Story 0393
November 16, 1940 near Dangyang, China
Half a dozen infantrymen were on patrol. The foreigners looked around the land carefully as they knew it was a hostile land with a hostile people. Their officers had been seen huddling in leadership groups and the staff had been preparing for something big. The privates and the single corporal were not told what to do. They were merely told to patrol five kilometers from the base camp towards the road junction where another regiment of the Imperial Japanese Army had their base camp. Once they reached the junction, they were to return. Any contact was to be suppressed with utmost ferocity.
As they walked carefully through the fields and the peasants who worked the paddies fled the heavily armed men, they placed each foot delicately, trying to feel a pressure plate before detonating it or a punji stick before impaling themselves. They walked for an hour.
Unknown to them but not unsurprisingly, they were being watched. It was not just the farmers watching, fearing that the barbarians would take their winter food or rape their daughters and wives. No, a squad of the national army watched. They had infiltrated forward into the gap between the lines, guided by guerillas who had made that trip numerous times. Four men were watching the patrol as another two men were preparing to run back to the main line of resistance further to the west. They were expendable too but they wanted to live so they took care picking their way through the countryside.
As the Japanese patrol came to the edge of a paddy next to the main road, a hellacious explosion roared. The last private in the line was lazy. After 10,000 steps that day, he took his last step without enough care. He pressed down on a pressure plate with just a few ounces too much pressure and a twelve pound block of dynamite detonated, spraying nails and glass in an arc. The private died almost instantly, two of his squad mates would bleed to death before aid could arrive from the nearest Japanese camp. Two more men would be in the hospital for a week while the corporal had merely been scratched by the shrapnel.
Later that night, a dozen peasants were beheaded in retaliation for the village not informing their conquerors of the land mine.
Half a dozen infantrymen were on patrol. The foreigners looked around the land carefully as they knew it was a hostile land with a hostile people. Their officers had been seen huddling in leadership groups and the staff had been preparing for something big. The privates and the single corporal were not told what to do. They were merely told to patrol five kilometers from the base camp towards the road junction where another regiment of the Imperial Japanese Army had their base camp. Once they reached the junction, they were to return. Any contact was to be suppressed with utmost ferocity.
As they walked carefully through the fields and the peasants who worked the paddies fled the heavily armed men, they placed each foot delicately, trying to feel a pressure plate before detonating it or a punji stick before impaling themselves. They walked for an hour.
Unknown to them but not unsurprisingly, they were being watched. It was not just the farmers watching, fearing that the barbarians would take their winter food or rape their daughters and wives. No, a squad of the national army watched. They had infiltrated forward into the gap between the lines, guided by guerillas who had made that trip numerous times. Four men were watching the patrol as another two men were preparing to run back to the main line of resistance further to the west. They were expendable too but they wanted to live so they took care picking their way through the countryside.
As the Japanese patrol came to the edge of a paddy next to the main road, a hellacious explosion roared. The last private in the line was lazy. After 10,000 steps that day, he took his last step without enough care. He pressed down on a pressure plate with just a few ounces too much pressure and a twelve pound block of dynamite detonated, spraying nails and glass in an arc. The private died almost instantly, two of his squad mates would bleed to death before aid could arrive from the nearest Japanese camp. Two more men would be in the hospital for a week while the corporal had merely been scratched by the shrapnel.
Later that night, a dozen peasants were beheaded in retaliation for the village not informing their conquerors of the land mine.
