Fighting in the Mountains of South-Eastern China, October 1938
Fighting in the Mountains of South-Eastern China
He slept until he heard the droning noise of aircraft motors. None of his comrades had noticed and they all slept on. He couldn’t blame them. They had marched far in the last days and fought against remnants of Chinese militia troops for the last week. Bombers, he decided. Our own for all I know. The Chinese didn’t seem to have any bombers in the region while he and his brigade had gotten air support from a group of Mitsubishi Ki-21 based in Hangzhou since they had gotten orders to advance southwards into the mountains. He could see them now, a group of bombers flying in pointed formations. He guessed that they flew less than two thousand feet high. He counted fifteen aircraft that zoomed overhead further down the valley. They would bomb the Chinese positions there. He guessed that it would be another two minutes until he would hear the bombs. The pounding roar of the aircraft had grown to a crescendo now and all his comrades were awake too.
He heard the explosions now and a few hundred feet to his left the artillery started firing too. Two of the other battalions would now attack the Chinese forces in the village under the cover of the artillery barrage. The sun was just rising over the mountain ridge in the East. He always felt elated by the first sunshine of the day. It was the sign of the Empire and brought new strength to him. He also loved the mountains, he felt home there. They reminded him of his small home village west of Nagano. His platoon now got ready to have breakfast. They would later have to march further south and eventually attack a small village if the scouts found resistance there.
He walked over to where the captain had slept and saw that he was already awake and working. “Ah, Lieutenant Kobayashi, I was looking for you. We have gotten orders from the Colonel. We will start advancing along the Western side of the valley in about an hour. Have your men ready by then.” “Yes, sir.” And he would have them ready. His platoon was the best in the whole regiment.
Scouts had reported mortar fire from a small ruin on top of a ridge and the captain had told him to take them out. With his binoculars he tried to make out a way to attack the position. He would have his men advance over a small path towards that ruin as the terrain around it was too rough. If the Chinese had a machine gun up there, his men would be in deadly peril on the small path. While there was an ample amount of rocks to take cover, it would be hard to advance if there was serious resistance from above. Perhaps he should ask his best snipers to climb the mountain just west of the ruins. They may be able to fire onto the Chinese from there. Yes, that was probably a good course of action.
He followed his snipers as they made their way up the mountain and slowly advanced towards the ruin with his binoculars. So far, there had been no fire from the ruin. Perhaps it was already deserted? His men slowly continued toward the ruin, and circled behind it. He could see one of his men signal with his hands that ruin was empty. Oh well, better err on the side of caution than losing men to folly or negligence. He could live with that. He ordered his troops to advance further down the valley. They passed the ruin and went further towards the pass. He wondered if the Chinese would try to mount a new resistance on the pass. They would see. His troops weren’t as used to the mountains as he was and their equipment was too heavy for the mountains too, but in the end the Chinese were only a pack of peasants with a few rifles and small artillery. They would be no match for them, no matter where they chose a fight.
Chinese pocket in South Eastern China
They had bombed small Chinese villages in mountainous valleys for some time now. It was easy as the Chinese lacked anti-air artillery and also had no fighters stationed anywhere nearby. They were virtually untouchable and only had to take care of the rough terrain. They had lost an aircraft with crew two weeks ago in one of these valleys when a motor stopped and the pilot couldn’t land the aircraft safely anymore. But apart from that they had absolutely no casualties. And from what he could tell, the ground forces benefitted immensely from their bombing runs. They had proceeded further and further south and broken all resistance on their way.
But he didn’t want to change with them. He liked the comfortable airbase just south of Hangzhou where they had beds to sleep in and got real food, not just the field kitchen crap. He had been in the army before, but the air force was definitely more his thing. He had always dreamed of flying and now that he could he loved every minute of it. At the moment, he was just the co-pilot, but he was sure that he would get his own aircraft eventually.
They were approaching their target now and he signaled the bombing engineer to get ready to drop their payload. They would bomb a supply camp of the Chinese militias today. He had heard that they had serious supply problems already as the army had cut them off further west. They couldn’t be supplied via sea either as their navy couldn’t even dream of breaking the blockade by the Japanese. Hitting the supply camp would seriously hamper them and make the job for the army easier. This would be one of the last missions in this area as the focus of the offensive had shifted further to the west and his air wing would soon be redeployed to an airfield near Nanchang to support a new offensive into the Chinese heartlands.
“Engineer, we are approaching our target, get ready to drop the bombs. Thirty seconds.” “Yes, Lieutenant Sato.” The engineer dropped the bombs just in the right positions and he was sure that they would hit their target. They had been successful again.