An exchange of rounds followed, as the US tanks opened up on their now revealed enemy.
Behind them, the other Pershings, the remainder of the tank battalion, had drawn up on the edge of some raised ground, using the defile to conceal their presence and intentions.
Firing from fixed positions, their rounds flew straight and true.
The ‘beauty’ that was Masami came apart under numerous impacts, the German armour succumbing to the heavy 90mm strikes.
Hirohata was blasted out from the turret by the first impact, rising into the air like a faulty firework, his battered body falling into soft undergrowth, preventing further damage from being added to his several new injuries.
His crew died inside the smashed Panther.
Shells continued to strike Masami, as she refused to catch alight and reveal her death.
Eventually, one struck home and set her afire, but even then, the fire was gentle, almost as if the battle-scarred tank still fought to retain her dignity.
On the eastern end of the line, shells had chewed up the ground around Ashita, and three had struck her cleanly, but none had penetrated or caused her major harm.
Sergeant Major Kagamutsu engaged the tank battalion to his front, now supported by the T34, which Hamuda had called forward.
Hamuda saw the wave of leading tanks drop down behind a small rise the other side of the river.
They did not reappear.
He understood immediately.
“Buffalo, all units, all units. Relocate immediately, relocate immediately!”
His understanding was punctuated by the sharp crack of tank guns, and immediately reinforced by the bursting of smoke shells in and around all his defensive positions.
The rush had been a simple ruse, one he had fallen for… had no alternative but to fall for…
A machine gun nearby chattered, the desperation of the gunner marked by an increased wailing as his target drew closer, and closer.
Voices were raised, fear and indignation carried in the words.
“Aircraft! Yankee aircraft!”
‘…fakku!’
“Buffalo, all units, Air attack!”
In answer to the calls from the commander of CCB, 20th US Armored Division, two squadrons of Marine aviators were detached from the waiting queue of support aircraft, part of the Commanding General’s plan to limit risk and reduce casualties when dealing with the last fanatical pockets of Japanese resistance.
Leading the way were VMF-312, a Marine fighter squadron riding FG-1 Corsairs, decked out with the distinctive checkerboard markings of their unit.
Three minutes behind them were the F8F-1 Bearcats of VF-191, working from a shore base whilst their carrier, USS Antietam, was away getting her bow welded back on after an encounter with an enemy mine.
The Corsairs attacked in line, not column, a deadly line that was three 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 and spreading the man’s intestines around the hole like some macabre bunting.
The smashed chest rose and fell rapidly, the exposed heart and lungs damaged but still functioning.
The soft sound that emerged from the dying body was hideous, its animal-like tone leaving no doubt that what used to be a man was in the extremes of suffering.
Without a thought, Hamuda slotted his Katana into the man’s chest, spearing the heart with a single thrust, turning his wrist immediately to open the wound.
The heart stilled instantly, and the man, such as he was, knew no more pain.
Hamuda rose and continued his walk amongst the misery.
A handful of men walked dazed, most zombie-like, their minds melted in a maelstrom of explosions, some moving with no purpose other than to move for movement’s sake, others to reassure themselves that they still retained the ability.