“Good. This thing is still a potential win. Two of our divisions against two of his. He has more aircraft, but we have more tanks and soldiers on the ground,” Mizuzawa said, studying the map. He walked over to a larger-scale map of the Pacific, and traced his finger to a point midway between the Big Island of Hawaii and the big city of Los Angeles. He ran his fingernail across the map, making an indentation, then scratched an X on Los Angeles. He popped the city with his finger and turned to Nugama.
“I want you in the field, General, where you can command your soldiers, not in here sleeping with women, understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Nugama replied.
“Perhaps if you had been out there, our position would not be so precarious,” Mizuzawa scolded.
A young private walked up to Nugama and handed him a sheet of paper, which he read aloud. “Latest spot report has Takishi back with the main body of his division. He’s lost nearly sixty tanks. The road to Cabanatuan is blocked, and the rain is still coming down too hard for the Xs to fly,” he said, referring to the AH-X attack helicopters.
Mizuzawa walked back to the map and pondered. Initially, his strategy had been to take the Philippines through political surprise. They had achieved that, but something had gone wrong. Talbosa had defected, or so he thought. Then he pulled the brilliant move with the ambassador’s speech to the United Nations, effectively handcuffing the Amer-icans. There was no way they could legitimately react. Then, something else had gone wrong. Somehow, a lousy journalist had captured the death march on film. But still, he figured international opinion was split evenly between believing he had the right to restore the government of the Philippines and siding with the American response. The simple fact that they had gotten that far was a great achievement, but still far short of his goals.
Still, he needed to adjust his strategy. His presence in the operations center was a bad sign in its own right. His goals remained to reassert Japanese military power in the region. Could he do that if he lost the fight? Maybe, maybe not. The conventional fight on the ground could go either way. Japanese soldiers had softened over the past fifty years. They had rarely trained and were not used to the rigors of combat.
Mizuzawa felt the palace shudder once, then a second time.
“Can they reach us down here?” he said to Nugama.
“No, sir. We are safely deep,” Nugama said.
“Okay. Let’s hold with what we’ve got in Manila,” he said, pointing at the map. “We’ll focus our efforts on getting Takishi’s division out of Cabanatuan. If he can break free, we pull back, deeper in the city, sucking the Americans in with us. Then Takishi comes from the north, slamming into the enemy rear.”
Mizuzawa had moved from the strategic plan to operational art in a matter of seconds. It was all a mind game. Technology and soldiers were impor-tant, but the only thing that could truly tip the balance was a superior mind. Why else would theorists such as Sun Tzu and Clausewitz still be relevant today?
He needed something to maneuver with, though, and he hoped his good friend Takishi would come through in the clutch.
Chapter 91
Admiral Jennings walked back from the railing of his command ship, which was positioned just off Sampaloc Point near Subic Bay. The spot reports from the pilots on the airstrip were saying it was still too rough to fly. Just to be sure, hoping he could override their judgment, he had walked into the beating rain, only to be slapped in the face by a sheet of water.
General Zater had two brigades on the ground that he could not maneuver anywhere. Jennings sat back in his leather chair in the operations cell and shook his head again at his perceived lack of faith in light infantry.
Tanks were stacked on the road, waiting for the kill… or to move on the flank of the Marines. The thought made Jennings bolt upright, his wet uniform cold against his skin. That had to be the Japanese plan. Suck the Marines deep into Manila, then slam the door shut with an operational reserve from the rear. How could they have missed it? How could his J-2 and billions of dollars’ worth of satellites have missed a huge armored force stuffed into the jungle less than eighty kilometers from Manila? Those tanks would not be impeded by the rain, as were his aircraft, nor the light infantrymen. He pounded his fist into the table, cursing the light fighters.
What had been a window of opportunity for his forces had become an opening for the Japanese to drive straight through to Manila with what was beginning to look like an armored division. If only the weather would clear. The rain, his J-2 intelligence officer had told him, was a Philippine phenomenon called “phantom monsoon.” They appeared from nowhere and endured either for a short period of time, or for days. Yeah right.
“So what you’re saying is that we missed it, and we have no idea how long the son of a bitch will last,” Jennings had said. The J-2 looked sheepishly at the deck of the ship and nodded.
Jennings had not come to fight the Japanese to a draw. He needed a decisive victory, one that he could have if the weather would break. Given the circumstances, his thought processes had shifted to avoiding defeat. Not a good thought. It frustrated him to have an attack-helicopter battalion, two brigades of infantry, and several advanced fighter aircraft chained to the ground by the incessant rain.
At least the Marines were tightening the noose around Manila. Three combined arms brigades had made excellent progress until they reached the inner-city core, where the Japanese defenses seemed greatest. His operational plan was rapidly to squeeze the Japanese out of Manila, toward the east, then destroy them with air power. Even that had partially failed. The Marines had been unable to unhinge either the Japanese northern or southern flank. The fight had progressed outward, mirroring the “race to the sea” in World War I, in which the French and German trench lines crept to the north as each unit tried to outflank the other.
The Japanese had the remnants of nearly three divisions hardening positions in the inner city, and a loose cannon near Fort Magsaysay ready to hammer the Marines from the rear. They had grossly underestimated the number of enemy tanks in the Cabanatuan vicinity. Initially, they had told the Ranger regimental commander that a tank company held the area. Then satellite imagery picked up what looked like a small battalion. And later it seemed like a brigade, and the latest reports showed six battalions, two full brigades. Mistakes did happen.
Jennings scurried over to the map and stared anxiously, wondering what his next move should be and how long it would take the Japanese division at Fort Magsaysay to move to Manila. He felt like a participant in a chess match. The poor weather served to strap his hands to the armrests of his chair, preventing him from moving, while his opponent moved freely about the board. He envisioned a Japanese warlord sliding a queen diagonally across the board and saying “check.” With this rain, all I’ve got is a bunch of pawns out there.
It was time to take some risks.
He had to keep the pressure on the city with the Marines; it would be another week before the first tanks from Fort Carson arrived. The light division and the Rangers were well suited for the terrain, but ill prepared for the threat. If he could only do away with the division in the north, then he could throw the light infantry into the city and let them work in on the flanks. But that seemed impossible. How could he best use these lightly equipped forces so that they had the advantage? He tapped his lip with his forefinger, looking at the map.