

“Idiot!”

Thwack, the lieutenant hit him on the back of his head.

Ouch, he almost dropped the stick, but if he did, he would have been beaten like a dog for lacking martial spirit, so he barely held on to it.

He had once dropped his gun while being hit by his seniors, and an officer who passed by saw it and didn’t stop the beating, but scolded him for dropping the gun that ‘the emperor bestowed’.

It was a bit strange, but he had to accept whatever the superior ordered.

“This is a lunge mine!”

“Yes!”

He should have explained what it was for, but the lieutenant confidently said nothing.

He looked at the soldier with an expression that said, what are you doing not running and doing something, and wondered if he should hit him one more time, but he decided to show his merciful heart and explained.

“You take this bomb at the end and stab it into that tank over there. Then you might be able to destroy the tank. So run and stab it. Show the bravery of the Japanese man and come back!”

He wanted to ask if he could come back, but… if he asked that, he would probably be hit a few more times and end it.

Either way, he would die. Anyway, if he charged, he might become a spirit of Yasukuni Shrine and his parents would be safe.

What would he do if he ran away here? This platoon leader would probably run around and accuse him of cowardice and torment his comrades. He would report to the superiors and easily label his family as reds and traitors.

For his younger brother, at least…

“Tenno Heika Banzaiiiii!!”

“Look at that! That bravery!”

Was this bravery? He vaguely knew that this was not, even though he was an illiterate idiot.

“Huh? Huh?”

“Shoot! Shoot!”

The US army, who had seen this several times, started shooting at him. That huge tank, which looked at least 15 tons, was busy shooting elsewhere.

“Ugh!”

Bang! A loud noise came from behind. The soldier staggered from the shock of the explosion. The explosion seemed to have occurred very close by.

He turned around and saw that the trench he had started running out of was completely engulfed in flames.

The lieutenant and his twenty or so platoon members were nowhere to be seen, hidden by the smoke.

He looked forward and saw the tank was very close.

The platoon leader had said that he could ‘blow up’ the tank by stabbing this bomb. But would he be okay then? He thought of that for a moment.

If he could dent the metal plate and smash the tank, what about him, who would be in the blast range?

He would have just stabbed it normally, but now the vicious platoon leader behind him was probably dead or alive.

So he started to think quickly. To remember something he had seen before.

It was how to shout the word surrender in English. His body was already throwing away the stick with the lunge mine attached.

“Surrender! Surrender! Please spare me!”