Chapter Four Hundred Seventy-Four
19th July 1945
Pingfang, Harbin
It just kept getting worse. The first civilians that Tilo and his Squad encountered had been fairly recent arrivals who were still relatively healthy. In the other buildings there were what had turned out to be subjects in a monstrous research program who were far worse off. Then there were the documents and photographs, what Tilo saw was burnt forever into his mind. He had seen terrible things as a Marine but this was different. Many of the philosophers he had read had debated the existence of evil. After this for Tilo there was no debate, it was soaked into the very soil of this place. It was also apparent that the Japanese were planning on destroying as much as they could of anything that they couldn’t take with them when they evacuated to the home islands.
Ironically, the soldiers who had taken this place were having to prevent the Officers, Researchers and Administrators from killing themselves. The Brass wanted interrogations as part of investigations, eventually leading to trials. The last Tilo had seen of Shirō Ishii, the General in charge of this place he was strapped to a stretcher and being loaded onto a helicopter after being drugged into incoherence. He was the big prize in all of this. Two days after they had landed the Heer’s 5th Army Corps had relieved them. Not that it mattered. The Japanese Army had stayed away from this place, small wonder as to why.
Tilo had been one of those tasked with getting statements from the survivors of the experimentation. Some of the things that they described…
Tilo looked up and saw a few men walking through the buildings. The Press again, it was said that General Holz had put aside his usual dislike of them, going so far as to facilitate their travel. Something that was bound to further isolate Japan on the world stage. On the other hand, Tilo was hoping that orders would arrive sending his Regiment back to the 3rd Division wherever it was, at least life made sense in the Marine Infantry.
Near Seishin, Chōsen
The city of Seishin was home to a major foundry, that’s why the Japanese were fighting tooth and nail to hang onto it. The 4th Division was under no obligation to eject them from the city, so they had bypassed it and kept moving. It was not as if the Japanese were going anywhere. It was something that the Heer had discovered in Russia. Cities had a way of becoming self-administered POW camps if one side wasn’t interested in fighting over them if they didn’t have to. The goal was to take Seoul and eventually push the IJA off this portion of the mainland.
So far, this campaign had been odd. The Japanese were fighting as if this were the Great War, mostly infantry armed with bolt operated rifles and that was getting them chewed up. They would make a stand somewhere and get blasted by self-propelled artillery or an airstrike. Then there was the Japanese Armor, the vehicles looked like something from the previous decade with a few more modern units mixed in. It had turned out that they were not even a match for SPz-2 APCs. Hans remembered that Horst had often said that if the enemy is bitching about how it’s unfair then you are doing it right. Hans was watching that play out. The APC lurched on the road as it hit a hole deep enough to affect the twenty-ton vehicle. Now if only the roads were better, Hans thought to himself.
“How long until we stop for the night?” Doug asked. He had stuck with them since he had arrived near Vladivostok while they were waiting for the offensive to start.
“I doubt we’re stopping” Hans answered. That was the other great lesson of the Soviet War. Don’t stop moving.
“That will probably make for a long night” Doug said.
“We’ll survive” Hans replied.
With that Doug went back to trying to write something in his notes. Without much success evidently. He eventually gave up and put his notebook into his oilskin satchel bag. When he lifted up the rain flap Hans noticed that there was a photograph of Kat pinned to the inside of it. It was a good photograph, Kat was sitting on a chair wearing a white blouse and dark blue skirt with a white background. She had worn her hair loose as well. In Hans opinion, it was a good look for her, the sort of thing that Hans wished that she did more often. Hans frequently wondered what the deal was between the photojournalist and his sister. It looked as if their relationship was going alright in spite of the obvious difficulties that she presented.
“When was that taken?” Hans asked, as he pointed to the picture.
“A week or so before I left Berlin when Kat visited a studio space I rent” Doug replied, “She said that she wanted to see herself as others see her.”
“It’s about time she did that” Hans said.
Doug smiled at the memory. That first photograph, the one that Doug had with him was how he always saw Kat anyway and that kiss on the rooftop was he wanted to remember about that day. The rest had been special but he had realized that it hadn’t been done for him, she had done it for herself for reasons that she didn’t need to explain. It was all about a demonstration of trust. Kat was willing to try to get over her fears with him and that was what had made it special.
