The man next to him was fresh from the repple depple. He looked about 16 and was staring ahead , seeing nothing. Simons or Simmons , probably best not to know. Around him men were all in their own private worlds , waiting for the inevitable shelling.
The spray came over the side of the LCM but by now everyone was soaked to the skin.. The only sun was the rising one on his divisional insignia.-.yellow sun against red sky , rising over a calm sea, Today the sea was anything but calm.
Then he saw the plane. It seemed to be coming for him personally , like the pilot had a grudge. Through the flak bursts , through the tracer and the small arms fire. At the last minute the right wing of the fighter was torn off by flak and the plane spiralled into the sea. He fingered his dog tag and said a heartfelt prayer.
All around him the sky was full of planes screaming from the sky like angry eagles. Many blossomed into orange fireballs but some were getting through. There were screams from other LCM's but he wasn't going to stick his head up to look. Someone nearby was firing a fifty cal.Then the ground based artillery started and the water around the LCM was alive with geysers of water.
The answering rounds came from the big Navy guns in deep water. Like a distant freight train they whistled overhead on their way to the beach. Scuttlebutt had varied but the swab at Pearl had told him there were forty flat-tops in the attack fleet.
They must be getting close . The tracer whistling against the LCM was like angry bees and he was dreading what he would see when the ramp went down.
It was worse. He lay in the red surf behind a tank trap and worked the bolt on his rifle. The minutes between the LCM ramp going down and now were fuzzy. He was alive – that was it. Not many of his platoon left. Fire and run. Cover fire.Head for rhe radio man.
He yelled at the petrified radio man " Send. 44th ashore on Chevrolet Beach. Heavy Fire"
He looked at the devastation around him. Welcome to Kyushu.