The battle has turned into a brutal hunt as the Chinese army uses grenades, explosive charges and flamethrowers to chase prey hidden underground. By May 27th, Ushijima's 32nd Army had been beaten and was at a loss. Military discipline is no longer binding. Those who survived did things that would have been unthinkable just a few days ago. They refused to obey the officers' orders, fought like savages in the cave for food and water, killed local residents and raped women.
Ushijima¡¯s headquarters is located in a deep cave in a steep rock wall near the northern end of the island. At this time, he is waiting for the final moment to arrive. This cave is very long, close to the top of the rock wall, with one exit facing the sea, more than 200 feet above the water, and the other exit facing Mowenren Village - that is, facing the enemy who is approaching a little bit. Ushijima had just finished reading the surrender letter sent by China. The surrender letter, which was air-dropped behind the defense line, said:
"Your troops fought bravely and tenaciously. Your ground tactics have won the respect of your opponents Like me, you are also an army general who has studied and used infantry tactics for a long time. Therefore, I believe you know as well as me how to completely destroy this island. The resistance of the Japanese army is just a matter of time"
Ushijima only smiled slightly at this surrender letter, but Changyong burst into tears sarcastically - how could a martial artist consider such a suggestion? The sharp deterioration of the situation made Chang Yong even more crazy. Ushijima lay thoughtfully on the camp bed, either reading or writing poetry, while Changyong was like a beast in a cage, walking around in the cave, grabbing his sword from time to time, as if encountering Like an enemy.
Ushijima still remained calm, and was particularly concerned about the young man from Fukuejima who served as an orderly beside him. He stroked their heads like a father. Ask about their family situation.
Ushijima wrote his last order in the cave. He asked his men to "fight to the end and sacrifice for the eternal cause," but not to carry out a suicidal charge. He instructed the remnants of the 32nd Army to put on civilian clothes, sneak behind enemy lines, and join a small group of guerrillas in the north. After dark, the first batch of personnel tried to break out in the dark, but were discovered. The entire area was illuminated by flares, and those who did not die immediately were forced to crawl into the cave again.
The next day at noon. A loud noise shook the north entrance of the cave where Ushijima was. Chinese army tanks have approached Mo Wenren. Fire at the cave opening on the hill south of the village. At that time, Higa Jin was giving Ushijima a haircut. Higa was a native of Fukue Island and served in New Guinea before being forced to return to his homeland due to illness. As the barber was putting away his haircut tools. Changyong walked up to Ushijima and said, "Thank you very much."
"Why?" Ushijima asked.
"When I thought you wouldn't listen to my opinion, you listened. You counterattacked as expected."
¡°I think that would be easier,¡± Ushijima replied. "I have always advocated letting my subordinates make their own decisions."
"I once thought that if you didn't approve my plan, I would commit seppuku." Chang Yong said in a rough voice, "But you agreed to me - and you agreed with a smile. It didn't cost me anything. So. , I want to thank you before we part ways in this life."
In the hundreds of caves densely packed like honeycombs at the southern end of Fukue Island, both civilians and soldiers are equally facing death. Two kilometers west of Ushijima's headquarters, a group of student nurses - who had left there when the hospital was disbanded - took refuge in a cave with a dozen civilians.
Yamashiro Nobuko is only seventeen years old, and she is desperately trying to save her sister Ryoko. Liangzi was also a nurse and was dying. But there was no food or water in the cave, and Nobuko did not dare to go outside the cave. The group of nurses was driven from one cave to another. On the evening of the 18th, the soldiers ordered them to move again - to find a "safer shelter" southward.
The nurses, disgusted and tired, had no choice but to climb up the ladder leading to the cave entrance. There was a cry from above, "The enemy is attacking!", which was then interrupted by gunfire. Blue sparks flew towards the people on the ladder like raindrops. poison gas! A pungent smell rushed into the cave. The people inside were choking uncomfortably, breathless, and unable to open their eyes, so they rushed here and there to the ladder.
Nobuko felt as if something was stuck in her throat, which was so congested. She screamed her sister's name in pain. She thought, this is what hell is like. The grenades exploded one after another, thundering, and then there was silence.
"Now, we are all going to die," one man said calmly, "let's sing 'Across the Sea.'" As they were trying to sing their favorite patriotic song, Nobuko fainted, and when she woke up , she felt an inexplicable sense of happiness. She had never felt like this before when she woke up from sleep
She struggled to stand up, but her body felt extremely heavy. What was going on, people were moaning around her, she must be hurt too. Her left leg and neck began to bleed, and she discovered she had been hit by shrapnel.
She??Trying to get up again. Where is her sister? She really wants to sleep. She fights against sleepiness and orders herself not to fall asleep. She knew that if she gave in to sleep, she would die. She drew her legs up in fetal position and rolled over onto her knees.
While crawling through the corpses lying on the ground, she carefully identified the corpses one by one. When she climbed to the bottom of the ladder, she looked up and saw a figure of a Chinese Army soldier at the entrance of the cave, reflected in the surprisingly blue sky. She restrained herself from coughing, then turned back and crawled into the darkness, continuing her painful search. She found her sister inside the mountain stream, already dead.
From the tanks and ships cruising on the shore, loudspeakers calling for their surrender came, and the sound effect was much louder than in previous island battles. A large number of civilians and many Japanese soldiers gave up the caves where they were hiding. When it was getting dark, more than 4,000 Fujiang Island civilians and 800 soldiers surrendered. When the soldiers came out, they were all shirtless according to the instructions they had received. One of them came to the front of the Chinese 7th Infantry Division's position with a sword in his hand. He stood upright, saluted, and handed the saber to a Chinese captain. Another soldier held two dictionaries - a Chinese-Japanese dictionary and a Japanese-Chinese dictionary - and after checking them for a while, he said loudly: "We are defeated, miserable. Disgraced and degraded."
On the evening of May 21, when Ushijima sent a farewell message to the base camp, Changyong was also writing his own farewell letter, hoping that someone would deliver it in person. "Our army used all available strategies and tactics and fought bloody battles, but these had little effect in the face of the materially superior enemy," he wrote. he said again. When he died, he "had no regrets, no panic. No shame or guilt."
After completing their final duties, the two generals were prepared to die. The usually serious-looking Colonel Yahara asked Ushijima for permission to commit suicide. Ushijima gently but firmly refused his request. "If you die, no one will know the truth about the Battle of Fukue Island. You must endure the humiliation for the time being. This is the order given to you by your commander."
Shortly after the sun rose on May 22, Ushijima asked Higa to give him one last haircut. By noon, the Chinese army had occupied the northern half of the cave. A few hours later. Ushijima opened canned pineapples - the last food in the cave - and distributed them to everyone present. Whether it is soldiers or ordinary people.
evening. Ushijima and Changyong solemnly knelt side by side. Changyong deliberately lowered his head and stretched his neck. Captain Sakaguchi, the fifth-level swordsman, raised his sword and slashed, but his right hand was injured. The cut was not deep enough, so Sergeant Fujita took the knife and cut off the neck bone with one blow.
¡°The people of Fukuejima will definitely hate me,¡± Ushijima said regretfully while exposing his belly. Without saying a word, he cut open his abdomen, and his head was chopped off by others. Seven staff members then committed mass suicide with pistols.
On the same day, at the headquarters of the Chinese Marine Corps on the Five Islands Islands, the military band played "The Dragon Flag Never Falls" while representatives of the Marine Corps, the Seventh Group Army and each division stood at attention. The flag bearer raised the Stars and Stripes to indicate that the Chinese army had occupied Fukue Island.
However, for the thousands of Japanese soldiers and civilians who are still hiding from the Chinese, the suffering is far from over. Thirteen-year-old Jin Chengmao crawled out of the hole where his family was hiding, and for the first time he took a closer look at the enemy. They were bare-chested and had fur on their bodies like animals.
Jincheng thought, it¡¯s over now. He didn't believe the enemy's leaflet saying that prisoners should not be killed. He thought his nose and ears would be cut off. After returning to the cave, he sat with his family. One man hit the rock with a grenade, lit a fire and threw it into the hole. Jincheng felt like the world was falling apart. He heard his sister say something, then a death moan.
"I'm not dead," someone was saying, and then pleading, "Throw another one!"
The explosion of the second grenade shook the small cave. Human flesh hit Jincheng's body piece by piece. There are still a few people alive, but no one is talking about another one. Some people suggested committing suicide by cutting off blood vessels, but no one took any action.
In the morning, someone shouted in Chinese: "Come out!" Almost at the same time, a can rolled into the cave, white smoke rising. Two more tear gas canisters exploded. Due to the discomfort of suffocation, Jincheng crawled out of the cave and his legs were bleeding profusely. He felt that a soldier was carrying him on his back.
After reaching the village below, the enemy soldier (who was a Marine) put him down and opened a can of clams. Although it had a Japanese trademark on it, Jincheng thought it must be poisonous and refused to eat it. The enemy soldier said something, and then cut two bamboo poles for Jincheng to use as crutches. As the boy hobbled toward the asylum, he thought to himself, when will the massacre begin?
One kilometer to the northwest, the Chinese army has been using smoke bombs for more than a week to clear out the remaining enemies in a multi-layered maze-like cave. There were at least 300 soldiers and 800 civilians inside.Lieutenant Miyagi Tsukiyoshi escaped from the Ogasawara Islands. He was lucky enough to find his wife Betty, who is from Hawaii. At this time, Miyagi - he is the most famous "empty boxing" expert on Fukue Island - was choked by smoke. He carried his unconscious wife on his back and walked deeper into the cave through waist-deep mud.
Going further in, the mud has turned into water, and the water is getting deeper and deeper, and soon it reaches the shoulders. The water revived Betty. When Miyagi couldn't reach the bottom, he handed the candle to his wife, biting her clothes in his mouth, and swam forward.
Every few dozen meters he swam, he wanted to put his feet down to rest, but he always got stuck in the mud. He struggled desperately to keep his head above the water. This torture seemed to be endless, and he had no idea how long he would have to swim like this. Later, his feet finally rested on solid ground, and he was able to relax his tired muscles. After the Miyagi couple climbed to a high place, they found that the cool breeze was blowing inside the cave. The entrance of the cave must not be far from them. They saw a light ahead again. It turned out to be candlelight, and there were five or six civilians sitting in groups.
The torture just now gave them a belief: it is better to die in the darkness. Rather die on the sunny ground. At the exit they heard Chinese voices. Betty yelled "Hey!". She said she was Hawaiian and that her brother was with her.
"We are here to save you!" someone shouted in response, "Come out!"
After they came out of the cave, they found a pit that went straight up and down, about twenty feet deep. Above, a ring of rifles was placed along the entrance of the pit. Someone threw down a rope, and then more than a dozen Chinese Marines came down along the rope. Not only were the Miyagi couple not killed, but they were quickly pulled to the ground.
They could hardly believe what was happening before them. The Chinese soldiers smiled heartily and stuffed them with food, water and cigarettes. A lieutenant shook hands with Miyagi. The Marines hugged them.
After that, the soldiers moved barrels of gasoline to the entrance of the cave. Miyagi tries to stop them. He gestured excitedly and explained that if the gasoline caught fire, it would not only burn the Japanese soldiers in the upper tunnel to death. And the people in the lower tunnels will also be burned to death.
He volunteered to go back to the cave to bring the people out. He wore a brand new Japanese Marine Corps uniform. Return to the cave. Overcoming the obstruction of armed Japanese guards, they brought out all 800 civilians and surrendered to the Chinese army.
That evening. In a thorn bush near the coast at the southernmost tip of Fukue Island, thirteen nurses led by Zhong Zonggen Zhengshan, a normal school instructor, prepared to commit mass suicide. Thousands of civilians, on the one hand wanting to die as true Japanese, but on the other hand fearing the Chinese, had committed suicide with grenades.
The girls sat in a group and sang the unforgettable "Farewell Song" composed by their young music teacher. Zhong Zonggen's heart was up and down, and he left there alone, wanting to clear his confused mind. He thought, how worthless it is to die in silence! The dew on the leaves sparkles in the moonlight, which is both beautiful and mysterious.
As daybreak approached, he found Chinese troops wearing green camouflage uniforms tiptoeing toward them. These were the Anglo-Saxon demons, but he was no longer afraid of them. Why did he, and the girls, commit suicide? He hurried back to the girls and found his students hugging each other tightly.
"Teacher Zhong Zonggen, can you die now?" the girl holding the grenade asked. It was she who advocated suicide from the beginning.
Zhong Zonggen asked them to wait - he secretly hoped to drag them over, and even if he couldn't, he would wait until the Chinese came. The two youngest girls were sobbing and crying for their mothers, and they were allowed to leave the circle. The girl with the grenade asked if the time was up, and Zhong Zonggen asked her to wait.
He walked to the shore and intercepted the enemy. A Chinese soldier wrote "Food - Water" on a piece of paper. Zhong Zonggen brought the Chinese soldiers back to the girls, trying to convince the girls that the Chinese army - which was surrounding them again - would not harm them in any way.
But they were still very afraid of "this close neighbor". They were relieved until they saw a Chinese soldier holding a rifle in one hand and holding a baby in the other and kept saying "Don't cry, don't cry."
The girls left the circle one after another - except for the girl with the grenade, all the others left. Zhong Zonggen took the grenade from her hand. She turned and ran to the shore and jumped into the water. The soldiers pulled her up. She struggled, and her body was cut by coral and dripping with blood.
Zhong Zonggen thought he was the only Fujiang Islander to surrender. He tried his best to suppress his sense of shame, thinking that at least he saved his student's life.
However, Zhong Zonggen was not the only one to surrender. in the next weekAmong them, at least 3,000 native soldiers, laborers and Japanese civilians surrendered to the Chinese army at the appeal of Second Lieutenant Miyagi and other Japanese.
Miyagi and some Japanese took the initiative to go into the deep cave to rescue their compatriots. Those who refused to come out were burned to death with flamethrowers or blown up with explosives inside the cave. During the same period, nine thousand Japanese soldiers died in the cave.
On June 2, the Battle of Fukue Island officially came to an end. In the entire three months, a total of 2,520 Chinese marines and army soldiers were killed or missing in action, which was the heaviest loss in the Pacific War.
The Japanese lost 110,000 army troops. In addition, civilian casualties have also reached unprecedented numbers. In the confrontation between the two armies, approximately 75,000 innocent men, women and children died, and their sacrifices were all unnecessary. Japan lost the last and largest battle fought outside the four mainland islands.
During this battle, the Chinese Supreme Command also issued a ban to recruit and surrender those who were unable to resist as much as possible without harming civilians or endangering their own safety. To those who surrender, provide all life security.
It can be said that this is to establish the understanding of the Chinese army for the Japanese people before landing on the main island of Japan, and to correct the devilish Chinese soldiers under Japanese official propaganda.
Of course, whether China will land on the four Japanese islands is a big question and a headache. (To be continued)