Out of contempt for the Americans, Uchiyama Kojiro neither ordered a retreat nor immediately reported the situation to Allied Headquarters after coming under enemy fire.
The Japanese soldiers on the front line were in for a tragedy. As the vanguard, they had traveled light; heavy firepower was naturally out of the question. Trading shots with the enemy using ordinary field guns was practically courting death!
With no other choice, they could only play coward, hiding in their artillery shelters and not daring to show their heads.
The Japanese were simply unlucky. The artillery defenses they had constructed still followed Russo-Japanese War standards, which were naturally nowhere near sufficient against American firepower!
Once directly hit, an entire platoon of soldiers would often be wiped out seven or eight tenths of the way. The Japanese officers were mechanical enough as well—having received their orders, they truly waited for nightfall, completely ignoring the American bombardment!
Before night had even fallen, the enemy had already charged up—and they were black! The main American force, made up of black soldiers, rushed onto the Japanese positions in the shortest possible time.
Rather than worrying, the Japanese defenders wore expressions as though victory were already in sight. Never mind that they were short while the enemy was tall and powerfully built; when it came to bayonet fighting, they could proudly declare the Japanese Army the undisputed king of close-quarters combat in the entire world!
Even as the battle raged, the American forces began maneuvering around and encircling this Japanese force. Fighting on their own soil, they still possessed quite a few advantages. Under cover of the flames of war, the mouth of this encirclement was steadily being drawn tight.
The most brutal hand-to-hand fighting began. Just as the Japanese commanders did not care about their soldiers' lives,