“Sept 26 – Had two sneak raids at 6 & 7 P.M.”
Alright so just like the last entry this one is very short. Mike mentions how he had “two sneak raids”. Since it is so short I think the only thing that really needs explaining in this entry is the term raid.
When used in the context of military raid can have a few different connotations. First off, it can either take place by land, air, or sea. Then you get into what could actually take place during it, and what falls under the term raid.
A raid could take place because of the following reasons:
- To confuse / exhaust the enemy
- To ransack the enemy’s goods or destroy them
- To free prisoners of your side that the enemy may have captive (POW’s)
- To capture or kill specific people
- To gather intelligence
These are just a few of the main purposes of why raids are done. As you can see it is not normally intended to capture a specific area of land, and is normally a very quick thing done with a fairly small amount of highly trained people.
The best example I could give would be in modern times:
Let’s say there is a unit of U.S. SF soldiers in Afghanistan. Nearby in a small village there are two houses with key members of the Taliban. That small group of soldiers goes in quickly in the middle of the night to capture those terrorists and gain intelligence.
I hope maybe that could help you better understand and picture what type of military operation it is. Which in turn could hopefully give you a better idea of what this may have been like for Mike.
Now in terms of what Mike went through this day, I can not be sure. My best guess is that this was an air raid along with a unit(s) of ground forces. As for the purpose of the Japanese doing this or what they got out of it, I can not be sure. The Japanese most likely did this to put fear into Mike and the other soldiers and to constantly keep them on guard (which would eventually exhaust them). They were only an hour apart which is also why I think they were fairly small in nature. Since there were two raids, this most likely means Mike was in combat during these, but again there is no way for me to be certain on this.