(3 of 6)
Last week reports told how on Guadalcanal a group of Japs of the 224th Infantry Regiment, veterans of China, Borneo and the Philippines, were trapped in a heavily wooded ravine. They could hear a U.S. loudspeaker across the way urging them in Japanese to surrender. At night they talked their situation over. They voted to fight on. But next morning Private Akiyoshi Hasamoto and some of his friends marched, hands up, to the U.S. lines and surrendered. To an interpreter Private Hasamoto said: ". . . Finally my feelings as a true Japanese soldier disappeared. ... I had nothing to lose by surrendering. My actions were prompted primarily by thoughts of hot food, tobacco and relief from the unending shelling." Private Hasamoto said he would never be able to go back to Japan—but the fact is that he and others gave themselves up voluntarily.
Talent for Hiding. Marine and Army men returning from the South Pacific almost unanimously hold that, man for man, the Jap soldier is inferior in fighting qualities to the American. But in all the things to do with hiding, stealth and trickery, they give the Japs plenty of angry credit.
The Japanese love night work. At sea their infiltrations to Guadalcanal were nearly all by night, and the fact that Japan has been beaten in most of the great night battles is probably due to superior U.S. detection equipment and gunnery. Almost invariably the Japanese launch their land attacks at night. They hold their fire when the enemy is not firing, so as not to give away their positions. They dig deep, stand-up foxholes, which are safe except under direct artillery fire (and which are better than U.S. slit trenches). On the defensive, they dig themselves dugouts protected by palm trunks, and then they crawl in and resist until some explosive or a human terrier kills them. Parachutist Major Harry Torgeson, who had the job of blasting Japs out of the caves on Gavutu (TIME, Sept. 7), reported finding Japs firing machine guns over the horribly stinking corpses of comrades dead three days.
No Talent for Thinking. The average height of Japanese soldiers and sailors is 5 ft. 3½ in. Physically they are no match for U.S. troops, and whenever the two meet hand to hand, which is seldom, the Japanese are worsted.
The myth of the Japanese sniper is exploded by returning officers. They say that Japanese, snipers are an annoyance, little more. They hide excellently but their aim is poor. Sniping serves, however, to frighten men who will not deliberately ignore it. Japanese machine-gunners often set up their guns in a fixed position, and do not traverse and search. The result is that men in the line of Japs' fire can move aside and advance safely.
But the greatest handicap of the Japanese is their lack of imagination. They carry out orders to the letter and, if necessary, to death. But when things go wrong, they cannot adapt their tactics. If Jap attackers meet resistance, they advance anyhow—which accounts for the terrible slaughter to which Japanese troops submit themselves.