I asked you to escape, but you became a soldier in World War II

Chapter 168: The Battle of Iwo Jima

When the Japanese soldier was sure that what was thrown was not a grenade, he stood up cautiously and prepared to rush over.

Lin Chen threw it again, and the opponent quickly lay down again.
Taking advantage of this gap, he fired two more shots to the left, killing another one.

"Idiot, he doesn't have any grenades, let's quickly surround him." After being teased twice in a row, the Japanese sergeant finally figured it out. How could a pilot carry grenades?

At this moment, another black object flew over.
"Damn it, are you still addicted to throwing? Do you think we are all idiots?" A soldier cursed and rushed forward with his Type 38 rifle.

"Wait, it's smoking."

"What?" His teammate's reminder immediately made him feel something was wrong.

"boom!"

However, there was no time to react. The American grenade was so powerful that the two people behind were all blown away.

The sergeant on the other side was also a little confused. How did the pilot carry a grenade? What was going on?
But soon a hail of bullets from a Thompson submachine gun came flying, smashing his chest to pieces. He finally realized that the American rescue team had arrived.

"Damn it, it was just a little bit short." The sergeant fell back unwillingly.

"Sir, are you ok?"

After the American Marines rushed over and killed the Japanese search team, the leading sergeant rushed forward and asked with concern.

"Damn, Kirilenko?" Lin Chen now saw clearly that it was Kirilenko who saved him?
"Haha, it's you, Major Lin?" Kirilenko was also very happy.

"Two commanders, let's evacuate quickly. We are too close to the Japanese positions." Other soldiers came over to urge them. This was not a place to reminisce about the past.

With the help of Kirilenko, they quickly evacuated Lin Chen and took him to a temporary front-line command post.

The highest-ranking officer in the command center was just a lieutenant, the deputy company commander Robinson, so he had to salute when he saw Lin Chen.

Lin Chen signaled him not to be nervous. When he learned that they had sent out several search and rescue teams, he hurriedly asked if they had seen other crew members.

Robinson shook his head regretfully. "Unfortunately, no one survived. It's a miracle that you're still alive, sir."

This is true. How could an average person survive such a forced landing? Besides being lucky, his system helped him.

"What's the current situation on Iwo Jima?" Lin Chen already felt that the wound on his chest had healed. He didn't want others to focus on this, so he chose to change the topic to divert everyone's attention.

"Oh, we fought for several days, it was so terrible!" Robinson looked sad when he talked about this.

"Sir, the Japanese were too cunning. They dug the entire island, especially Mount Suribachi, which was completely dug through. The early artillery preparation was completely useless, so our Marines suffered a great loss later. Now there are only more than 30 people left in our company." Kirilenko was still frightened.

Robinson then gave a detailed account of the situation when they landed.
"Due to insufficient estimates in the early stages, the Japanese army did not open fire until our landing craft filled the beach. They suddenly opened fire. In particular, the heavy artillery from Mount Suribachi and Mount Motoyama was very accurate, causing unprecedented losses to the troops on the beach. On the first day alone, we lost 3000 people."

"That's not all. The Japanese resistance on Mount Suribachi was extremely tenacious. In front of the Japanese defense line consisting of tunnels, bunkers and cave fortifications, we lost 2-3 people for every meter we advanced. We only advanced to meters a day. But even so, they would send out suicide squads to attack at night. This battle was really difficult."

"Our 4th Marine Division has never fought such a frustrating battle, but fortunately your napalm bombs should be enough to give them a hard time. Our offensive tomorrow should be much smoother." Robinson was quite satisfied with the bombing effect.

At dawn the next day, the US warships began shelling again.

In order to maximize the power of the naval guns, the fleet's main warships sailed very close to the shore and carried out close-range shooting regardless of the danger of running aground.

The dense artillery fire came one after another, as if the US military had no idea how to count.

After a full hour of shelling, the impact points began to extend deep into the north.

Kirilenko and others, led by Deputy Company Commander Robinson, rushed towards the Japanese front fortifications along with the main force of the regiment.

Because the fighting was so intense, Lin Chen could only be temporarily placed in the 24th Regiment Headquarters.
The regiment commander, Colonel Eugene, was very worried about the battle situation at the front. His regiment suffered heavy casualties, but the attack effect was mediocre.

In particular, the Wonsan defense line in front of them was the Japanese Army's 2nd Mixed Brigade, whose fighting will was extremely strong. Basically, they fought to the last man, and some even pretended to be dead and detonated grenades when the US troops were not paying attention.

This even caused his soldiers to feel a certain degree of war-weariness.

This situation was even more serious during the battle for Hill 382, ​​the second highest point on the island.

The Japanese army hid in carefully camouflaged caves and then used these hateful firepower points to shoot American troops. When the American troops discovered these bunkers, they immediately called in naval artillery fire.

The patrol attack planes on duty in the air would immediately fly down to bomb, but even so, they only collapsed a few caves.

From time to time, Japanese troops would sneak out from other places to launch surprise attacks, causing great suffering to the attacking troops.

The offensive efficiency is also greatly reduced.

In particular, the few positions that were captured with great difficulty during the day would be attacked by the Japanese army through short and precise fire attacks at night, followed by night raids by elite small teams, leaving the soldiers with only frantic shooting to suppress them.

In order to counter the Japanese tactics, the U.S. military equipped the front-line platoon-level officers and soldiers with walkie-talkies so that they could report the enemy's coordinates at any time. The fleet's 24-hour duty personnel would then contact the command center and provide timely artillery support.

This level of attack can probably only be achieved by the wealthy US military in this era.

Even the amount of artillery shells consumed by the US military in one day exceeded the total amount consumed by the Japanese army during the entire Battle of Iwo Jima.

But even so, the US military still suffered heavy casualties. The three Marine divisions, the 4th Division on the right, the 3rd Division in the middle, and the 5th Division on the left, advanced to the northeast in parallel, and suffered heavy casualties.

But such an attack intensity is not without effect.

The biggest headache for Sulin Zhongdao now is the shortage of troops and ammunition, and even food and water are running low.

At the last moment, the defenders of Mount Suribachi did not follow his orders to break out from there and join him, but foolishly launched the "Banzai Charge" that he had strongly prohibited. Under the three-dimensional firepower of the US military, this attack was no different from suicide. The commander and a large number of wounded soldiers also committed suicide in the tunnel with grenades.

The self-destructive behavior of this elite force caused the defense of Iwo Jima to begin to be stretched to its limits. In particular, the loss of Mount Suribachi gave the U.S. military the commanding heights of the entire island, allowing them to easily direct their naval guns to bombard any discovered firing points.

This caused his defense system to be gradually eroded. Although the US military's progress was not fast, if the battle continued at this rate, Iwo Jima would fall in just over ten days.

For this purpose, he specially convened the remaining officers to brainstorm. Most people believed that a night attack on the airport should be launched and the US military should not be allowed to build the airport so comfortably.

There were also some people who proposed to break out, but they were ridiculed and abused.

After listening for a while, Sulin Zhongdao felt that such an argument was really meaningless. He could only say that there was no hope of breaking out. No ships would come to rescue, and it would be difficult to attack the airport at night.
Because of his understanding of the United States, even if more airport facilities and aircraft were destroyed, they would still be able to replenish them easily, but such a counterattack would greatly consume the already insufficient manpower and ammunition.

So he finally decided to rely on the existing position and fight to the last man.

All officers and soldiers were required not to launch meaningless "Long Live Charge" without authorization, and were not allowed to die until they had killed ten enemies.

Everyone understood that collective "death" was not far away, so they all looked sad.

The US military suffered a great deal in the face of Surin Chung-do's seemingly stupid method.

There were not many positions left, but the Japanese resistance became even more frenzied, and the casualties of the troops were so great that the non-commissioned officer had to serve as acting company commander.

In Kirilenko's company, the deputy company commander Robinson has been killed, and all the platoon leaders have been lost. Now there are only 11 people left in the company, and he is taking over the command.

In order to strengthen the front-line attack capability, Colonel Eugene even sent the signalmen from the regiment headquarters. Under such circumstances, Lin Chen felt embarrassed to continue staying in the regiment headquarters and watching the scenery.

If someone offered him a weapon, he would be willing to go into battle and kill the enemy.

Eugene was still a little shocked by Lin Chen's request. After all, pilots were very valuable, and Lin Chen was a major, which was already a mid-level officer. He didn't need to rush to the front line at all.

But Lin Chen told him about his military achievements on the European battlefield. Of course, it was not convenient to talk about things during the Soviet period.

Eugene considered it over and over again and finally agreed, mainly because he was too short of soldiers.

He personally handed a Garand rifle from the regiment's guard unit to Lin Chen and told him to be careful.

Lin Chen took advantage of the cover of night and found Kirilenko's unit.

Kirilenko was naturally very happy to see Lin Chen coming, especially since Lin Chen seemed to have fully recovered. He couldn't help but sigh, how could this guy's recovery ability be so abnormal?
He wisely handed over the command of the company (actually just a squad). At that time, others were still a little unconvinced, thinking that Lin Chen was only an aviation officer and didn't know anything about ground combat?

Unexpectedly, Kirilenko scolded everyone and admitted that he was the one who taught them all their skills.

Everyone instantly lost their temper, because Kirilenko's combat effectiveness and combat proficiency during this period were obvious to all, otherwise he would not have survived until now. Now they found out that such an awesome commander was actually taught by the major in front of them, how could they not be shocked?

Lin Chen didn't waste any time. The first thing he did when he arrived was to find out the current situation of the Japanese army.

He got a telescope from Kirilenko, took an attendant with him and went out.
Since the battlefield was now in a jagged pattern, the Japanese defense line was just beyond the American foxholes.
By inferring from the battlefield, he could figure out where he would place the bunkers if he were the commander of the Japanese army. Combined with his strong intuition about danger, he actually figured out several bunker firepower points and marked them one by one in his mind.

These Japanese bunkers were very well-placed in terms of both their locations and their firepower range, which made Lin Chen sigh that, putting aside ethnic hatred, Sulin Tadamichi was truly a rare military genius.

What surprised him most was that he actually found an entrance on the leeward side of this high ground.

The defense at the entrance was very lax. Perhaps it was because the U.S. troops were not good at night attacks, or perhaps they were very tired after fighting for days, the Japanese sentry at the entrance actually fell asleep.

Of course Lin Chen was not polite and asked the soldier who was following him to go back and report the coordinates of the Japanese bunker he had scouted out, and to carry out a precision strike after daybreak.

He planned to go into the cave to find out what was going on.

"Sir, this is too dangerous. How about I go in with you?" The soldier actually did not have the confidence to say this. The ferocity of the Japanese army had indeed left a deep impression on them. It was really frightening for a person to go into such a dangerous place alone.

Lin Chen could naturally see what he was thinking and smiled.
"Go back, this is an order. Besides, do you know Japanese? And your skin color won't allow you to blend in."

After saying that, he quietly sneaked over.

In order to avoid alerting the enemy, Lin Chen did not attack the sentry. Not long after he sneaked into the cave, he heard a hissing sound.

Several Japanese soldiers actually ran out for patrol, and when they saw the sergeant who was relieving himself, they immediately shouted, "Wu Yun!"

The sergeant immediately replied, "For a long time."

This made Lin Chen unexpectedly hear the password for tonight.

After the patrolman passed by, Lin Chen sneaked up behind him like a ghost, quietly reached out his hands, and with a sudden force, broke his neck.

He quickly changed into Japanese military uniform, hid his own clothes, and then dragged the body to a corner.

It seems that the Japanese soldiers haven't taken a bath for many days. The smell of their clothes is really
But there is no way now. If you want to survive by sneaking in, the best way is to be like everyone else. Any abnormality will attract unnecessary attention.

When Lin Chen walked forward with the Type 38 rifle in his hand, he discovered that there was an ammunition dump in front of him. However, there was obviously not much ammunition left, with only a few hundred machine gun bullets and a box of grenades.

It can be seen that the Japanese army’s ammunition is almost exhausted.

"Damn it, Xiaochun, why did you take so long to relieve yourself? Go and send a letter to Lieutenant Colonel Asayama, asking them to give us some ammunition!" At this time, a lieutenant officer came over and shouted orders to Lin Chen.

The lights in this section of the tunnel were blown out, so the other side could only make judgments based on the faint light from a distance. Fortunately, the sergeant killed by Lin Chen was also quite tall, so the lieutenant did not recognize him at first.

He had so many things to do that he had no time to carefully distinguish whether Xiaochun was real or fake.

(End of this chapter)