"Guadalcanal"
Frank Minoso POV
I sit there staring at the Jap position, some well dug-in machinegun nest as well as two guard towers guarded by a platoon of Jap infantry. I look to back to check my own forces; Willie the crack shot, Jimmy the lucky bastard, and Tommy the silent devil. Willie can be a little jumpy and too-optimistic, but that doesn't mean his hand are any slower at operating his deadly rifles, he can nail Japs without them knowing what hit them. Jimmy, he is a John Wayne of the Pacific, his trusty pistol had down no fewer enemies than Willie's rifle and at a pretty long range too, what's important is how he always dash without his own safety to pull guys to safety and patch them up. I personally had to thank him for saving me no less than 20 times myself, not to mention he saved Willie and Tommy for god knows how many times too. I had to agree with Willie that we would all be dead if not for the doc here. And alas we have Tommy, a quite guy I must say, took us three a few weeks before we manage to crack a smile off him. Now he talks to us occasionally although most time we listen to Willie's popping jokes here and there anyway.
But you would not believe him when you see him in combat; I mean he can literally break supermen back without breaking a sweat. I could remember the first time he take on a squad of Japs in Makin Raid, he took his Springfield rifle firing is quick secessions as he rushed to an anti-aircraft gun and turn it on the poor bastards who barely had time to know what exactly happened. Anyway, back to reality I told the guys.
"Alright let's take those Japs by surprise, Willie and Tommy, on my command pop those two guys on the tower and Willie you stay here and cover our advances, Jimmy be prepare to throw a couple pineapples for our friends; me and Tommy will than assault their position from the left flank."
"Whatever you say, GUNNARY Sergeant, What? I was just kidding! Fine." Willie than stead himself and on my mark he and Tommy pop two guys off from the tower. At that time, Jimmy start throwing pineapples at the positions as me and Tommy move towards their left flank, Willie nailed another guy who froze in the middle, trying to figure out which direction came from. In another 3 seconds he downs another one and I wasn't even 15 feet away from my original spot. "BOOM" the blast from the grenade sent another 6 Japs in the trench flying. "Yeah you like that?" I heard Jimmy commented as he starts to follow us. Willie had successfully snipe 5 guys before the Japs finally spotted him and pin him down, directed all their attention to Willie. I stopped for a second, five feet from the first Jap in the Machinegun position, who had absolutely no idea he's time is up. I counted about 25 men left, enough.
"Let them have it!" I yelled to Tommy and Jimmy as I opened up my BAR, its distinctive sound penetrate the cracking of Japanese fire, I let loose all 20 rounds on that machinegun positions, killing 4 soldiers in it. While Tommy with his Carbine is popping off guys 25 feet away and Jimmy with his Colt .45 shoots 3 Japs without even breaking a sweat and let loose the rest his clips and then whipped his pistol on a Jap trying to banzai charge. I reload as fast as I can, I recon about 8 seconds after the firefight begin I look up to see about 13 men left, I mean 12, Willie just nailed another one. The rest of the Japs decides to banzai charge. Me and Jimmy start shooting, we got about five when Tommy took a Japanese machinegun and mowed down the rest. I swear the whole thing couldn't have last more than 3 minutes.
Well, the routine goes like that more or less for the next weeks, there was no rest soon we are at Guadalcanal and every night we have to wait while Tokyo Express deliver fresh reinforcements and supplies to the Jap while bombarding on us. Where is our ship? I would ask now and than, but the answers the same, we don't have any. Even though we won midway, the IJN still have a whole basket load of ships left while our "Pacific Fleet" or what's left of it anyway, couple Heavy Cruisers and destroyers, even USS. Wasp was sunk not long after, I mean it was bad.
However, it was the night at the bloody ridge that changes me. It was on a moonless night, us raiders were charge to hold a line of ridges along sides Henderson Field and at that time, our forces are still pretty thin and we have about a foxhole every 30 yard from each other. The only thing we have are .30 caliber machines guns, one of the new gadgets the States come up with. Our Colonel warned us about the possible attacks. " If they want to take Henderson, they'll attack here tonight", Some how that night was different from all the others. It was silent, but so silent that it's unnatural. Not even the usual noise of bird and jungle animals, it was dead silent. No body utter a sound for what seems like hours.
Well, I got bored and so was Tommy, so I decides that it wouldn't hurt to show him the picture of my girl back in the states, I light up my lighters and hold my helmets over it to conceal the light and Tommy scoot closer and watch. "she sure was a beauty" " I know, I was going to marry her once I got back to the states" "That's nice" "well…" the next thing I felt was the familiar rush of bullets zipping around me, hitting the dirt. At that moment everyone tensed up and scouting to see from the shot come from. I quickly toss the lighter to kill the light and put my helmet back on. Suddenly to my right I can hear yelling in Japanese "…Banzai!" is all I heard but I don't need any more evidence as I swing my BAR around and aimed at the general direction. Somebody popped a flare and the bright flash reveal at least 60 figures rushing us from all the front of the ridge. At that moment all 4 of our machine gun open fire and right away the first line of the soldiers fall down, but only to be replaced by more figures from the back, I let loose my BAR at the group and I could see Willie throw a couple grenades over the ridges. In one of the flares I witness a Japanese soldiers impales a Marine with his bayonet while his buddy was shot by a pistol from a officer. They was going to turn the machinegun toward our position but Tommy saw it too and swing his barrel around and couple burst later eliminate the soldiers.
The Japanese waves just keep on coming and coming, and pretty soon our Machine gun ran out of bullets and we are forced to retreat to second and finally, third ridges. At the third ridges, we can't retreat anymore, at one side in the Henderson field and another in the field Hospital, if we got overrun, who know what might happen. Will, at least we have howitzers this time, and believe me, 200yards with a howitzer; you have no idea the blast power of this thing, it literally throw people 4 feet into the air.
During one time I spotted a Japs mortar crew setting up and I was deciding what to do when Tommy just jump over the foxhole and ran toward the mortar position with his Tommy gun blazing, the crew was shocked and pretty soon Tommy was right into the waves of Japs charging toward us and Tommy lobs a grenades and it score a perfect hit on the mortar knocking both the mortar and the crew out. "yee-hahhh" " That show them" As Tommy run back to the foxhole, he stopped over an foxhole and pick up a wounded Marines with a gush on his shoulder. Bullets were hitting all around him as he slowly made his way back toward our position, I try to cover them with my BAR and Willie was sniping the Japanese Machinegun nest. When he reached Jimmy for him to take care of the wounded Marine, our whole platoon cheered, and our morals rose seeing the heroic act. However, the Japanese Banzai charge persisted and soon we are on our last ammos and even machine gun ammo had to be rationed, but just as we are about to ran out of ammo, the cactus air force from Henderson filed arrived and pounded the Japanese position and pretty soon it all returns to the deadly silence again.
That night was the most intense fire fight I ever got into and Tommy was even awarded an Silver Star for his action that night. However, it wasn't until march that the island was secured and by that time after a few weeks of R&R we are transferred to land on Tarawa, but my plane was shot-up during our trip and my feet was wounded from Jap Machine-gun and so I have to wait a few week before I could rejoin my squad. Speaking of which, I should be able to join the next waves to land soon, I heard it's pretty bad up there. I can't wait to see Willie's face when he saw me, they never realize I was on the ship.