aircraft wide.
Sweeping in from over the top of the US ground force, the leading element selected one target each.
The T34, the Shinhoto, and ‘Ashita’.
Each aircraft discharged six 5” HVARs, deadly high velocity rockets, universally known as ‘Holy Moses.’
Not one struck its target, although in the case of the Shinhoto Chi-ha, two were close enough to kill it and its crew.
The machine-gun near Hamuda rattled out its final rounds, and to good effect.
The right wingman knew he was in trouble, and he struggled to get some height, pulling his damaged aircraft up and around to bail out over friendly ground.
The Pratt and Whitney power plant decided otherwise, and fuel lines let go, bathing the hot engine with rich fuel.
In a second, the nose fireballed and the wave of heat blistered 1st Lieutenant Cowpens’ face.
Canopy back, he rolled the aircraft and fell out, his parachute grabbing at the air in an attempt to slow him sufficiently before impact with the ground.
Many in his squadron watched as the chute blossomed only moments before the screaming burden it carried hit the ground hard.
The anger that the pilots of VMF312 felt was all put into the attacks they made, the remaining aircraft repeating the line abreast attack, the fifteen aircraft making a total of five passes.
Impotent, Major Nomuri Hamuda watched as the T34 simply came apart under a number of hammer blows.
Miraculously, he saw a figure emerge from the wreckage, only to be consumed by a hail of high explosive as the next aircraft put his HVARs on the money.
The air attack coordinator, safely ensconced in his half-track, not far from Haro’s original observation position above the village of Zhaigongshan, knew his trade.
In his own way, he was an artist, but a very deadly one.
The simple notations on his map, made during the initial contact, were all he needed to steer the two Marine squadrons into an accurate killing frenzy.
His only error was in assuming that the wreck on his right flank, trackless and smoking, had been knocked out.
Relaying his vectoring and attack orders to VF-191, he sat back smugly to await the destruction of the Japanese infantry element.
His ordered approach brought the F8F Bearcats up the river line, using the water to orientate themselves.
Three Pershings had already bathed the area in red smoke, as per his orders.
Fourteen Bearcats swooped on the smoke, each depositing a single M29 cluster bomb in turn.
The red smoke was replaced by a wall of sound, coloured yellow, white, and orange, as one thousand, two hundred and sixty 4-pound charges exploded in an area of three football pitches.
Hamuda’s infantry were destroyed.
Many men died, ripped apart by high explosives or rapidly moving metal pieces.
A few men lived, spared by some fickle finger of fate, as the men around them were thrown in all directions like rag dolls, or simply destroyed in place.
A handful more lived, but wished it otherwise, their bodies and limbs torn apart.
More than one hideously wounded man took his own life, the desperate calls for help falling either on ears permanently or temporarily deaf, or those belonging to the dead.
Hamuda arrived, out of breath, his sprint from the command post punctuated by threatening but impotent gestures from his sword, trying to cut the enemy aircraft from the sky in his mind.
Since the US committed fully to the Chinese conflict, Hamuda had seen much of what the technology of the enemy could do to soft flesh, but he was still unprepared for what the charnel house that used to be his infantry position would throw before him.
In a daze, he moved through the unrecognisable pieces of his command, occasionally silently acknowledging a piece of a body that bore some resemblance to a man he had shared rice with, or an NCO he had given orders to in battle.
He knelt beside the shattered body of a corporal, the man’s face wiped away by one of the deadly bomblets, the same charge opening up his stomach
Sweeping in from over the top of the US ground force, the leading element selected one target each.
The T34, the Shinhoto, and ‘Ashita’.
Each aircraft discharged six 5” HVARs, deadly high velocity rockets, universally known as ‘Holy Moses.’
Not one struck its target, although in the case of the Shinhoto Chi-ha, two were close enough to kill it and its crew.
The machine-gun near Hamuda rattled out its final rounds, and to good effect.
The right wingman knew he was in trouble, and he struggled to get some height, pulling his damaged aircraft up and around to bail out over friendly ground.
The Pratt and Whitney power plant decided otherwise, and fuel lines let go, bathing the hot engine with rich fuel.
In a second, the nose fireballed and the wave of heat blistered 1st Lieutenant Cowpens’ face.
Canopy back, he rolled the aircraft and fell out, his parachute grabbing at the air in an attempt to slow him sufficiently before impact with the ground.
Many in his squadron watched as the chute blossomed only moments before the screaming burden it carried hit the ground hard.
The anger that the pilots of VMF312 felt was all put into the attacks they made, the remaining aircraft repeating the line abreast attack, the fifteen aircraft making a total of five passes.
Impotent, Major Nomuri Hamuda watched as the T34 simply came apart under a number of hammer blows.
Miraculously, he saw a figure emerge from the wreckage, only to be consumed by a hail of high explosive as the next aircraft put his HVARs on the money.
The air attack coordinator, safely ensconced in his half-track, not far from Haro’s original observation position above the village of Zhaigongshan, knew his trade.
In his own way, he was an artist, but a very deadly one.
The simple notations on his map, made during the initial contact, were all he needed to steer the two Marine squadrons into an accurate killing frenzy.
His only error was in assuming that the wreck on his right flank, trackless and smoking, had been knocked out.
Relaying his vectoring and attack orders to VF-191, he sat back smugly to await the destruction of the Japanese infantry element.
His ordered approach brought the F8F Bearcats up the river line, using the water to orientate themselves.
Three Pershings had already bathed the area in red smoke, as per his orders.
Fourteen Bearcats swooped on the smoke, each depositing a single M29 cluster bomb in turn.
The red smoke was replaced by a wall of sound, coloured yellow, white, and orange, as one thousand, two hundred and sixty 4-pound charges exploded in an area of three football pitches.
Hamuda’s infantry were destroyed.
Many men died, ripped apart by high explosives or rapidly moving metal pieces.
A few men lived, spared by some fickle finger of fate, as the men around them were thrown in all directions like rag dolls, or simply destroyed in place.
A handful more lived, but wished it otherwise, their bodies and limbs torn apart.
More than one hideously wounded man took his own life, the desperate calls for help falling either on ears permanently or temporarily deaf, or those belonging to the dead.
Hamuda arrived, out of breath, his sprint from the command post punctuated by threatening but impotent gestures from his sword, trying to cut the enemy aircraft from the sky in his mind.
Since the US committed fully to the Chinese conflict, Hamuda had seen much of what the technology of the enemy could do to soft flesh, but he was still unprepared for what the charnel house that used to be his infantry position would throw before him.
In a daze, he moved through the unrecognisable pieces of his command, occasionally silently acknowledging a piece of a body that bore some resemblance to a man he had shared rice with, or an NCO he had given orders to in battle.
He knelt beside the shattered body of a corporal, the man’s face wiped away by one of the deadly bomblets, the same charge opening up his stomach
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