British Columbia 10/31/46 – A Japanese airport – 0100 hours.

The planes were flown in from other airports. There were no facilities here to service them. The field was little more than a dirt strip with a few huts, tents and a fuel dump. The fuel was trucked in just the night before. The bombers carried their bombs and ammunition. They were refueled and checked out by their own flight crews. The planes took off just before 0145. The force contained seventy five medium bombers, all the High Command could muster for the raid. They carried maximum bomb loads and just enough fuel to return to the base. Their targets were the residential areas around the aircraft plants in the northwest, the plants that built the B-17. They would hit just before dawn when people were in their homes. The attacks would target the residential areas.

British Columbia 10/31/46 – the land front – 0200 hours

Captain John Steece could see the movement, he knew something was happening but just what was impossible to determine. Artillery shells began to burst on his front, the heaviest and most concentrated shelling he had seen. His men were in foxholes but they were being hit one at a time. Within ten minutes his force had been reduced by three quarters. The artillery barrage slowly moved back to his rear and then he saw the enemy coming. The massed assault carried his line and overran it. Within an hour of the initial bombardment Captain Steece was dead and his command ceased to exist. Only a handful of the men were able to slip away and evade the Japanese. The ones who tried to surrender were killed.

The Japanese forces that broke through the American line were backed by tanks and mechanized vehicles. These were prepared to move south at full speed, it was like a German Blitzkrieg assault. They were to move as far as possible and destroy whatever was in their path then turn toward the sea and provide a beachhead for the landing force that was preparing to move south. The commander had studied the civil war. When he was given his orders he asked, “Should this be like Sherman’s march to the sea?”

His commander nodded his head. Whatever was in their path should be destroyed. When they could move no further south they should move to the coast and wait to be taken off. Yamagucci knew he would most likely not be reinforced, his was a suicide mission. Even if he made it to the sea the reinforcements would probably not come. He vowed that his men would acquit themselves well, their lives wouldn’t be sacrificed for nothing. He knew of the bombing. His wife and children were in Nagasaki. He was sure they were dead.