W E B Griffin – Men at War 4 – The Fighting Agents

One hour before the Japanese were to pass the ambush site, the last group of guerrillas arrived. No one had disappeared, or tried to. The force now totaled 136 men; and two of the guerrillas, formerly Philippine Scouts, had brought with them BARs–Browning Automatic Rifles–and seven loaded magazines.

Fertig was of two minds about using the BARs. They were splendid weapons, and God knew his troops needed something to counter the Japanese Namimba machine guns the guards would certainly have. But he had only seventy rounds per gun–three and a half magazines. And every round that ripped through the BARs with such speed could be fired one at a time from an Enfield in sniping fire, where the kill-per-cartridge rate was so much more effective.

In the end, he decided that the more fire expended at the beginning of the assault, the sooner the Japanese would be overwhelmed, and thus the more ammunition could be taken from their bodies.

Fertig then explained the tactics of the attack, which were very simple.

The force would be divided into two elements, with two-thirds of the force close to one side of the road. Prom there a devastating fire could be delivered at close range. The second element, commanded by Fertig and consisting of the remaining third of the force, with both BARs and ten of the fourteen fragmentation grenades, would be on the opposite side of the road.

On signal, which would be when Fertig and a former Philippine Scout opened fire with their Enfield rifles on the driver of the first vehicle in the convoy, the smaller force would bring BAR fire to bear on the trucks carrying the troops. Other riflemen would disable the last truck in the convoy, preferably by killing its driver.

At this point, Fertig authorized the throwing of one–only–fragmentation grenade at each troop-carrying truck.

The Japanese convoy would thus be immobilized, and it was to be hoped that many, if not most, of the truck-borne troops would be killed before they exited the trucks.

Some, of course, would survive. Most, Fertig believed, would exit toward the ditch and forest opposite the direction from which they had been attacked.

They would then present themselves as targets to the bulk of the ambush force. Meanwhile, the third of the force that had opened the attack would rapidly divide itself in half, half going to the head of the convoy, and half to the tail. This would get them out of the line of fire of the larger ambush force and leave them in a position to fire upon any Japanese from the sides.

Fertig did his best to impress upon his men the absolute necessity of aimed fire. They were dangerously short of ammunition, and there was absolutely no excuse for a guerrilla to fall from a bullet fired by another guerrilla.

Everyone seemed to accept his reasoning. But Fertig knew that even the most phlegmatic of people got excited once the crack of small-arms fire filled the air. And by no stretch of the imagination could his force be called at all phlegmatic.

In the engagement that followed, the ambush force of United States forces in the Philippines, Brigadier General W W. Fertig commanding, triumphed over the 1104the Army Information Detachment and Company 3, 505the Infantry Regiment of the Imperial Japanese Army. There were no Japanese survivors.

USFIP suffered eleven dead (including the Philippine Scout who had opened the engagement at General Fertig’s side, and of whom he had been extraordinarily fond) and thirty-six wounded. Of the thirty-six wounded, twenty would subsequently die. USFIP had virtually no medical supplies.

The Japanese, once they overcame their initial surprise, had fought gallantly and well. It was more than half an hour before the last of them had died for his Emperor. By the time the engagement was over, the Japanese had expended a large part of their ammunition.

On balance, USFIP had more weapons after the ambush than before, including two 60mm mortars and sixty rounds for them, several Nambu pistols, nearly two hundred Arisaka rifles, and one Namimba machine gun. Countering this increase was the expenditure of.30-06 ammunition and hand grenades.

An Enfield or a BAR without.30-06 ammunition is simply a finely machined piece of steel, not a weapon. And the Japanese had expended all of their hand grenades before they were overwhelmed, the last dozen of them as instruments of suicide.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *