I Became Stalin?! - Chapter 182:

Chapter 182

It was the same time when the Soviet army was advancing after defeating the Kwantung Army. Hell was unfolding on Iwo Jima.

There were three Japanese airfields on Iwo Jima. The US military wanted to capture Iwo Jima for various purposes, such as securing a landing operation on the mainland, securing a stable bombing route, and eliminating the Japanese air force’s base.

In particular, the US commander-in-chief, General Douglas MacArthur, ordered to capture Iwo Jima as quickly as possible.

“We need to capture Iwo Jima to land! Get rid of that tiny island as soon as possible and head to Honshu and Kyushu!”

The marine corps, who had to lead the landing, and the navy admirals, who knew how difficult this would be, protested, but MacArthur ignored them. He looked at them with a face that said, “What are you barking about?” and threw his pipe away after puffing it.

“I give orders, and you execute them. That’s the military.”

MacArthur’s staff had to stop the navy admirals from running wild. MacArthur was busy dealing with the politicians and journalists from Washington who were flying in with various requests and interviews.

“Iwo Jima is useless as a garrison for either the army or the navy, sir.”

“But it’s useful as an airfield. Dwight, you can’t land after bombing and shelling it with bombers and battleships?”

“…”

MacArthur gave a cold stare to Eisenhower, who tried to hold him back and present his opinion.

He sighed deeply and shrugged his shoulders as he walked away.

The marine generals looked at him with bloodshot eyes.

And at that moment, the Japanese and US forces were engaged in a bloody battle.

***

“Live one more day! Fight for the empire by living longer! Don’t run away from the battle with the hollow word of honor!”

“Long live the Emperor!”

The Japanese commander of Iwo Jima, Kuribayashi Tadamichi, was one of the few sane people among the mostly insane Japanese soldiers.

He did not rely on the rigid dogma he had learned at the military academy: ‘The most vulnerable moment in a landing operation is right after the landing.’

“The Americans have overwhelming artillery and air support compared to our Imperial Army. If we wait near the coast to launch an offensive right after the landing, we will be shattered by their preemptive bombardment!”

Instead, he adopted a tactic to fight against the overwhelming firepower. He dug multiple trenches and tunnels, and held his ground by building a defensive line far inland from the coast, where the enemy’s shelling was concentrated.

Kuribayashi’s strategy seemed to work to some extent.

“Fuck! Fuck MacArthur! You son of a bitch!”

“Aaah! Mother!”

The damn GIs, who he thought were all dead after pouring hundreds, thousands of shells for a while, were now hiding in the tunnels and firing their machine guns.

If they had charged as usual, screaming banzai and begging to be shot, they would have been torn to pieces by the American heavy weapons. But the Japanese soldiers hid their bodies thoroughly and used their geographical advantage from the trenches and caves.

The Japanese soldiers, who had dug a network of tunnels and set up a base on the mid-slope of the volcanic island, using the relative high ground, had lured the Americans into their defensive line.

Tatatatatatatata! The Japanese machine guns rained down on the US Marines who were crawling into the tunnels.

It was a fresh and unpleasant experience for the Americans, who only knew how to mow down the Japs with their machine guns.

The soldiers, who had been forced to participate in the island capture, cursed MacArthur as they died.

“Fuck! Fuck you, you fucking Japs!”

“Burn them all!”

Aaaah! With a loud roar, the hot flames surged into the cave. The Americans had chosen to bring flamethrowers and burn them all, to deal with the Japanese soldiers who had dug tunnels and forced close combat, only sticking out their barrels from the defensive line.

The modified amphibious tanks that had descended from the landing ships did a great job of blocking the Japanese fire as pillboxes.

And when they deployed flamethrower tanks that had fuel tanks dangling all over them, instead of regular cannons, the tunnels were cleared one by one.

Of course, that didn’t change the fact that countless American soldiers died on the tiny island in the process.

“More shelling! You bastards! Do you see those dying over there as bastards? They look like our American soldiers to me!”

“We’re out of shells! This is all we have allocated to us. Damn it, do you think I want to do this?”

They couldn’t shell the Japanese underground base enough to destroy it. The Marine officers demanded more fire support, ready to grab the necks of the naval gunnery officers or the air force who were in charge of the pre-bombardment.

But even the mighty supply capacity of the Americans couldn’t provide enough support.

“We have to save some supplies for the landing on the Japanese mainland! Otherwise…”

It was a joke. If they used up all the bombs they had now, they would have to fight with even less support when they landed on Kyushu or Honshu.

Fortunately, they were able to suppress the Japanese with heavy equipment like bulldozers and tanks.

“Aaaah!”

“Bring the satchel charges! Bring them!”

“I’m buried! No!!”

The tank, with thick armor and a bulldozer blade in front, simply filled the cave where the Japanese were holding out with its exit. The combat engineers used various bombs to blow up and collapse the tunnels, and the Japanese who were waiting for the Americans inside were buried alive.

The Marines who were torn apart by the machine guns, the Japanese who burned to death by the flamethrowers, the soldiers who screamed as they were buried alive, and the engineers who burst into triumphant laughter as they buried them.

In that hell, the commanders of both armies had different reactions.

“Damn it, how many days does it take to capture this one island? The air force bastards have smashed everything, there’s nothing left for us to do!”

“…”

MacArthur seemed even more annoyed by the report that out of the 100,000 combat troops deployed to Iwo Jima, already 5,000 had been killed and more than 10,000 wounded.

“The enemy’s resistance is strong, sir. The Marines are fighting bravely, but…”

“Bravely? Hmm, well, not as brave as the Soviets, I guess. They’ve already smashed the 800,000-strong Kwantung Army and are moving south. Are there a million Japanese stuck on this island?”

“…”

The blood vessels in his eyes burst and his eyes turned red, but the Marine general couldn’t punch MacArthur’s pipe-smoking face because of his colleague who grabbed his arm.

“Only 20,000, 20,000! They’re wasting three weeks on these bastards who charge at us with kamikaze without tanks or cannons. Please, just say no.”

They were clearly different from the pathetic army he had met before, who drew their swords and charged with banzai, but MacArthur didn’t care and scolded his subordinates.

“Sir, the troops are doing their best.”

When Eisenhower intervened to mediate, MacArthur shouted.

“Then do better!”

“Sir, Colonel Senda… has been killed.”

“A manless end, huh. What about the air force at the airfield?”

“They all burned to death through special attacks.”

I see. Yeah. Kuribayashi nodded.

The shelling that shook the island didn’t seem to subside, so the special attacks must not have achieved much.

Or maybe they did, but the Americans brought more ships. Either way, the war was already tilted to the American side.

The ‘absolute defense line’ set by the Imperial Army was easily broken through, and the Americans used the islands in the Pacific as bases to turn the mainland and various military bases into a sea of fire.

He didn’t think Iwo Jima would be spared from being breached.

“I hope they don’t go to the mainland if they get a taste of this here…”

That was what the so-called ‘pessimists’ in the Japanese army hoped for.

The Soviet Union had neutralized Germany with a single giant bomb and virtually dominated all of Europe. Now they were reaching out to the Far East, including Japan, and the United States needed Japan to contain them, so it might be possible to negotiate peace at a level where they preserved the national body and fulfilled some conditions.

At least that’s what the most optimistic of the pessimists thought. The real pessimists scoffed that the Americans were crazy and would never make peace.

But if they could hold back hundreds of thousands of Americans with only 20,000 troops and inflict huge damage, it might be different. Kuribayashi wanted to find his last hope there.

He sorted out the last letters he wrote to his family in front of his staff, organized his writing brush, and folded the paper and put it in an envelope.

The young orderly at the headquarters looked around nervously, wondering what this was.

“Soldier! You must survive and deliver these letters.”

“Yes? Yes! Oh, yes! General sir!”

They die fighting for their country as a loyal subject of the empire. There was no other answer.

But he wished he could leave one messenger to deliver the last letters to his family.

The entire staff had time to write and leave their own letters.

The other comrades had no time to do that and scattered like petals.

“Even if I burn to death before you and can’t see the honor you build…”

The pep talk began. The people all looked calmly at the commander who left his last words. Bitterly and calmly. He continued.

“Even then, the honor you built, the dedication you gave to the country, will not disappear. We may have lost the fight now, but we have a hundred million people behind us. Let’s meet again as spirits who live and breathe in their hearts. Let’s die peacefully for the country!”

“Tenno Heika banzai! Banzai!”

“Banzaiii!”

“What a strange thing…”

He finished the pep talk loudly and turned his head to the young orderly.

The orderly who sorted out a bunch of letters looked at him and said yes. Kuribayashi smiled faintly and sat in his chair with his eyes half-closed.

Was he crying? The young soldier who couldn’t look at the dignified face of the commander for long bowed his head and wondered what he had seen.

“Strange… strange…”

The staff members were preparing for what might be the last assault. The chief lieutenant checked the commander’s sword and took out the precious imported oil he had kept in a corner and polished the sword. But the commander didn’t seem to have any interest in that.

“I decided to fight and die for my family, but why does my heart waver when I think of them?”

He said that and laughed and grabbed the sword prepared by the lieutenant with both hands.

“Let’s go! Let’s meet at Yasukuni!”