After the eight members of SST 4 entered the heavily fortified SSO Office building, they were led to an office deep in the bowels of the building and after a heavy vault door was opened and then closed AND locked behind them, Commander Jay Marsden waved them over to a table that was filled with maps and pictures and quickly got down to business.
"Okay gentlemen, as of today, SST 4 has its first mission." At this point, he pointed to one of the maps and said; "In a little over two months, approximately one Company of Marine Raiders and SST 4 are going to make a raid on Japanese installations in the Gilbert Islands, specifically on Makin/Butaritari island and then neighboring Mutaritari island. To answer the question before its asked, no, it's not on the map." (OOC: This is because there is no such island.....just an invention for this game!)
"You and the Raiders will be carried by Submarines out of Pearl Harbor, which will surface a few hundred yards off the coasts of these islands at night and inflatable boats will be used for the landing. After the raid, these same inflatable boats will be used to return to the Submarines for the trip back to Pearl. The Subs will stay in the area throughout the Raid, in radio contact and if no enemy aircraft or surface vessels are in the area to pose a threat, they will stay on the surface and utilize their deck guns if needed for fire support."
"Now, on Makin/Butaritari itself, it's believed to hold a garrison of about 75 to a hundred members of the Japanese SNLF (Special Naval Landing Force; the Japanese equivalent of Marines) and the raid is meant to serve two primary purposes. First: to raise morale throughout the services and civilians back home if the mission is a success as all of the Japanese successes these past 6 months are really causing a problem throughout the ranks and the nation itself; and two: to force the Japanese to spread their forces thin by trying to reinforce everywhere they have a garrison on a hundred different islands throughout the Pacific, thereby making them weaker for a planned offensive against them later this year. Before you ask, no, I don't know where that might be."
"For SST 4, the raid will be against the tiny Mutaritari island, which a very covert part of our Intelligence has learned that a small seaplane base and more importantly, a section of Japan's Unit 781; their version of the SSO, has been detached. We do not know WHY a group of Japanese Talents has been assigned to this tiny garrison; believed to house no more than 30 members of the SNLF; but if we could eliminate it; that would both raise morale at home AND deprive the Japanese of some of their Talents."
"A couple of squads of Marine Raiders will accompany you on this raid; their main job will be to destroy the seaplanes and give you support; but the task of eliminating the Talents will lie with you. For this mission; you will spend the next 6 weeks training with the 2nd Raider Battalion under LT Colonel Evans Carlson just north of here; learning the ins and outs of small boat landing operations, etc. After that, you will all be flown to Pearl Harbor and will then proceed on the assigned Submarines for the Raid, which is tentatively scheduled to be launched somewhere between August 15th-20th. I will see you when you get to Pearl before you leave for the mission. Best of luck and Good Hunting."
The Deck of the USS Whale Shark Night/Early Morning of 17 August, 1942
The past two months had gone by in a blur. The members of SST 4 had trained hard with Carlson's 2nd Raiders; finding the leader of the unit one of the most unique military men they had ever come across. Carlson had spent time before the war in China, observing the Communist forces of Mao Zedong in their war against the Nationalist Chinese under Chaing Kai-shek AND the Japanese invaders in China and he incorporated many of the lessons he learned their with the Raiders. For example, he used the phrase 'Gung-ho'; which was an amalgamation of a Chinese phrase meaning roughly; "All Work Together".
He had the group work hard; making long five, ten, twenty mile hikes with full gear; practicing making rubber boat landings at night; getting in lots of time at the range AND in knife fighting. Many of the Raiders armed them selves with one or both of two kinds of distinctive knives; a big, fearsome looking Bowie Knife and a balanced type of knife that was light and was quite effective for silently eliminating sentries with a quick stab to the neck and could be thrown. This knife had been named after a couple of British members serving with the Shanghai Police and was called a Sykes-Fairbairn.
Bowie:
Sykes-Fairbairn:
The Raiders also had access to a MUCH wider array of weaponry than any other unit in the United States Military and an unusually large number of Thompson SMGs, BARs, Shotguns and other weapons were within the small unit. Carlson was going to lead approximately 220 men onboard two submarines for the raid on Makin/Butaritari while a third submarine, the USS Whale Shark would be carrying 3 rubber boats and 24 men total comprised of 16 Raiders led by 2nd LT Alan 'the Eye-talian' Altieri in 2 boats and the 8 members of SST 4 under LTJG Tom 'Rainsquall' Boyd in the third boat.
As the Submarine surfaced in the dark hours of pre-dawn, perhaps 500 yards or so from the beaches of the tiny island, the Raiders and members of SST 4 found that a light rain was falling and the surf was much stronger than they expected. It took a bit longer than they thought it would to board the rubber boats and start the mission, but eventually they got moving. Lieutenant Altieri's boat had a thirty caliber Light Machinegun in it that required a pair of his Marines to operate, while the second boat that held Gunnery Sergeant Crowder's squad had a pair of large .55 caliber Boys Anti-Tank Rifles; that were mostly expected to be used to sink the unmanned Float Planes that were bobbing along a couple of piers on the other side of the island. In addition, all three groups had each man pack a charge of demolitions gear along with the detonator cord to set them off to ensure the buildings and planes could be destroyed.
As the men of each boat rowed their way to shore, the rain suddenly picked up even stronger; soaking everyone and generally making a tiring task even more difficult. The shore on the island slowly started to get closer and closer....
OOC: a good bit of artwork showing a rendering of the actual launching of the Makin Island raid:
