Ishigaki, Japan February 29, 1944
The conscript from Honshu looked over the open sights of his machine gun. He could barely think and function as half a dozen American battleships and just as many cruisers were off-shore flinging shells. The bunkers and minefields covering the beach to his right had been getting plastered for over an hour now. A few destroyers and patrol boats have crept in closer to the shore. The machine gunner could see swimmers go over the sides and every now and then the water would bubble as another ten pounds of plastic explosives took care of another obstacle. A few mortar and even fewer artillery shells were hitting the water in response to the American armada.
More conscripts gathered in the concrete and log bunker. The riflemen should have been outside in the trenches and firing pits, but those fortifications could be readily smashed as soon as the Americans decided to shift their five, six, eight, fourteen and sixteen inch shells from the beach to the north to their beach. They would shelter in place until they were either ordered to counter-attack the beach to the north or the Americans were within rifle range of the beach itself. Then they would brave the blizzard of steel shards to reach their fighting positions.
The fire ceased for a moment. It was not a respite.
A dozen aircraft from an escort carrier roared in low and fast. Fuel tanks full of jellied gasoline were dropped. They cleared more of the minefield. And even from four hundred meters away, the machine gunner could hear the screams of men whose bodies had been roasted and burned. He looked over his shoulder and saw that one bunker was completely cooking off with mortar shells exploding and machine gun belts popping. At least those men died quickly. The men at the edge of the drop zone would not be so lucky.
A minute later, the American bombardment fleet resumed their fire. The battleships main guns and the light cruisers shifted. Instead of pounding the beach defenses, they were now pouring high explosives onto cross-roads and reserve area assembly points. The heavy cruisers had not shifted their fire.
Off in the distance, hundreds, no thousands, perhaps even tens of thousands of landing craft were slowly churning to shore. The machine gunner checked his weapon one more time and then checked his straps on his helmet. Soon the riflemen and mortar teams left the safety of the bunker as the Americans were coming.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By mid-afternoon, the assault elements of the 1st Marine Division were fully ashore. The provisional Marine brigade, along with a pair of Marine tank battalions and a reinforced 15th and 17th Marine regiments would soon be coming ashore as dozens of LSTs had space to beach themselves. The perimeter was 3800 yards long and 1900 yards deep. The crust had been hard to crack, but as soon as the Marines could maneuver, the Japanese defenses became brittle.
