Dragon of the Mangrooves (2 page)

Then on January 26, an enemy force of three thousand with the support of an aircraft carrier raided Cheduba Island and built beachheads within the day. The sentry party, under the command of Second Lieutenant Motoyama, barely escaped. They made it back to Taungup on February 1 by leaping small islets, one after another.

Having seen the loss of two strategic islands on the Bay of Bengal firsthand, the HQ of the 121st Infantry Regiment ordered Ramree Garrison to retreat to the continent on February 9.

But it was too late. British gunboats and planes had already blocked many creeks and had destroyed all of the garrison’s emergency boats when the order was announced. Also, rescue operations intended by the regiment HQ hadn’t ever worked well. Enemies found and sunk four landing barges previously dispatched by the regiment commander. Then a liaison noncommissioned officer of the Second Battalion, located in the HQ at the time, rushed to the scene with more than a hundred domestic fishing boats. But the flotilla lost its direction in the maze of interwoven creeks and was forced to scatter. Little more than a few boats could have limped into the island. Having no trump card, the regiment HQ finally repeated the order for garrison soldiers to evacuate by swimming across Myinkhon Creek, where the strait was narrowest.

And this time, the obstinate division HQ was throwing a new rescue party into the fire again.

After the briefing, Sumi visited the 121st Infantry Regiment HQ shack and got military scrips for the operation from its finance unit. Then he left silently.

No matter how few options remained, it was extremely dangerous to swim across the sea where enemies were vigilant. That’s why the division HQ had decided to dispatch a new rescue party by boat. Apparently, they wanted to prevent more losses in this desperate situation. Sumi could understand that.

But why must he be the sacrificed pawn? This type of rescue operation had failed twice before he got the order. And yet, they assigned him to try it once more. He couldn’t understand it, however hard he might try.

The reason Sumi became an Army officer was that it was smarter and physically easier than the alternatives. Every rank and file of the Imperial Army was crammed into a barracks like livestock and abused like slaves. On top of that, each man had to stay there between dusk and dawn. It was nearly a prison life.

And bullying seniors and drill sergeants broke each man’s humanity and pride.

Every drafted man knew it well.

Sumi had already had experiences like that. Old regulars blamed him for spilling no more than two hundred cc of diesel oil on the ground, shortly after he had enrolled as a second class private. They had lit his pubic hair and had made him perform a naked dance, after they had given him repetitive slaps fierce enough to make him almost unconscious. He had turned red with fury and humiliation, but once he understood the culture, it had been clear that such treatment was a daily occurrence for soldiers. Military law banned bullying, but this was overlooked.

The Army seemed to reinforce it. They wanted soldiers who were nothing more than cogs in the killing machine.

On the other hand, officers could live outside the barbed wire fence. Each was free to come and go. And a batman came for him with his horse every morning. If Sumi could draw a better salary by riding a horse and saluting gallantly while adorned with a samurai sword and polished leather boots, that was the way to go.

Needless to say, he jumped at the reserve officer candidates’ course opening—a way for well-educated conscripts to become Army officers.

The real world was tougher than Sumi thought it would be. It hadn’t been long before he had recognized that officers from a candidate school were no match for elites from the military academy. Captain rank was the limit. An ability to command wasn’t demanded of them; rather, a reckless courage to get killed first as a good example for soldiers. And now Sumi had proof: being lightheartedly assigned the responsibility of such a dangerous operation in which there was a good chance he was going to die. It was too late to repent of his hasty decision to become an officer.

But Sumi also knew everything depended on how he looked at the matter.

What would wait for him in the Myebon Peninsula? His platoon had four model ninety-seven tankettes. They would be expected to provide firepower and be put forth to bear the brunt. But the maximum thickness of the tank’s armor was only sixteen millimeters, though this small vehicle looked like a fair tank. He didn’t know how to cope with formidable M4 Sherman tanks with only the easily flam-mable tankettes. It was easy for him to imagine being burned alive there.

On the other side, the order to collect boats and go for the island lacked any specific measures. The order allowed Sumi to take it easy and shift at will. It would be a perilous infiltration; there was no doubt about that. But at least there would be some hope of return. He felt that it was better than going to Myebon.

Once he got an order, he had no alternative but to obey it. Sumi reluctantly began planning the rescue.

The Japanese had command of neither the air nor the sea. The chance of a bloodless withdrawal was so slim that both the garrison and the regiment HQ had to rely on a reckless wading operation. How could Sumi make his operation safer and more efficient? He didn’t have to. Returning alive and reporting without a reprimand would be acceptable. This called for careful thinking. At first he considered why the previous rescue operations had failed.

The regiment HQ had chosen the narrowest strait between Ramree Island and the continent as a ferry point and had dispatched both landing barges and the domestic fishing boat flotilla led by the liaison noncommissioned officer there. As far as he knew, each operation had been to gather the garrison temporarily around a hamlet called Lamu, approximately forty kilometers north of Taungup.

There was no other way to evacuate one battalion at a time. And the opponent must have known it well. As a matter of fact, the enemy had gotten ready with gunboats and rubber rafts equipped with outboard motors exclusively for patrol.

The enemy had known the Japanese intentions before each rescue attempt. If he were to stupidly take the same way, the result would be the same.

Sumi also thought the choice of rescue boats wasn’t right. A military landing barge surely had a good transport capacity, but it was so conspicuous that enemy spies would easily spot it. What about a domestic fishing boat? These were usually small, wooden boats used by those living in mangrove areas as everyday transportation. The Japanese called this kind of boat a “sampan.” He wondered if he could collect sampan as the liaison NCO had done.

But that won’t work because it’s slow, he told himself. It might be good for navigating through marshlands, but, once an enemy finds it, escape will be next to impossible. He also knew Japanese engineers on the continental side did not have outboard motors available for small boats.

He returned to the coast road deep in thought. He found an officer napping under one of palms along the road. Sumi recognized him as Second Lieutenant Okada, Sumi’s colleague and First Platoon commander, who had arrived there earlier. To organize a party from Second Platoon, Sumi would have to entrust Okada with the rest of his men.

“Hey, wake up. I need a favor,” Sumi said as he nudged Okada’s shoulder.

Okada kept sleeping happily. Both men were platoon commanders of the same company. Sumi blew a fuse and kicked Okada hard in the buttocks.

“Ouch! What the hell are you doing?” Okada snapped, springing to his feet.

“Are you crazy? Why did you wake me up?” Okada had worked day and night and was also tired. Sumi realized this and apologized.

“Forgive me. I kicked you too hard,” he said. Then he proceeded to explain the situation.

When Sumi finished, Okada rubbed his buttocks and said, “OK, I got it. Tell your remaining sarge to see me before we move. I’ll take command of your men.

Don’t worry. How are the ships for Ramree?”

“I don’t know,” Sumi replied, “but I think HQ is also at a loss about what move to make. Nobody tells me anything about how to make it. I’m glad they were general directions, but I’m stuck on how to collect the ships.”

“If I were you, I would use Burmese fishing boats,” Okada said.

“A sarge of Second Battalion has tried it already. And I heard he failed. Maybe the boats were too slow.”

“Maybe it was a tiny flatboat or a sampan. How about a legitimate fishing boat used for offshore fishery? Some fishermen in Taungup have some fair boats.

They have hot-bulb engines, at least. Some even have diesel engines.”

“A diesel engine? Really?”

“Yeah, I’ve seen one with a diesel,” answered Okada.

“Sounds reliable.”

“Exactly. Maybe it can even run away from a destroyer.”

Taungup was a fishing village. Sumi had seen a wide variety of fishing boats moored along the Taungup River, which was about a hundred meters wide.

Open-air bazaars used to be held there often, and fresh fish were available on the streets. Okada likely came from a fishing village and was indifferent to Sumi’s admiration.

“What is the name of your Burmese soldier?” Okada asked. “Pondgi? Right?

I’ve heard the boy came from Sandoway. That’s a fishermen’s town, too. Maybe he has some acquaintances here. Go and ask him.”

Sumi felt hope rising inside. He took his notebook out of his pocket and ana-lyzed the information. He noticed the action report of the Cheduba Sentry Party, led by Second Lieutenant Motoyama, who had splendidly succeeded in breaking through the blockade.

Four small islands named Sagu, Magyi, Tai, and Ye are scattered on the Heywood Channel, south of Ramree and east of Cheduba. The Motoyama Party made Taungup by going northward past Ye, Tai, and Sagu, in that order, about two weeks before. Of course, this area wasn’t safe; the enemy had actually landed on Sagu on January 29. But there was no Japanese garrison on those islands at the time. The enemy captured both Cheduba and Sagu without bloodshed—surely an anticlimax for the bloodthirsty ones. So there was no wonder even if the enemy had been off their guard around the Heywood Channel when Motoyama and his men had been breaking through.

For the Twenty-Sixth Indian Division, it became clear that the Japanese Imperial Navy was busy coping with the Philippine front. The Japanese Army on the continental side had no heavy guns to bombard the island directly. And the garrison it was fighting was already on its deathbed. The only alerts were for the sporadic air raids by the Fifth Japanese Air Division, which was running short of planes.

These facts allowed Sumi to note that the enemy presence in the Heywood Channel was diminishing, if it was there at all. The successful return of the Motoyama Party seemed to prove it.

Gradually, a plan took shape.

It might work to go west on the Heywood Channel from Taungup on high-speed fishing boats and then run south of Magyi Island to pretend to head for the ocean. After sailing past the uninhabited Tai Island, he would turn northward and rush toward the Cheduba Strait, which lay between Ramree and Cheduba. And eventually, he’d land on the Cape of Amou, the southernmost tip of Ramree Island.

Enemy flotillas seeking to hinder Japanese evacuation would float in the narrow water pathways dividing the island from the mainland, he reasoned. Creeks there named Madegyun, Myinkhon, and Kalaidaung were attacked indiscriminately when anything whatsoever approached there.

Nevertheless, many local fishermen were working on the Heywood Channel, although some quit in fear of war. Most of them probably had to make up for losses caused by storms during the rainy season.

If Sumi could disguise his soldiers as Burmese fishermen and hitch a ride on a boat, he could approach the island from the south and make land under cover of darkness. In case of emergency, the speed of a diesel engine would be critical.

Having determined his plan, Sumi took a full breath and looked up the sky.

The time was well after ten o’clock.

February is the dry season in Burma. The climate reminded him of early summer in Japan. Though the air was rather comfortable compared with the other seasons, it was scorching during midday. When he arrived in the jungle, the soldiers of Second Platoon had been resting in the shadows of trees. Sumi gathered them and called Sergeant Kokichi Shimizu, the Second Squad Leader.

Shimizu was a muscular noncommissioned officer who had risen through the ranks. He often bullied recruits, acting big because of his rank. Although he was notorious among soldiers, Shimizu was one of the precious veterans with enough combat experience for the newly embodied reconnaissance regiment. However, he often locked horns with others. He was too much for the younger Sumi.

Sumi had another NCO in charge of First Squad, a good-natured man who was far easier to deal with. But he had unfortunately developed malaria, and, being unsteady on his feet, he seemed useless. So Sumi had no choice but to appoint Shimizu as a vice-commander.

Next Sumi called Pondgi and asked if he could get any fishing boats, as suggested by Second Lieutenant Okada. Pondgi said he could. Sumi ordered him to make arrangements right away and handed Pondgi all the scrips he had.

Japanese military scrip had been overissued from the beginning, which gave rise to further inflation. Its value in Burmese cities was down, spurred by the counteroffensive of the Allies. Luckily, here in rural Arakan, disasters of war were few, so the scrip managed to maintain its value.

The rumor among the men was that British-Indian forces kept strafing every boat approaching Ramree. Fishermen would not sail where their lives, to say nothing of their valuable boats, were at risk. Although Sumi could acquire them by force—flashing guns and swords—he wanted to avoid doing so. He didn’t want the locals to nurse a grudge.

Sumi called Superior Private Yoshioka, who had an affinity for locals.

Yoshioka was an amiable, handsome man who was able to speak Burmese fluently. Sumi let him accompany Pondgi.

“Get some brand-new fishing boats by this evening, Yoshioka,” Sumi said.