Operation
Easy Street
A Jock Miles WW2 Adventure
By
William Peter Grasso
Novels by William Peter Grasso:
Moon Above, Moon Below
A Moon Brothers WW2 Adventure
Operation Fishwrapper
Book 5 in the Jock Miles WW2 adventure series
Operation Blind Spot
Book 4 in the Jock Miles WW2 adventure series
Operation Easy Street
Book 3 in the Jock Miles WW2 adventure series
Operation Long Jump:
Book 2 in the Jock Miles WW2 adventure series
Long Walk To The Sun:
Book 1 in the Jock Miles WW2 adventure series
Also available in audiobook format
Unpunished
East Wind Returns
Kindle Edition
Copyright 2014 William Peter Grasso
All rights reserved
****
Cover design by Alyson Aversa
Cover photo courtesy of United States National Archives
Map data: Google
Kindle Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Operation Easy Street is a work of alternative historical fiction. Apart from the well-known actual people, events, and locales in the narrative, all names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to current events or locales or to living persons is purely coincidental. Time lines of actual events depicted may be modified. Events that are common historical knowledge may not occur at their actual point in time or may not occur at all.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Novels by William Peter Grasso
Copyright
Author’s Note
Dedication
Map
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
About the Author
More Novels by William Peter Grasso
Author’s Note
This is a work of alternative historical fiction. American and Australian forces did, indeed, fight and die to reclaim the Papuan villages of Buna, Gona, and Sanananda from the Japanese in late 1942 and early 1943. In these pages, we explore a different path to the eventual Allied victory—with a dramatically different pivotal event—while still reflecting the underlying tactical premises, bloody miscalculations, and terrible suffering of the actual campaign.
The designation of military units may be actual or fictitious.
In no way are the fictional accounts intended to denigrate the hardships, suffering, and courage of those who served.
Contact the Author Online:
Email: William Peter Grasso
Connect with the Author on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/AuthorWilliamPeterGrasso
Dedication
To my son Joshua, whose literary knowledge and wisdom will always leave me in awe
Late November
1942
Chapter One
I’m gonna die, Mama.
The sailor couldn’t see any other outcome. He was trapped below deck of the mortally wounded aircraft carrier. One of the 500-pound bombs he was assembling had toppled off its cart when the first explosion rocked the ship. Like an inescapable vice, it fell just far enough to clamp his legs flat to the hangar deck.
They ain’t broke but I can’t move ’em a damn inch. Over two thousand men on this ship…and I’m gonna die alone. Everyone else must’ve gone over the side...or they’re dead already.
I shoulda listened to you, Mama. I shoulda never joined the Navy. The bottom of the Coral Sea ain’t a fit burial place for a Nebraska farm boy. I guess we lost the battle to the Japs for sure. I heard our pilots talking before they launched…they were scared. They said we were up against their whole damn navy.
Like a flickering ray of lost hope, his flashlight beam faded to nothingness, leaving an impenetrable darkness. Creaking and groaning like a giant, bellowing monster, the ship’s bulkheads slowly collapsed one by one.
No vessel making sounds like that gonna be afloat much longer.
The sailor strained against the heavy iron sealing his fate, but it didn’t budge this time, either. Frustrated and helpless, he pummeled the immovable object with his fists. A final shriek escaped his lips. Then a strange calmness washed over his body. He lay back against the cold steel deck and waited to die.
He didn’t know how much time had passed before a beam of light appeared, bright and steady. It swept over the compartment that was his tomb and came to rest on his face.
Am I dead already? The light…Pastor always said there’d be a light. Go into the light.
“Take me, Lord,” the sailor pleaded. “Take me now.”
It wasn’t God holding the light, though. It was just an NCO from a damage control party.
“You don’t have to call me Lord, son,” the NCO said. “Chief will do just fine.” He glanced at the sailor’s legs and asked, “Are you in any pain?”
“No, Chief, I surely am not.”
“Then we’ll have you out of here in no time. We’ve been ordered to abandon ship.”
The rest of the damage control party, armed with pry bars and axes, materialized out of the darkness. In seconds, they freed the sailor. Rising unsteadily to his feet, he asked, “Chief, those Japs beat us pretty bad, didn’t they?”
“Hear me good, son,” the chief replied, “you may think we’re in bad shape…but you should see the other guy.”
Chapter Two
A few miles north of Port Moresby, Colonel Dick Molloy, US 81st Infantry Regiment commander, briefed his three battalion commanders. “Gentlemen,” Molloy began, “General MacArthur
feels we’ve been handed an opportunity we must pounce on immediately.”
His battalion commanders grimaced at the word immediately. They weren’t ready to fight—not yet, anyway. And they all knew it.
Molloy smacked his pointer against the big map of Papua. “MacArthur’s really hot to claim the north coast of Papua while the Japanese Navy is still reeling from that whipping they just took in the Coral Sea.”
His pointer pressing against a tiny dot on the map, Molloy added, “Our regiment, gentlemen, along with the rest of 32nd Division, is going right here—a tiny place called Buna.”
The battalion commanders sat in stunned silence: barely one week after the bloody fighting for Port Moresby had finally ended, they were being thrown into action against the Japanese again.
Turning to Major Jock Miles, his newest battalion commander, Molloy said, “Now, Jock, I know you’ve only had First Battalion for a few days, and it’s nothing more than a skeleton right now, barely at company strength. That’s why I’ll be holding you back until the final movement by air to Buna.”
“When will that be, sir?” Jock asked.
“Looks like about ten days.”
It could be ten months and it wouldn’t matter a damn bit, Jock told himself. I’ve got over two companies’ worth of green GIs still coming on a boat from Australia…and I’ll have to lead them into combat with no training and no time to get organized. I think I’m going to be sick…
Jock’s stoic expression belied his inner thoughts: Gee, thanks, sir. I hope you’re still that confident in me when the shit hits the fan.
Molloy laid his pointer on the big map again, adding, “The Aussies have already pushed what’s left of the Japs who fled Port Moresby back to here, about halfway across the mountains of the Kokoda Track. Those Aussie diggers are giving them hell, and our Fifth Air Force is giving them a pretty good pasting, too. Any Japs lucky enough to make it all the way to Buna will be in real bad shape.”
So will any Aussies that make it, Jock thought. They say the climbing is harder than the fighting.
Molloy rolled steadily on. “And with the Jap Navy running back to Rabaul and Truk with their tails between their legs, there’ll be little chance for them to land reinforcements around Buna. There won’t be more than a few thousand exhausted Jap troops there, in poor defensive positions.” He shifted the pointer to the extreme eastern end of Papua. “Plus, now that the Aussies have kicked the Japs out of Milne Bay, all of Papua will be under Allied control once we seize the Buna area. MacArthur says this operation will be a piece of cake.”
A piece of cake: that was the last thing the battalion commanders wanted to hear. A collective voice in their heads screamed what they didn’t dare say out loud: Yeah…just like Port Moresby was supposed to be. And we all know how well that turned out. Three weeks of a bloody stalemate before MacArthur finally got his ass off that cushy throne in Brisbane and sent enough troops to do the job right.
“There’s one more thing,” Colonel Molloy said. “There’s been a lot of bullshit talk that MacArthur’s given the Aussies a raw deal, sending them to chase the Japs over Kokoda while we Yanks cool our heels here in Port Moresby. So to show our Allies just how untrue that is, this regiment has been assigned to support the Australian Seventh Division on the Track. Colonel Blevins, your Second Battalion will march across the Owen Stanleys parallel to the Kokoda Track here”—his pointer traced a path northward across the map—“along what’s known as the Kapa Kapa Trail. Since you won’t be slowed down by having to fight your way across, you’ll be able to cut off those Japs fleeing Port Moresby before they get anywhere near Buna. Trapped between you and the Aussies, they’ll be finished off.”
Lieutenant Colonel Blevins was less than enthused with the assignment. This was painfully obvious even before he opened his mouth. “Sir,” Blevins said, “that’s almost a hundred miles on foot…and from what I can tell from this map, we’ll be climbing over peaks ten thousand feet high! That’ll take a month, at least.”
“Not with good leadership, it won’t, Colonel. A week to ten days to get into a blocking position, at the very most.”
Blevins sputtered his next question: “How are we going to be resupplied? The native porters can only carry so much.”
“The Fifth Air Force will handle that with air drops,” Molloy replied. “Food, water, ammo, medical supplies…you’ll get it all. Don’t worry.”
Jock couldn’t help but feel bad for Colonel Blevins and 2nd Battalion. Suddenly, his battalion’s assignment didn’t seem so bad: At least my guys get to ride over the mountains in airplanes.
But that brought up a new question. “Sir,” Jock asked Colonel Molloy, “our men aren’t parachute infantry. These airplanes that’ll take the rest of us to Buna…where are they going to land? It’s nothing but swamps over there, isn’t it? And if there are any suitable landing fields, won’t the Japs be occupying them?”
“Negative, Major Miles,” Molloy said. “Division has good intel from the Aussie coast watchers up that way. The areas we’ll be using for landing strips are high and dry…and unoccupied.”
Reading Jock’s mind, Molloy added, “Let’s hope they stay that way, gentlemen.”
Chapter Three
It was like any other day since the Aussies began their march on the Kokoda Track. They’d been chasing the Japanese across this mountainous jungle hell for a week and were still nowhere near the halfway point to the north coast. At the moment, they were climbing another treacherous slope. On the peak, the Japs were dug in, peppering the lead elements of the long, narrow Aussie column below with rifle and machine gun fire. The diggers took cover anywhere they could, be it behind a scrawny tree trunk or sprawled flat on the ground, burrowing into hastily prepared fighting positions.
A captain scrambled through the brush—half-running, half-crawling—to his pinned-down men. He joined a corporal huddled behind a fallen log, which shielded them from the bullets sporadically thumping into its opposite side.
Struggling to catch his breath, the captain asked, “Can you see the bastards, Corporal?”
“Can’t see a bloody thing, sir. They’re up there somewhere…that’s all we know.”
All along the stalled front line, the captain’s men returned fire blindly but to little effect. There was no let-up to the bullets raking their position from the peak.
“How many casualties, Corporal?”
“Two I know of so far, sir. One poor bugger’s pretty bad, I reckon.”
“Bloody shame,” the captain replied. “Well, there’s only one way to get those Japs off that peak…”
“I know, sir,” the corporal replied with downcast eyes. “I bloody well know.”
The corporal was already signaling the eight men of his section to move right. They knew the drill: they were seasoned troopers and they’d done this very thing before. When they were far enough off the trail, they’d turn uphill and hack their way through the thick jungle growth with machetes.
Once alongside the Japanese on the peak, they’d storm them with grenades and bullets in a flanking attack. Provided, of course, the Japanese didn’t hear them coming.
The section was lucky: the jungle growth wasn’t so thick on the route the corporal chose. There wasn’t much hacking to do and not much noise to be made. The only problem the jungle caused was the constant snagging of web gear and uniforms on prickly vegetation. After a week in the steady heat, humidity, and frequent rain of the jungle, the damp fabric had already begun to rot. Each snag tore off another swatch of material, exposing more skin for the ever-present insects to feast on.
Their boots weren’t faring well, either. It wouldn’t be long before the sodden, rotting uppers tore away from the soles. The Aussies’ only consolation: the uniforms and equipment of Japanese dead they came across on the Track seemed in
even worse shape.
They were close enough to the peak now to hear Japanese soldiers screaming their usual epithets as they fired at the diggers downslope. Most were in Japanese and indecipherable. The rare ones in fractured English all boiled down to the same theme: You Die! This be last day at Earth for you! You not go home Australia!
Those taunts would have been comical if not delivered with such deadly purpose.
But the voices were close. Very close. The corporal lobbed the first grenade. Four more from his section quickly did the same.
As soon as the grenades detonated, the diggers charged, whooping like crazed drovers, firing their rifles from the hip. The section’s Bren Gun laced a steady stream of lead that chewed up the ground all along the peak.
They never saw the Japanese soldiers until right on top of them. They were nestled in shallow fighting holes behind low parapets made of fallen trees. All the enemy soldiers seemed to be dead.
The diggers bayoneted each one just to be sure. They’d been fooled before by fakers lying among corpses who’d pop up and shoot you in the back once you passed. You only needed to be fooled once; after that, the bayoneting became routine and remorseless.
There were four Japanese. Only one of them wasn’t dead before the bayonet plunged through his torso. They were all barefoot. Two still wore uniforms, badly tattered. The other two had fashioned tunics out of rice sacks.
“Only four?” the captain asked as he joined the section on the peak.
The corporal replied, “Where they were set up, sir, one man, with enough ammunition, could have slowed us down just as well.”
The Aussie column could now slog forward once again, over the peak and down the backside of the mountain. They needed to make up time: an airdrop of supplies was scheduled for this morning. The drop zone was still several miles away, at the base of the valley between this mountain and the next.