The Damage Inflicted by Grenades

Throughout the novel, grenades are among the most common and useful weapons, often even more so than guns. The grenades inflict a great amount of damage, including fear and death.

The moment the Okinawan boy named Hideki is initiated into the Blood and Iron Student Corps, he is provided with two grenades with instructions to use one to kill as many of Americans as possible and to use the second to kill himself. The power of those grenades is limited by the fact that only about half of them are modern weapons. Some of the boys receive a cheaper version of the grenade, housed in pottery with a complicated detonation device. The grenades are still highly effective, though the boys' lack of training makes them less so.

When Hideki and his fellow students are about to engage in their first real battle...