Pulse-Pounding Wartime Stories -- Mayu Sasaki

An account of the Battle of Stockton, from the perspective of various members of the Women's Home Auxiliary Volunteer Unit of the Imperial Japanese Army.

May 15, 2014
Stockton, CA, North American Federation

(沙々木雅結 -- MAYU SASAKI)

One shot, one kill. That is the way of the sniper.

I hid in a damaged elementary school classroom, viewing the bloody streets of Stockton through my scope. I spied men in black ski masks and ill-fitting camouflage.

Rebs, the nationalist regulars. I glanced, I saw, I killed.

A pile of bodies was suspicious, so I left the classroom and went over to a teachers' lounge at the far end of the school. Glass shards lay on the ground, for the vending machine was looted long ago.

I went to the window. Men in triangular white hoods. Ku Klux Klan, nationalist guerrilla forces.

My scope fell upon them, and then my bullets. No wasted shots.

Each kill heightened my confidence. I might make it through this after all. I wanted nothing more than to curl up with a book again, without fear of artillery blowing up my camp.

I wasn't sure how structurally sound the school building was, but a rush of confidence came over me in that moment. I hurried up the steps to the second floor, but this time, I faced the opposite direction from where I shot before. A mixed group of Rebs and Klansmen stood guard in front of city hall, and I had a clear shot at them.

I got on one knee.

I took aim.

And I cut my forehead on the window's broken glass because the shockwave of an explosion tipped me over.

For a shockwave to be that close, I dreaded the worst -- and when I went out the door and into a classroom, I only saw a wreck wide open to outside.

Fearing more shells, I ran down the steps and went out the exit, but two more shells fell upon the school, and the explosive shockwaves sent me sliding across the concrete, bruised and scraped. As a headache pounded in my skull, I tried to find my bearings, but it didn't take me long to see that the nationalist soldiers from before were on their way to me.

My rifle would be no use here. I drew my pistol. In a muzzle flash, my lead met their bodies, but it only slowed them, for they had ballistic vests under their clothes.

The bullets knocking them down bought me some time; I ran somewhere, anywhere to get them off my back. They fired after me, and I did a zigzag pattern to throw off their aim.

Only to zigzag right into three rounds.

Though my own ballistic vest caught it, I was knocked to the ground yet again, but this time, the nationalists surrounded me at once, their own pistols drawn.

I was disarmed in an instant, and they forced me to my knees. They pulled my helmet off and tossed it away.

"Hmm, this one's pretty underneath all the camo," a Reb said.

"Who cares? Let's shoot this Nip bitch and be done with it," a Klansman barked.

"No, we have to play it smart and press her for information," the Reb from befofre said.

To press me for information could only mean one thing.

"Tie her hands. We're taking her prisoner," the Reb said. The Klansman slammed my face in the ground and bound my hands behind my back with thick rope. Then then pulled me to my feet and frog-marched me across an area they still controlled, then stuffed me in the back of a truck.

Thus began an ordeal I will not recount, not even here.

Top photo is ID 970315-N-0000S-008, taken by Photographer's Mate 2nd Class Brett Siegel, US Navy.

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