Chapter 194: The Rout Of The 20th Division
It was unclear whether it was because Ushijima Mitsuru was too unlucky or John was too fortunate; they had originally planned to wait until half of the Japanese army had passed and then cut them in half, but by a stroke of coincidence, they happened to intercept Ushijima Mitsuru’s headquarters.
Although John did not know he had hooked a big fish, looking at the convoy led by that sedan and composed of dozens of trucks and sedans, it was obvious without thinking that it must be an important Japanese target.
The tankers showed no hesitation, firing machine guns at the scattering Japanese soldiers while driving the massive Sherman tanks to charge and crash through.
A Sherman tank speeding along showed no intention of slowing down; its heavy steel tracks carried an unstoppable force, crushing over the waist of a Japanese soldier who was trying to crawl and hide.
“Crack—squish!” A teeth-grinding sound of bones breaking mixed with the dull thud of organs being squeezed and bursting, clearly audible.
The soldier’s body was instantly crushed into two segments; his upper body still had eyes wide open in terror, his mouth opening and closing silently as if trying to let out a final scream, but blood mixed with shattered organs was already surging from his mouth and nose, forming a pool of sticky, foul-smelling dark red blood.
His lower body was completely deformed, pelvis shattered, legs twisted at a grotesque angle, mixed together with the mud and blood, indistinguishable. After the tracks passed, only a deep rut mark soaked with flesh and blood remained.
In the distance, a group of Japanese soldiers, under the command of a second lieutenant, tried to form a makeshift defensive line; they set up Type 92 heavy machine guns and fired futilely at the tanks, but the 7.7mm bullets hitting the Sherman’s thick armor only sparked harmless bursts, unable to leave even a scratch.
“Target, Japanese monkey machine gun position! Crush it!”
The Sherman commanded by John charged first; the 12.7mm Browning heavy machine gun on the turret swept wildly, mowing down the Japanese on the position in all directions.
Several soldiers of a heavy machine gun team didn’t even have time to react before they were torn into fragments by the dense hail of bullets.
Then, a 75mm high-explosive shell accurately hit this small group of Japanese trying to rally and counterattack.
An orange-red fireball suddenly expanded, and the violent explosive shockwave tore and flung them like leaves in a gale.
One Japanese soldier was hurled into the air by the shockwave; his body twisted unnaturally in mid-air, one arm severed at the shoulder, the stump a mess of mangled flesh with stark white bone visible, blood spurting out like a fountain.
He crashed heavily into the mud more than ten meters away, twitched a few times, and then lay still; only his severed arm lay alone near the explosion center, fingers slightly curled as if still trying to grasp something.
Another soldier beside him was even more wretched; he seemed to have half his face shaved off by shrapnel from forehead to chin, a bloody mess, one eyeball gone leaving a hollow socket, the other eye bulging in terror, thick fluid mixed with blood and brain matter oozing continuously from the wound.
He groped wildly at his face with both hands, emitting a beast-like shrill and desperate wail that pierced through the roar of gunfire, chilling to the bone.
Even his uniform was set ablaze by the explosion; flames greedily devoured his body, and soon he became a fireman rolling in agony on the ground, the smell of scorching flesh spreading.
The Japanese army was completely routed.
Soldiers discarded helmets and weapons, scurrying like headless flies, only regretting that their parents hadn’t given them two more legs.
Some desperate soldiers even tried to attack the tanks with bamboo poles tied with cluster grenades, but were often turned into sieves by the multiple machine guns on the tanks before getting close, futilely detonating bursts of smoke and fire.
The entire battlefield turned into a chaotic slaughterhouse.
John’s tank battalion advanced as if in no-man’s-land, wantonly slicing and ravaging the marching column of the Japanese 20th Division, turning their retreat into a catastrophic rout.
Thick smoke billowed, flames soared, the air filled with the acrid smell of gunpowder, blood, and diesel.
John climbed out of the turret, exposing half his body, raised binoculars, the lenses glinting faintly in the smoke-filled air.
In his view, the ground looked as if it had been plowed by a giant harrow, littered with burning vehicle wreckage, scattered weapons, and Japanese corpses in various poses.
Some corpses still held death-struggle poses, arms stretched toward the sky as if silently accusing; others curled into balls, trying to protect their vulnerable abdomens, yet still mercilessly torn apart.
In the distance, several infantry following the tanks were using Garand rifles and Thompson submachine guns to finish off those “corpses” still twitching slightly; short bursts of fire rose and fell, each shot marking the final end of a suffering soul.
“Tank Battalion Company 2… advance east three hundred yards, clear any remaining resistance. Infantry, quickly check those destroyed trucks for any recoverable intelligence or supplies.
Tank Battalion Company 3, maintain vigilance, watch the flanks, prevent stragglers from sneaking attacks from the sides.”
John’s voice came through the radio; even on this chaotic battlefield, he still strove to remain calm.
While John coldly directed the tank battalion in battlefield cleanup, the remnants of the Japanese 20th Division who had luckily survived the first assault and temporarily escaped death’s grasp were experiencing hellish despair and chaos.
Their once-proud command structure was now shattered like porcelain smashed by a boulder.
Even division commander Ushijima Mitsuru was in no better shape; the sedan he rode in had long been abandoned, and his escorts had scattered.
His face was smeared with black soot and blood from who-knows-whom; one ear was still ringing from the earlier explosion, barely able to hear anything.
He dazedly supported chief of staff Koshimura Hisakazu, whose left arm was broken and bleeding profusely, staggering as they tried to evade pursuit by those steel monsters.
Koshimura Hisakazu, severely blood-lossed, was starting to become delirious, moaning weakly from his mouth, face pale as paper.
“Koshimura… hold on… Koshimura!” Ushijima Mitsuru shouted hoarsely, but Koshimura Hisakazu’s eyes were beginning to glaze over.
“Medic… medic…”
He looked around, trying to find any officer or doctor to whom he could issue orders.
However, everywhere he looked was chaos and death. He saw a second lieutenant officer, like a madman, waving his command sword and shouting “Charge! Banzai for His Majesty the Emperor!” at empty air, only to be shredded into minced meat by a burst of bullets.
