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Title: The Final Campaign: Marines in the Victory on Okinawa

Author: Joseph H. Alexander

Release date: June 3, 2015 [eBook #49119]
                Most recently updated: October 24, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FINAL CAMPAIGN: MARINES IN THE VICTORY ON OKINAWA ***

Transcriber’s note: Table of Contents added by Transcriber and placed
into the public domain. Boldface text is indicated by =equals signs=.


Contents

  The Final Campaign: Marines in the Victory on Okinawa
  Countdown to ‘Love-Day’
    Sidebar: The Senior Marine Commanders
    Sidebar: Initial Infantry Commanders
    Sidebar: The Japanese Forces
  L-Day and Movement to Contact
  The Air and Sea Battles
    Sidebar: The U.S. Army at Okinawa
    Sidebar: Marine Air at Okinawa
  Assault on Shuri
    Sidebar: Marine Artillery at Okinawa
    Sidebar: Marine Tanks at Okinawa
  Closing the Loop
    Sidebar: Subsidiary Amphibious Landings
  Legacy
    Sidebar: For Extraordinary Heroism
  Sources
  About the Series
  About the Author
  Transcriber’s Notes



    THE FINAL
    CAMPAIGN:

    MARINES IN THE
    VICTORY ON
    OKINAWA

    MARINES IN
    WORLD WAR II
    COMMEMORATIVE SERIES

    BY COLONEL JOSEPH H. ALEXANDER
    U.S. MARINE CORPS (RET)

[Illustration: _LtCol Richard P. Ross, commander of 1st Battalion,
1st Marines, 1st Marine Division, braves sniper fire to place the
division’s colors on a parapet of Shuri Castle on 30 May. This flag
was first raised over Cape Gloucester and then Peleliu._ Department of
Defense Photo (USMC) 121832.]


[Illustration: _Two Marines, Davis P. Hargraves with Thompson
submachine gun and Gabriel Chavarria with BAR, of 2d Battalion, 1st
Marines, advance on Wana Ridge on 18 May 1945._ Department of Defense
Photo (USMC) 123170]




The Final Campaign:

Marines in the Victory on Okinawa

_by Colonel Joseph H. Alexander, USMC (Ret)_


Daybreak on 29 May 1945 found the 1st Marine Division beginning its
fifth consecutive week of frontal assault as part of the U.S. Tenth
Army’s grinding offensive against the Japanese defenses centered on
Shuri Castle in southern Okinawa. Operation Iceberg, the campaign to
seize Okinawa, was now two months old--and badly bogged down. The
exhilarating, fast-paced opening of the campaign had been replaced by
week after week of costly, exhausting, attrition warfare against the
Shuri complex.

The 1st Marine Division, hemmed in between two other divisions
with precious little maneuver room, had advanced barely a thousand
yards in the past 18 days--an average of 55 yards each bloody day.
Their sector featured one bristling, honeycombed ridge line after
another--sequentially Kakazu, Dakeshi, and Wana (with its murderous,
reverse slope canyon). Just beyond lay the long shoulder of Shuri
Ridge, the nerve center of the Japanese _Thirty-second Army_ and the
outpost of dozens of the enemy’s forward artillery observers who had
made life so miserable for American assault forces all month long.

But on this rainy morning, this 29th of May, things seemed somehow
different, quieter. After days of bitter fighting, American forces
had finally overrun both outposts of the Shuri Line: Conical Hill on
the east, captured by the 96th Infantry Division, and the Sugar Loaf
complex in the west, seized by the 6th Marine Division. Shuri no longer
seemed invincible.

Company A of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines moved out warily, expecting
the usual firestorm of Japanese artillery at any moment. There was
none. The Marines reached the crest of Shuri Ridge with hardly a
firefight. Astonished, the company commander looked westward along
the ridge several hundred yards to the ruins of Shuri Castle, the
medieval fortress of the ancient Ryukyuan kings. Everyone in the Tenth
Army expected the Japanese to defend Shuri to the death--but the
place seemed lightly held. Spiteful small arms fire appeared to come
from nothing more than a rear guard. Field radios buzzed with this
astounding news. Shuri Castle itself lay beyond division and corps
boundaries, but it was there for the taking. The assault Marines asked
permission to seize the prize.

Major General Pedro del Valle, commanding the 1st Marine Division, did
not hesitate. By all rights the castle belonged to the neighboring
77th Infantry Division and del Valle knew his counterpart, Army Major
General Andrew D. Bruce, would be angry if the Marines snatched the
long-sought trophy before his soldiers could arrive. But this was an
unprecedented opportunity to grab the Tenth Army’s main objective. Del
Valle gave the go-ahead. With that, Company A, 1/5, swept west along
the ridge against light opposition and took possession of the battered
complex. Del Valle’s staff had to do some fancy footwork to keep peace
with their Army neighbors. Only then did they learn that the 77th
Division had scheduled a major bombardment of the castle that morning.
Frantic radio calls averted the near-tragedy just in time. Results of
the Marines’ preemptive action incensed General Bruce. Recalled del
Valle: “I don’t think a single Army division commander would talk to me
after that.”

Notwithstanding this interservice aggravation, the Americans had
achieved much this morning. For two months the Shuri Heights had
provided the Japanese with superb fields of observed fire that covered
the port city of Naha and the entire five-mile neck of southern
Okinawa. Even now, as the Marines of A/1/5 deployed into a hasty
defensive line within the Castle’s rubble, they were oblivious to
the fact that a Japanese rear guard still occupied portions of the
mammoth underground headquarters complex directly under their muddy
boondockers. They would be astounded to learn that the subterranean
headquarters of the _Thirty-second Army_ measured 1,287 feet long and
as much as 160 feet deep--all of it dug by pick and shovel.

The Japanese had in fact stolen a march on the approaching Tenth Army.
Most of their forces had retreated southwards during the incessant
rains, and would soon occupy the third (and final) ring of their
prepared, underground defenses, a series of fortified escarpments in
the Kiyamu Peninsula.

[Illustration:

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 124370

_A mass of rubble is all that is left of Shuri Castle, its walls, the
moat below them, and Shuri City beyond, after the 5th Marines had
captured the area. The battered trees are part of a forest growth which
in more peaceful times had surrounded it._]

Seizing Shuri Castle represented an undeniable milestone in the Okinawa
campaign, but it was a hollow victory. Just as the flag-raising on Iwo
Jima’s Mount Suribachi signified only the end of the beginning of that
prolonged battle, the capture of Shuri did not end the fighting. The
brutal slugfest on Okinawa still had another 24 days to run. And still
the Plum Rains fell, and the horrors, and the dying, continued.




_Countdown to ‘Love-Day’_


The three-month-long battle of Okinawa covered a 700-mile arc from
Formosa to Kyushu and involved a million combatants--Americans,
Japanese, British, and native Okinawans. With a magnitude that rivaled
the Normandy invasion the previous June, the battle of Okinawa was the
biggest and costliest single operation of the Pacific War. For each of
its 82 days of combat, the battle would claim an average of 3,000 lives
from the antagonists and the unfortunate non-combatants.

Imperial Japan by spring 1945 has been characterized as a wounded wild
animal, enraged, cornered, and desperate. Japanese leaders knew fully
well that Okinawa in U.S. hands would be transformed into a gigantic
staging base--“the England of the Pacific”--for the ultimate invasion
of the sacred homeland. They were willing to sacrifice everything to
avoid the unspeakable disgrace of unconditional surrender and foreign
occupation.

Okinawa would therefore present the U.S. Navy with its greatest
operational challenge: protecting an enormous and vulnerable amphibious
task force tethered to the beachhead against the ungodliest of furies,
the Japanese _kamikazes_. Equally, Okinawa would test whether U.S.
amphibious power projection had truly come of age--whether Americans in
the Pacific Theater could plan and execute a massive assault against a
large, heavily defended land-mass, integrate the tactical capabilities
of all services, fend off every imaginable form of counterattack, and
maintain operational momentum ashore. Nor would Operation Iceberg
be conducted in a vacuum. Action preliminary to the invasion would
kick-off at the same time that major campaigns in Iwo Jima and the
Philippines were still being wrapped up, a reflection of the great
expansion of American military power in the Pacific, yet a further
strain on Allied resources.

But as expansive and dramatic as the Battle of Okinawa proved to
be, both sides clearly saw the contest as a foretaste of even more
desperate fighting to come with the inevitable invasion of the Japanese
home islands. Okinawa’s proximity to Japan--well within medium bomber
and fighter escort range--and its militarily useful ports, airfields,
anchorages, and training areas--made the skinny island an imperative
objective for the Americans, eclipsing their earlier plans for the
seizure of Formosa for that purpose.

[Illustration: _A well-armed Marine assault team, with a BAR and a
flamethrower, moves out and heads for its objective across the rubble
created by preliminary bombardment._

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 116632
]

Okinawa, the largest of the Ryukyuan Islands, sits at the apex of a
triangle almost equidistant to strategic areas. Kyushu is 350 miles
to the north; Formosa 330 miles to the southwest; Shanghai 450 miles
to the west. As so many Pacific battlefields, Okinawa had a peaceful
heritage. Although officially one of the administrative prefectures
of Japan, and Japanese territory since being forcibly seized in 1879,
Okinawa prided itself on its distinctive differences, its long Chinese
legacy and Malay influence, and a unique sense of community.

[Illustration: WESTERN PACIFIC]

The Japanese _Imperial General Headquarters (IGHQ)_ in Tokyo did little
to fortify or garrison Okinawa in the opening years of the Pacific War.
With the American seizure of Saipan in mid-1944, however, _IGHQ_ began
dispatching reinforcements and fortification materials to critical
areas within the “Inner Strategic Zone,” including Iwo Jima, Peleliu,
the Philippines, and Okinawa.

On Okinawa, _IGHQ_ established a new field army, the _Thirty-second
Army_, and endeavored to funnel trained components to it from elsewhere
along Japan’s great armed perimeter in China, Manchuria, or the home
islands. But American submarines exacted a deadly toll. On 29 June
1944, the USS _Sturgeon_ torpedoed the transport _Toyama Maru_ and
sank her with the loss of 5,600 troops of the _44th Independent Mixed
Brigade_, bound for Okinawa. It would take the Japanese the balance of
the year to find qualified replacements.

By October 1944 the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff had recognized the
paramount strategic value of the Ryukyus and issued orders to Admiral
Chester W. Nimitz, Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Fleet/Commander, Pacific
Ocean Areas, to seize Okinawa immediately after the Iwo Jima campaign.
The JCS directed Nimitz to “seize, occupy, and defend Okinawa”--then
transform the captured island into an advance staging base for the
invasion of Japan.

[Illustration: OKINAWA GUNTO]

Nimitz turned once again to his most veteran commanders to execute the
demanding mission. Admiral Raymond A. Spruance, victor of Midway, the
Gilberts, Marshalls, Marianas, and the Battle of the Philippine Sea,
would command the U.S. Fifth Fleet, arguably the most powerful armada
of warships ever assembled. Vice Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner, gifted
and irascible veteran of the Solomons and Central Pacific landings,
would again command all amphibious forces under Spruance. But Turner’s
military counterpart would no longer be the familiar old war-horse,
Marine Lieutenant General Holland M. Smith. Iwo Jima had proven to be
Smith’s last fight. Now the expeditionary forces had grown to the size
of a field army with 182,000 assault troops. Army Lieutenant General
Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr., the son of a Confederate general who fought
against U.S. Grant at Fort Donaldson in the American Civil War, would
command the newly created U.S. Tenth Army.

[Illustration:

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 128548

_In early April, Tenth Army commander LtGen Simon B. Buckner, Jr.,
USA, left, and Marine MajGen Roy S. Geiger, Commanding General, III
Amphibious Corps, met to discuss the progress of the campaign. Upon
Buckner’s death near the end of the operation, Geiger was given command
of the army and a third star._]

General Buckner took pains to ensure that the composition of the
Tenth Army staff reflected his command’s multiservice composition.
Thirty-four Marine officers served on Buckner’s staff, for example,
including Brigadier General Oliver P. Smith, USMC, as his Marine Deputy
Chief of Staff. As Smith later remarked, “the Tenth Army became in
effect a joint task force under CINCPOA.”

Six veteran divisions--four Army, two Marine--would comprise Buckner’s
landing force, with a division from each service marked for reserve
duty. Here was another indication of the growth of U.S. amphibious
power in the Pacific. Earlier, the Americans had forcibly landed one
infantry division at Guadalcanal, two each in the Gilberts, Marshalls,
and Palaus, and three each at Saipan and Iwo. By spring 1945, Spruance
and Buckner could count on eight experienced divisions, above and
beyond those still committed at Iwo or Luzon.

Buckner’s Tenth Army had three major operational components. Army Major
General John R. Hodge commanded the XXIV Corps, comprised of the 7th,
77th, and 96th Infantry Divisions, with the 27th Infantry Division
in floating reserve, and the 81st Infantry Division in area reserve.
Marine Major General Roy S. Geiger commanded the III Amphibious Corps
(IIIAC), comprised of the 1st and 6th Marine Divisions, with the 2d
Marine Division in floating reserve. Both corps had recent campaign
experience, the XXIV in Leyte, the IIIAC at Guam and Peleliu. The third
major component of Buckner’s command was the Tactical Air Force, Tenth
Army, commanded by Marine Major General Francis P. Mulcahy, who also
commanded the 2d Marine Aircraft Wing. His Fighter Command was headed
by Marine Brigadier General William J. Wallace.

The Marine components staged for Iceberg in scattered locations. The
1st Marine Division, commanded by Major General Pedro A. del Valle,
had returned from Peleliu to “pitiful Pavuvu” in the Russell Islands
to prepare for the next campaign. The 1st Division had also been the
first to deploy to the Pacific and had executed difficult amphibious
campaigns at Guadalcanal, Cape Gloucester, and Peleliu. At least
one-third of the troops were veterans of two of those battles; another
third had experienced at least one. Tiny Pavuvu severely limited
work-up training, but a large-scale exercise in nearby Guadalcanal
enabled the division to integrate its newcomers and returning veterans.
General del Valle, a consummate artillery officer, ensured that his
troops conducted tank-infantry training under the protective umbrella
of supporting howitzer fires.

The 6th Marine Division became the only division to be formed overseas
in the war when Major General Lemuel C. Shepherd, Jr., activated the
colors and assumed command in Guadalcanal in September 1944. The
unit may have been new, but hardly a greenhorn could be found in its
leadership ranks. Many former Mariner raiders with combat experience in
the Solomons comprised the heart of the 4th Marines. The regiment had
also landed at Emirau and Guam. The 22d Marines had combat experience
at Eniwetok and Guam. And while the 29th Marines comprised a relatively
new infantry regiment, its 1st Battalion had played a pivotal role
in the Saipan campaign. General Shepherd used his time and the more
expansive facilities on Guadalcanal to conduct progressive, work-up
training, from platoon to regimental level. Looking ahead to Okinawa,
Shepherd emphasized rapid troop deployments, large-scale operations,
and combat in built-up areas.

The 2d Marine Division, commanded by Major General LeRoy P. Hunt, had
returned to Saipan after completing the conquest of Tinian. There the
division absorbed up to 8,000 replacements and endeavored to train for
a frustratingly varied series of mission assignments as, in effect, a
strategic reserve. The unit already possessed an invaluable lineage in
the Pacific War--Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan, and Tinian--and its mere
presence in Ryukyus’ waters would constitute a formidable “amphibious
force-in-being” which would distract the Japanese on Okinawa. Yet the
division would pay a disproportionate price for its bridesmaid’s role
in the coming campaign.

The Marine divisions preparing to assault Okinawa experienced yet
another organizational change, the fourth of the war. Headquarters
Marine Corps (HQMC), constantly reviewing the lessons learned in the
war to date, had just completed a series of revisions to the tables
of organization and equipment for the division and its components.
Although the “G-Series” T/O would not become official until a month
after the landing, the divisions had already complied with most
of the changes. The overall size of each division increased from
17,465 to 19,176. This growth reflected the addition of an assault
signal company, a rocket platoon (the “Buck Rogers Men”), a war
dog platoon, and--significantly--a 55-man assault platoon in each
regimental headquarters. Artillery, motor transport, and service
units received slight increases. So did the machine gun platoons in
each rifle company. The most timely weapons change occurred with the
replacement of the 75mm “half-tracks” with the newly developed M-7
105mm self-propelled howitzer--four to each regiment. Purists in the
artillery regiments tended to sniff at these weapons, deployed by the
infantry not as massed howitzers but rather as direct-fire, open-sights
“siege guns” against Okinawa’s thousands of fortified caves, but the
riflemen soon swore by them.

Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, backed up these last-minute changes
by providing the quantities of replacements required, so that each
assault division actually landed at full tables of organization (T/O)
strength, plus the equivalent of two replacement drafts each. Sometimes
the skills required did not match the requirement, however. Some of
the artillery regiments had to absorb a flood of radar technicians and
antiaircraft artillery gunners from the old Defense Battalions at the
last moment. But by and large, the manpower and equipment shortfalls
which had beset many early operations had been overcome by the time of
embarkation for the Okinawa campaign.

Surprisingly for this late in the war, operational intelligence proved
less than satisfactory prior to the Okinawa landing. Where pre-assault
combat intelligence had been superb in the earlier operations at Tarawa
(the apogean neap tide notwithstanding) and Tinian, here at Okinawa,
the landing force did not have accurate figures of the enemy’s numbers,
weapons, and disposition, or intelligence of his abilities. Part of the
problem lay in the fact that cloud cover over the island most of the
time prevented accurate and complete photo-reconnaisance of the target
area. In addition, the incredible digging skills of the defending
garrison and the ingenuity of the Japanese commander conspired to
disguise the island’s defenses.

[Illustration: OKINAWA SHIMA

Showing Principal Roads, Towns, and Villages]

The island of Okinawa is 60 miles long, but only the lower third
contained the significant military objectives of airfields, ports, and
anchorages. When Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima assumed command
of the _Thirty-second Army_ in August 1944, he quickly realized this
and decided to concentrate his forces in the south. He also decided,
regretfully, to refrain from contesting the likely American landings
along the broad beaches at Hagushi on the southwest coast. Doing so
would forfeit the prize airfields of Yontan and Kadena, but it would
permit Ushijima to conserve his forces and fight the only kind of
battle he thought had a chance for the Empire: a defense in depth,
largely underground and thus protected from the overwhelming American
superiority in supporting arms. This was the attrition/cave warfare
of the more recent defenses at Biak, Peleliu, and Iwo Jima. Each had
exacted a frightful cost on the American invaders. Ushijima sought
to duplicate this philosophy in spades. He would go to ground, sting
the Americans with major-caliber gunfire from his freshly excavated
“fire-port” caves, bleed them badly, bog down their momentum--and in so
doing provide the Imperial Army and Navy air arms the opportunity to
destroy the Fifth Fleet by massed _kamikaze_ attacks.

To achieve this strategy, Ushijima had upwards of 100,000 troops on
the island, including a generous number of Okinawan conscripts, the
Home Guard known as _Boeitai_. He also had a disproportionate number
of artillery and heavy weapon units in his command. The Americans in
the Pacific would not encounter a more formidable concentration of
150mm howitzers, 120mm mortars, 320mm mortars, and 47mm antitank guns.
Finally, Ushijima also had time. The American strategic decisions
to assault the Philippines, Peleliu, and Iwo Jima before Okinawa
gave the Japanese garrison on Okinawa seven months to develop its
defenses around the Shuri epicenter. Americans had already seen
what the Japanese could do in terms of fortifying a position within
an incredibly short time. At Okinawa, they achieved a masterpiece.
Working entirely with hand tools--there was not a single bulldozer on
the island--the garrison dug miles of underground fighting positions,
literally honeycombing southern Okinawa’s ridges and draws, and stocked
each successive position with reserves of ammunition, food, water,
and medical supplies. The Americans expected a ferocious defense of
the Hagushi beaches and the airfields just beyond, followed by a
general counterattack--then the battle would be over except for mop-up
patrolling. They could not have been more misinformed.

The U.S. plan of attack called for advance seizure of the Kerama Retto
Islands off the southwest coast, several days of preliminary air and
naval gunfire bombardment, a massive four-division assault over the
Hagushi Beaches (the Marines of IIIAC on the north, the soldiers of
XXIV Corps on the south). Meanwhile, the 2d Marine Division with a
separate naval task unit would endeavor to duplicate opposite the
Minatoga Beaches on Okinawa’s southeast coast its successful amphibious
feint off Tinian. Love-Day (selected from the existing phonetic
alphabet in order to avoid planning confusion with “D-Day” being
planned for Iwo Jima) would occur on 1 April 1945. Hardly a man failed
to comment on the obvious irony: it was April Fool’s Day and Easter
Sunday--which would prevail?

The U.S. Fifth Fleet constituted an awesome sight as it sortied from
Ulithi Atoll and a dozen other ports and anchorages to steam towards
the Ryukyus. Those Marines who had returned to the Pacific from the
original amphibious offensive at Guadalcanal some 31 months earlier
marveled at the profusion of assault ships and landing craft. The new
vessels covered the horizon, a mind-boggling sight.

[Illustration: Thirty-second Army _officers sit for a formal portrait
on Okinawa in February 1945. Numbers identify: (1) RAdm Minoru Ota,
Commanding Officer_, Naval Base Force; _(2) LtGen Mitsuru Ushijima,
Commanding General_, Thirty-second Army; _(3) MajGen Isamu Cho, Chief
of Staff_, Thirty-second Army; _(4) Col Hitoshi Kanayama, Commanding
Officer_, 89th Regiment; _(5) Col Kiuji Hongo, Commanding Officer_,
32d Regiment; _(6) Col Hiromichi Yahara, Senior Staff Officer_,
Thirty-second Army.]

On 26 March, the 77th Infantry Division kicked off the campaign by
its skillful seizure of the Kerama Retto, a move which surprised the
Japanese and produced great operational dividends. Admiral Turner now
had a series of sheltered anchorages to repair ships likely to be
damaged by Japanese air attacks--and already _kamikazes_ were exacting
a toll. The soldiers also discovered the main cache of Japanese
suicide boats, nearly 300 power boats equipped with high-explosive
rams intended to sink the thin-skinned troop transports in their
anchorages off the west coast of Okinawa. The Fleet Marine Force,
Pacific, Force Reconnaissance Battalion, commanded by Major James L.
Jones, USMC, preceded each Army landing with stealthy scouting missions
the preceding night. Jones’ Marines also scouted the barren sand spits
of Keise Shima and found them undefended. With that welcome news, the
Army landed a battery of 155mm “Long Toms” on the small islets and soon
added their considerable firepower to the naval bombardment of the
southwest coast of Okinawa.

Meanwhile, Turner’s minesweepers had their hands full clearing approach
lanes to the Hagushi Beaches. Navy Underwater Demolition Teams,
augmented by Marines, blew up hundreds of man-made obstacles in the
shallows. And in a full week of preliminary bombardment, the fire
support ships delivered more than 25,000 rounds of five-inch shells or
larger. The shelling produced more spectacle than destruction, however,
because the invaders still believed General Ushijima’s forces would be
arrayed around the beaches and airfields. A bombardment of that scale
and duration would have saved many lives at Iwo Jima; at Okinawa this
precious ordnance produced few tangible results.

A Japanese soldier observing the huge armada bearing down on Okinawa
wrote in his diary, “it’s like a frog meeting a snake and waiting for
the snake to eat him.” Tensions ran high among the U.S. transports as
well. The 60mm mortar section of Company K, 3d Battalion, 5th Marines,
learned that casualty rates on L-Day could reach 80-85 percent. “This
was not conducive to a good night’s sleep,” remarked Private First
Class Eugene B. Sledge, a veteran of the Peleliu landing. On board
another transport, combat correspondent Ernie Pyle sat down to a
last hot meal with the enlisted Marines: “‘Fattening us up for the
kill,’ the boys say,” he reported. On board a nearby LST, a platoon
commander rehearsed his troops in the use of home-made scaling ladders
to surmount a concrete wall just beyond the beaches. “Remember, don’t
stop--get off that wall, or somebody’s gonna get hurt.”




[Sidebar (page 6): The Senior Marine Commanders


The four senior Marine commanders at Okinawa were seasoned combat
veterans and well versed in joint service operations--qualities that
enhanced Marine Corps contributions to the success of the U.S. Tenth
Army.

[Illustration: _MajGen Roy S. Geiger_]

Major General Roy S. Geiger, USMC, commanded III Amphibious Corps.
Geiger was 60, a native of Middleburg, Florida, and a graduate of both
Florida State Normal and Stetson University Law School. He enlisted in
the Marines in 1907 and became a naval aviator (the fifth Marine to
be so designated) in 1917. Geiger flew combat missions in France in
World War I in command of a squadron of the Northern Bombing Group. At
Guadalcanal in 1942 he commanded the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, and in
1943 he assumed command of I Marine Amphibious Corps (later IIIAC) on
Bougainville, and for the invasions of Guam, and the Palaus. Geiger had
a nose for combat; even on Okinawa he conducted frequent visits to the
front lines and combat outposts. On two occasions he “appropriated”
an observation plane to fly over the battlefield for a personal
reconnaissance. With the death of General Buckner, Geiger assumed
command of the Tenth Army, a singular and fitting attainment, and was
immediately promoted to lieutenant general by the Marine Corps. Geiger
subsequently relieved General Holland M. Smith as Commanding General,
Fleet Marine Force, Pacific. In that capacity, he was one of the very
few Marines invited to attend the Japanese surrender ceremony on board
USS _Missouri_ on 2 September 1945 in Tokyo Bay. Geiger also served as
an observer to the 1946 atomic bomb tests in Bikini Lagoon, and his
somber evaluation of the vulnerability of future surface ship-to-shore
assaults to atomic munitions spurred Marine Corps development of the
transport helicopter. General Geiger died in 1947.

[Illustration: _MajGen Pedro A. del Valle_]

Major General Pedro A. del Valle, USMC, commanded the 1st Marine
Division. Del Valle was 51, a native of San Juan, Puerto Rico, and a
1915 graduate of the Naval Academy. He commanded the Marine Detachment
on board the battleship _Texas_ in the North Atlantic during World
War I. Subsequent years of sea duty and expeditionary campaigns in
the Caribbean and Central America provided del Valle a vision of how
Marines might better serve the Navy and their country in war. In
1931 Brigadier General Randolph C. Berkeley appointed then-Major del
Valle to the “Landing Operations Text Board” in Quantico, the first
organizational step taken by the Marines (with Navy gunfire experts)
to develop a working doctrine for amphibious assault. His provocative
essay, “Ship-to-Shore in Amphibious Operations,” in the February
1932 _Marine Corps Gazette_, challenged his fellow officers to think
seriously of executing an _opposed_ landing. A decade later, del Valle,
a veteran artilleryman, commanded the 11th Marines with distinction
during the campaign for Guadalcanal. More than one surviving Japanese
marveled at the “automatic artillery” of the Marines. Del Valle then
commanded corps artillery for IIIAC at Guam before assuming command of
“The Old Breed” for Okinawa. General del Valle died in 1978.

[Illustration: _Gen Lemuel C. Shepherd, Jr._]

Major General Lemuel C. Shepherd, Jr., USMC, commanded the 6th Marine
Division. Shepherd was 49, a native of Norfolk, Virginia, and a
1917 graduate of Virginia Military Institute. He served with great
distinction with the 5th Marines in France in World War I, enduring
three wounds and receiving the Navy Cross. Shepherd became one of those
rare infantry officers to hold command at every possible echelon, from
rifle platoon to division. Earlier in the Pacific War, he commanded the
9th Marines, served as Assistant Commander of the 1st Marine Division
at Cape Gloucester, and commanded the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade at
Guam. In September 1944 at Guadalcanal, he became the first commanding
general of the newly formed 6th Marine Division and led it with great
valor throughout Okinawa. After the war, he served as Commanding
General, Fleet Marine Force, Pacific, during the first two years of
the Korean War, and subsequently became 20th Commandant of the Corps.
General Shepherd died in 1990.

[Illustration: _MajGen Francis P. Mulcahy_]

Major General Francis P. Mulcahy, USMC, commanded both the 2d Marine
Aircraft Wing and the Tenth Army Tactical Air Force (TAF). Mulcahy
was 51, a native of Rochester, New York, and a graduate of Notre
Dame University. He was commissioned in 1917 and attended naval
flight school that same year. Like Roy Geiger, Mulcahy flew bombing
missions in France during World War I. He became one of the Marine
Corps pioneers of close air support to ground operations during the
inter-war years of expeditionary campaigns in the Caribbean and
Central America. At the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor,
Mulcahy was serving as an observer with the British Western Desert
Air Force in North Africa. He deployed to the Pacific in command of
the 2d Marine Aircraft Wing. In the closing months of the Guadalcanal
campaign, Mulcahy served with distinction in command of Allied Air
Forces in the Solomons. He volunteered for the TAF assignment, deployed
ashore early to the freshly captured airfields at Yontan and Kadena,
and worked exhaustively to coordinate the combat deployment of his
joint-service aviators against the _kamikaze_ threat to the fleet and
in support of the Tenth Army in its protracted inland campaign. For his
heroic accomplishments in France in 1918, the Solomons in 1942-43, and
at Okinawa, he received three Distinguished Service Medals. General
Mulcahy died in 1973.
]




[Sidebar (page 8): Initial Infantry Commanders


Within III Amphibious Corps, the initial infantry commanders were those
who led their troops ashore in the initial assault on Okinawa during
Operation Iceberg. Eighty-two days of sustained combat exacted a heavy
toll in casualties and debilitation. Among the battalion commanders,
for example, four were killed, nine were wounded. Only those commanders
indicated with an asterisk [*] retained their commands to the end of
the battle.

1st Marine Division

    1st Marines: Col Kenneth B. Chappell
    1/1: LtCol James C. Murray, Jr.
    2/1: LtCol James C. Magee, Jr.*
    3/1: LtCol Stephen V. Sabol

    5th Marines: Col John H. Griebel*
    1/5: LtCol Charles W. Shelburne*
    2/5: LtCol William E. Benedict
    3/5: Maj John H. Gustafson

    7th Marines: Col Edward W. Snedeker*
    1/7: LtCol John J. Gormley*
    2/7: LtCol Spencer S. Berger*
    3/7: LtCol Edward H. Hurst

    8th Marines: Col Clarence R. Wallace*
    1/8: LtCol Richard W. Hayward*
    2/8: LtCol Harry A. Waldorf*
    3/8: LtCol Paul E. Wallace*

6th Marine Division

    4th Marines: Col Alan Shapley*
    1/4: Maj Bernard W. Green
    2/4: LtCol Reynolds H. Hayden
    3/4: LtCol Bruno A. Hochmuth*

    22nd Marines: Col Merlin F. Schneider
    1/22: Major Thomas J. Myers
    2/22: LtCol Horatio C. Woodhouse, Jr.
    3/22: LtCol Malcolm O. Donohoo

    29th Marines: Col Victor F. Bleasdale
    1/29: LtCol Jean W. Moreau
    2/29: LtCol William G. Robb*
    3/29: LtCol Erma A. Wright

Note: The 8th Marines entered combat on Okinawa in June attached to the
1st MarDiv.

[Illustration:

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 123072
]
]




[Sidebar (page 10): The Japanese Forces


Marines and Army infantry faced strong opposition from more than
100,000 troops of Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima’s _Thirty-second
Army_, although American intelligence initially estimated Ushijima’s
strength at only 60,000 to 70,000. Most of the _Thirty-second Army’s_
reinforcing organizations had traveled to Okinawa from previous posts
in China, Manchuria, and Japan.

The first to arrive was the _9th Infantry Division_, a crack veteran
unit destined to be the backbone of Ushijima’s defense forces. The
next reinforcement was the _44th Independent Mixed Brigade_ which
lost part of its strength when one of the ships carrying the brigade
to Okinawa was torpedoed. Next, the _15th Independent Mixed Regiment_
was flown directly to Okinawa and was added to the remnants of the
44th. The next large unit to reach Okinawa was the _24th Infantry
Division_, which came from Manchuria. Well equipped and trained, it
had not yet been blooded in battle. Lieutenant General Takeo Fujioka’s
_62d Infantry Division_ was the final major infantry unit assigned to
the _Thirty-second Army_. It was a brigaded division, consisting of
two brigades of four independent infantry battalions each. Two more
of these battalions arrived on Okinawa in September 1944 and one was
allocated to each brigade.

Because _Imperial General Headquarters_ (_IGHQ_), the joint Army and
Navy command in Tokyo, foresaw the battle of Okinawa as one of fixed
defenses, Ushijima was not assigned any appreciably strong armored
force other than the _27th Tank Regiment_. In view of the hopeless
situation in the Philippines and the inability to deliver supplies
and reinforcements, _IGHQ_ diverted large weapons shipments, if not
troops, to Okinawa. The _Thirty-second Army_ thus possessed a heavier
concentration of artillery under a single command than had been
available to any other Japanese organization in the Pacific at any one
time. The total enemy artillery strength, less the _42d Field Artillery
Regiment_, which was organic to the _24th Division_, was grouped within
the _5th Artillery Command_. In addition to the comparatively weak
_7th Heavy Artillery Regiment_, Major General Kosuke Wada’s command
consisted of two independent artillery regiments, and the artillery
elements of the _44th Brigade_ and the _27th Tank Regiment_. In
addition, he had the _1st_ and _2d Medium Artillery Regiments_ with 36
howitzers and the _100th Heavy Artillery Battalion_ with eight 150mm
guns. Wada also had in his command the _1st Independent Heavy Mortar
Regiment_, which fired the 320mm spigot mortar earlier encountered
by Marines on Iwo Jima. Although the _1st_ and _2d Light Mortar
Battalions_ were nominally part of Wada’s organization, their 96 81mm
mortars were assigned in close support of the infantry and controlled
by the defense sector commanders.

The reserve of potential infantry replacements varied from good, in the
_23d_ and _26th Shipping Engineer Regiments_, to poor, at best, in the
assorted rear area service units. The largest number of replacements,
7,000 men, was provided by the _10th Air Sector Command_, which was
comprised of airfield maintenance and construction units at the
Yontan, Kadena, and Ie Shima air strips. Another source of infantry
replacements were the seven sea raiding squadrons, three of which were
based at Kerama Retto and the remainder at Unten-Ko in the north of
Okinawa. Each of those squadrons had a hundred picked men, whose sole
assignment was to destroy American amphibious invasion shipping during
the course of landing operations by crashing explosives-laden suicide
craft into the sides of attack transports and cargo vessels.

Ushijima’s naval component consisted of the _Okinawa Naval Base
Force_, the _4th Surface Escort Unit_, and various naval aviation
activities all under the command of Rear Admiral Minoru Ota. In this
combined command were approximately 10,000 men, of whom only 35 percent
were regular naval personnel. The remainder were civilian employees
belonging to the different sub-units of the _Naval Base Force_. Part
of Ota’s command consisted of torpedo boat, suicide boat, and midget
submarine squadrons at the Unten-Ko base on Motobu Peninsula.

Rounding out the _Thirty-second Army_ was a native Okinawan home guard,
whose members were called _Boeitai_. These men were trained by the army
and were to be integrated into army units once the battle for Okinawa
was joined. The _Boeitai_ provided Ushijima with 17,000-20,000 extra
men. Added to this group were 1,700 male Okinawan children, 14 years of
age and older, who were organized into volunteer youth groups called
“Blood and Iron for the Emperor Duty Units,” or _Tekketsu_--Benis M.
Frank
]




_L-Day and Movement to Contact_


Operation Iceberg got off to a roaring start. The few Japanese still in
the vicinity of the main assault at first light on L-Day, 1 April 1945,
could immediately sense the wisdom of General Ushijima in conceding the
landing to the Americans. The enormous armada, assembled from ports
all over the Pacific Ocean, had concentrated on schedule off Okinawa’s
southwest coast and stood coiled to project its 182,000-man landing
force over the beach. This would be the ultimate forcible entry, the
epitome of all the amphibious lessons learned so painstakingly from the
crude beginnings at Guadalcanal and North Africa.

Admiral Turner made his final review of weather conditions in the
amphibious objective area. As at Iwo Jima, the amphibians would be
blessed with good weather on the critical first day of the landing.
Skies would be cloudy to clear, winds moderate east to northeast,
surf moderate, temperature 75 degrees. At 0406 Turner announced “Land
the Landing Force,” the familiar phrase which marked the sequential
countdown to the first assault waves hitting the beaches at H-Hour.
Combat troops already manning the rails of their transports then
witnessed an unforgettable display of naval power--the sustained
bombardment by shells and rockets from hundreds of ships, alternating
with formations of attack aircraft streaking low over the beaches,
bombing and strafing at will. Enemy return fire seemed scattered and
ineffectual, even against such a mass of lucrative targets assembled
offshore. Turner confirmed H-Hour at 0830.

[Illustration:

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 116412

_Taking part in the prelanding bombardment of Okinawa was the_ Idaho
_(BB 42), blasting away at the island with her 14-inch guns at
preselected targets. As the troops landed, naval gunfire ships let
loose with rolling barrages which cleared the way._]

Now came the turn of the 2d Marine Division and the ships of the
Diversionary Force to decoy the Japanese with a feint landing
on the opposite coast. The ersatz amphibious force steamed into
position, launched amphibian tractors and Higgins boats, loaded them
conspicuously with combat-equipped Marines, then dispatched them
towards Minatoga Beach in seven waves. Paying careful attention to the
clock, the fourth wave commander crossed the line of departure exactly
at 0830, the time of the real H-Hour on the west coast. The LVTs and
boats then turned sharply away and returned to the transports, mission
accomplished.

There is little doubt that the diversionary landing (and a repeat
performance the following day) achieved its purpose. In fact, General
Ushijima retained major, front-line infantry and artillery units in the
Minatoga area for several weeks thereafter as a contingency against
a secondary landing he fully anticipated. The garrison also reported
to _IGHQ_ on L-Day morning that “enemy landing attempt on east coast
completely foiled with heavy losses to enemy.”

But the successful deception came at considerable cost. Japanese
_kamikazes_, convinced that this was the main landing, struck the small
force that same morning, seriously damaging the troopship _Hinsdale_
and _LST 844_. The 3d Battalion, 2d Marines, and the 2d Amphibian
Tractor Battalion suffered nearly 50 casualties; the two ships lost
an equal number of sailors. Ironically, the division expected to
have the least damage or casualties in the L-Day battle lost more
men than any other division in the Tenth Army that day. Complained
division Operations Officer Lieutenant Colonel Samuel G. Taxis: “We had
asked for air cover for the feint but were told the threat would be
‘incidental.’”

[Illustration: _A flotilla of LSM-Rs delivers final suppressive fires
before assault waves hit the beach. Upon impact, they churned up the
earth and caused considerable damage._

    Photo by Capt Edward Steichen, USNR, in Marine Corps Historical
        Center
]

On the southwest approaches, the main body experienced no such
interference. An extensive coral reef provided an offshore barrier
to the Hagushi beaches, but by 1945 reefs no longer posed a problem
to the landing force. Unlike Tarawa, where the reef dominated the
tactical development of the battle, General Buckner at Okinawa had more
than 1,400 LVTs to transport his assault echelons from ship to shore
without hesitation. These long lines of LVTs now extended nearly eight
miles as they churned across the line of departure on the heels of 360
armored LVT-As, whose turret-mounted, snub-nosed 75mm howitzers blasted
away at the beach as they advanced the final 4,000 yards. Behind the
LVTs came nearly 700 DUKWs, amphibious trucks, bearing the first of
the direct support artillery battalions. The horizon behind the DUKWs
seemed filled with lines of landing boats. These would pause at the
reef to marry with outward bound LVTs. Soldiers and Marines alike had
rehearsed transfer line operations exhaustively. There would be no
break in the assault’s momentum this day.

[Illustration:

    Photo by Capt Edward Steichen, USNR, in Marine Corps Historical
        Center

_Amphibious mastery at work: assault Marines in amphibian tractors
(LVTs) churn towards the beach on L-Day beneath the protective heavy
fire of a battleship._]

The mouth of the Bishi Gawa (River) marked the boundary between the
XXIV Corps and IIIAC along the Hagushi beaches. The Marines’ tactical
plan called for the two divisions to land abreast, the 1st on the
right, the 6th on the left. Each division in turn landed with two
regiments abreast. The assault regiments, from north to south, were the
22d, 4th, 7th, and 5th Marines. Reflecting years of practice, the first
assault wave touched down close to 0830, the designated H-Hour. The
Marines stormed out of their LVTs, swarmed over the berms and seawalls,
and entered the great unknown. The forcible invasion of Okinawa had
begun. Within the first hour the Tenth Army had put 16,000 combat
troops ashore.

[Illustration: LANDING PLAN--1 APRIL 1945

HAGUSHI BEACHES]

The assault troops experienced a universal shock during the
ship-to-shore movement. In spite of the dire intelligence predictions
and their own combat experience, the troops found the landing to be a
cakewalk--virtually unopposed. Private First Class Gene Sledge’s mortar
section went in singing “Little Brown Jug” at the top of its lungs.
Corporal James L. Day, a rifle squad leader attached to Company F, 2d
Battalion, 22d Marines, who had landed at Eniwetok and Guam earlier,
couldn’t believe his good luck: “I didn’t hear a single shot all
morning--it was unbelievable!” Most veterans expected an eruption of
enemy fire any moment. Later in the day General del Valle’s LVT became
stuck in a pothole enroute to the beach, the vehicle becoming a very
lucrative, immobile target. “It was the worst 20 minutes I ever spent
in my life,” he said.

[Illustration:

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 116103

_Armored amtracs of Company A, 1st Armored Amphibious Battalion, carry
the assault wave of the 4th Marines, 6th Marine Division, onto Red
Beach. The LVTs mount 75mm howitzers and .50-caliber machine guns, and
were used effectively later in the campaign when the_ Thirty-second
Army _attempted amphibious landings on Tenth Army flanks in April._]

The morning continued to offer pleasant surprises to the invaders.
They found no mines along the beaches, discovered the main bridge over
the Bishi River still intact and--wonder of wonders--both airfields
relatively undefended. The 6th Marine Division seized Yontan Airfield
by 1300; the 7th Infantry Division had no problems securing nearby
Kadena.

The rapid clearance of the immediate beaches by the assault units left
plenty of room for follow-on forces, and the division commanders did
not hesitate to accelerate the landing of tanks, artillery battalions,
and reserves. The mammoth build-up proceeded with only a few glitches.
Four artillery pieces went down when their DUKWs foundered along
the reef. Several Sherman tanks grounded on the reef. And the 3d
Battalion, 1st Marines, reached the transfer line by 1800 but had to
spend an uncomfortable night in its boats when sufficient LVTs could
not be mustered at that hour for the final leg. These were minor
inconveniences. Incredibly, by day’s end, the Tenth Army had 60,000
troops ashore, occupying an expanded beachhead eight miles long and two
miles deep. This was the real measure of effectiveness of the Fifth
Fleet’s proven amphibious proficiency.

The huge landing was not entirely bloodless. Snipers wounded Major John
H. Gustafson, commanding the 3d Battalion, 5th Marines, late in the
afternoon. Other men went down to enemy mortar and machine gun fire.
But the losses of the entire Tenth Army, including the hard-luck 2d
Marine Division, amounted to 28 killed, 104 wounded, and 27 missing on
L-Day. This represented barely 10 percent of the casualties sustained
by the V Amphibious Corps the first day on Iwo Jima.

[Illustration: _Assault troops of the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines,
clamber over a seawall after landing on Blue Beach 2 on 1 April 1945,
against no opposition at the beachhead._

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 117020
]

Nor did the momentum of the assault slow appreciably after the Tenth
Army broke out of the beachhead. The 7th Infantry Division reached the
East Coast on the second day. On the third day, the 1st Marine Division
seized the Katchin Peninsula, effectively cutting the island in two.
By that date, IIIAC elements had reached objectives thought originally
to require 11 days in the taking. Lieutenant Colonel Victor H. Krulak,
operations officer for the 6th Marine Division, recalls General
Shepherd telling him, “Go ahead! Plow ahead as fast as you can. We’ve
got these fellows on the run.” “Well, hell,” said Krulak, “we didn’t
have them on the run. They weren’t there.”

[Illustration:

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 116368

_Other Marines were boated to the beachhead in LCVPs. Debarking from
the Higgins boats, they waded through the quiet surf over the coral
reef to reach shore._]

As the 6th Marine Division swung north and the 1st Marine Division
moved out to the west and northwest, their immediate problems stemmed
not from the Japanese but from a sluggish supply system, still being
processed over the beach. The reef-side transfer line worked well for
troops but poorly for cargo. Navy beachmasters labored to construct an
elaborate causeway to the reef, but in the meantime, the 1st Marine
Division demonstrated some of its amphibious logistics know-how
learned “on-the-job” at Peleliu. It mounted swinging cranes on powered
causeways and secured the craft to the seaward side of the reef. Boats
would pull alongside in deep water; the crane would lift nets filled
with combat cargo from the boats into the open hatches of a DUKW or
LVT waiting on the shoreward side for the final run to the beach. This
worked so well that the division had to divide its assets among the
other divisions within the Tenth Army.

[Illustration: _Marines of the 6th Division have a peaceful “walk in
the sun,” as they head north down the hillside approaching the town of
Ishikawa on L-plus 3. Their idyllic traipse will end soon as they near
Mount Yae Take and well-defended enemy positions._

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 116523
]

Beach congestion also slowed the process. Both Marine divisions
resorted to using their replacement drafts as shore party teams.
Their inexperience in this vital work, combined with the constant
call for groups as replacements, caused problems of traffic control,
establishment of functional supply dumps, and pilferage. This was
nothing new; other divisions in earlier operations had encountered
the same circumstances. The rapidly advancing assault divisions had a
critical need for motor transport and bulk fuel, but these proved slow
to land and distribute. Okinawa’s rudimentary road network further
compounded the problem. Colonel Edward W. Snedeker, commanding the 7th
Marines, summarized the situation after the landing in this candid
report: “The movement from the west coast landing beaches of Okinawa
across the island was most difficult because of the rugged terrain
crossed. It was physically exhausting for personnel who had been on
transports a long time. It also presented initially an impossible
supply problem in the Seventh’s zone of action because of the lack of
roads.”

[Illustration:

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 118304

_As invasion forces fanned out on Okinawa, the beaches were scenes of
organized disorder as shore parties unloaded the beans and bullets
needed by the assault troops. They also began unloading materiel which
would be needed later in the campaign._]

General Mulcahy did not hesitate to move the command post of the
Tactical Air Force ashore as early as L plus 1. Operating from crude
quarters between Yontan and Kadena, Mulcahy kept a close eye on
the progress the SeaBees and Marine and Army engineers were making
on repairing both captured airfields. The first American aircraft,
a Marine observation plane, landed on 2 April. Two days later the
fields were ready to accept fighters. By the eighth day, Mulcahy could
accommodate medium bombers and announced to the Fleet his assumption
of control of all aircraft ashore. By then his fighter arm, the
Air Defense Command, had been established ashore nearby under the
leadership of Marine Brigadier General William J. Wallace. With that,
the graceful F4U Corsairs of Colonel John C. Munn’s Marine Aircraft
Group (MAG) 31 and Colonel Ward E. Dickey’s MAG-33 began flying in from
their escort carriers. Wallace immediately tasked them to fly combat
air patrols (CAP) over the fleet, already seriously embattled by massed
_kamikaze_ attacks. Ironically, most of the Marine fighter pilots’
initial missions consisted of CAP assignments, while the Navy squadrons
on board the escort carriers picked up the close air support jobs.
Dawn of each new day would provide the spectacle of Marine Corsairs
taking off from land to fly CAP over the far-flung Fifth Fleet, passing
Navy Hellcats from the fleet coming in take station in support of the
Marines fighting on the ground. Other air units poured into the two
airfields as well: air warning squadrons, night fighters, torpedo
bombers, and an Army Air Forces fighter wing. While neither Yontan
nor Kadena were exactly safe havens--each received nightly artillery
shelling and long-range bombing for the first full month ashore--the
two airfields remained in operation around the clock, an invaluable
asset to both Admiral Spruance and General Buckner.

While the 1st Marine Division continued to hunt down small bands of
enemy guerrillas and infiltrators throughout the center of the island,
General Geiger unleased the 6th Marine Division to sweep north. These
were heady days for General Shepherd’s troops: riflemen clustered
topside on tanks and self-propelled guns, streaming northward against
a fleeing foe. Not since Tinian had Marines enjoyed such exhilarating
mobility. By 7 April the division had seized Nago, the largest town
in northern Okinawa, and the U.S. Navy obligingly swept for mines and
employed underwater demolition teams (UDT) to breach obstacles in order
to open the port for direct, seaborne delivery of critical supplies to
the Marines. Corporal Day marveled at the rapidity of their advance so
far. “Hell, here we were in Nago. It was not tough at all. Up to that
time [our squad] had not lost a man.” The 22d Marines continued north
through broken country, reaching Hedo Misaki at the far end of the
island on L plus 12, having covered 55 miles from the Hagushi landing
beaches.

For the remainder of the 6th Marine Division, the honeymoon was about
to end. Just northwest of Nago the great bulbous nose of Motobu
Peninsula juts out into the East China Sea. There, in a six-square-mile
area around 1,200-foot Mount Yae Take, Colonel Takesiko Udo and his
_Kunigami Detachment_ ended their delaying tactics and assumed prepared
defensive positions. Udo’s force consisted of two rifle battalions,
a regimental gun company and an antitank company from the _44th
Independent Mixed Brigade_, in all about two thousand seasoned troops.

[Illustration:

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 117054

_Grinning troops of the 29th Marines hitch a ride on board an M-7
self-propelled 105mm howitzer heading for Chuta in the drive towards
Motobu Peninsula._]

Yae Take proved to be a defender’s dream, broken into steep ravines
and tangled with dense vegetation. The Japanese sowed the approaches
with mines and mounted 20mm dual-purpose machine-cannons and heavier
weapons deep within caves. As Colonel Krulak recalled: “They were just
there--they weren’t going anywhere--they were going to fight to the
death. They had a lot of naval guns that had come off disabled ships,
and they dug them way back in holes where their arc of fire was not
more than 10 or 12 degrees.” One of the artillery battalions of the
15th Marines had the misfortune to lay their guns directly within the
narrow arc of a hidden 150mm cannon. “They lost two howitzers before
you could spell cat,” said Krulak.

The battle of Yae Take became the 6th Marine Division’s first
real fight, five days of difficult and deadly combat against an
exceptionally determined enemy. Both the 4th and 29th Marines earned
their spurs here, developing teamwork and tactics that would put them
in good stead during the long campaign ahead.

[Illustration:

    APRIL 20
    JAPANESE RESISTANCE
    ON MOTOBU PEN. ENDS
]

Part of General Shepherd’s success in this battle stemmed from his
desire to provide proven leaders in command of his troops. On the 15th,
Shepherd relieved Colonel Victor F. Bleasdale, a well-decorated World
War I Marine, to install Guadalcanal veteran Colonel William J. Whaling
as commanding officer of the 29th Marines. When Japanese gunners killed
Major Bernard W. Green, commanding the 1st Battalion, 4th Marines,
Colonel Shapley assigned his own executive officer, Lieutenant Colonel
Fred D. Beans, a former Marine raider, as his replacement. The savage
fighting continued, with three battalions attacking from the west, two
from the east--protected against friendly fire by the steep pinnacle
between them. Logistic support to the fighting became so critical that
every man, from private to general, who ascended the mountain to the
front lines carried either a five-gallon water can or a case of ammo.
And all hands coming down the mountain had to help bear stretchers of
wounded Marines. On 15 April, one company of the 2d Battalion, 4th
Marines, suffered 65 casualties, including three consecutive company
commanders. On 16 April, two companies of the 1st Battalion, 4th
Marines, seized the topographic crest. On the following day, the 29th
Marines received exceptional fire support from the 14-inch guns of the
old battleship _Tennessee_ and low-level, in-your-pocket bombing from
the Corsairs of Marine Fighter Squadron 322.

Colonel Udo and his _Kunigami Detachment_ died to the man at Yae Take.
On 20 April General Shepherd declared the Motobu Peninsula secured.
His division had earned a valuable victory, but the cost had not been
cheap. The 6th Marine Division suffered the loss of 207 killed and 757
wounded in the battle. The division’s overall performance impressed
General Oliver P. Smith, who recorded in his journal:

  The campaign in the north should dispel the belief held by some
  that Marines are beach-bound and are not capable of rapid movement.
  Troops moved rapidly over rugged terrain, repaired roads and blown
  bridges, successively opened new unloading points, and reached the
  northern tip of the island, some 55 miles from the original landing
  beaches, in 14 days. This was followed by a mountain campaign of 7
  days duration to clear the Motobu Peninsula.

During the battle for Motobu Peninsula, the 77th Infantry Division
once again displayed its amphibious prowess by landing on the island
of Ie Shima to seize its airfields. On 16 April, Major Jones’ force
reconnaissance Marines again helped pave the way by seizing Minna
Shima, a tiny islet about 6,000 yards off shore from Ie Shima. Here
the soldiers positioned a 105mm battery to further support operations
ashore. The 77th needed plenty of fire support. Nearly 5,000 Japanese
defended the island. The soldiers overwhelmed them in six days of very
hard fighting at a cost of 1,100 casualties. One of these was the
popular war correspondent Ernie Pyle, who had landed with the Marines
on L-Day. A Japanese _Nambu_ gunner on Ie Shima shot Pyle in the head,
killing him instantly. Soldiers and Marines alike grieved over Pyle’s
death, just as they had six days earlier with the news of President
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s passing.

The 1st Marine Division fought a different campaign in April than their
sister division to the north. Their days were filled with processing
refugees and their nights with patrols and ambushes. Guerrillas and
snipers exacted a small but steady toll. The 7th Marines became engaged
in a hot firefight near Hizaonna, but most of the action remained
small-unit and nocturnal. The “Old Breed” Marines welcomed the cycle of
low intensity. After so many months in the tropics, they found Okinawa
refreshingly cool and pastoral. The Marines grew concerned about the
welfare of the thousands of Okinawan refugees who straggled northwards
from the heavy fighting. As Private First Class Eugene Sledge observed,
“The most pitiful things about the Okinawan civilians were that they
were totally bewildered by the shock of our invasion, and they were
scared to death of us. Countless times they passed us on the way to the
rear with fear, dismay, and confusion on their faces.”

[Illustration: _Uncovered on Motobu Peninsula, hidden in a cave, was
this Japanese 150mm gun waiting to be used against 6th Marine Division
troops advancing northwards._

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 122207
]

Sledge and his companions in the 5th Marines could tell by the sound of
intense artillery fire to the south that the XXIV Corps had collided
with General Ushijima’s outer defenses. Within the first week the
soldiers of the 7th and 96th Divisions had answered the riddle of
“where are the Japs?” By the second week, both General Hodge and
General Buckner were painfully aware of Ushijima’s intentions and
the range and depth of his defensive positions. In addition to their
multitude of caves, minefields, and reverse-slope emplacements,
the Japanese in the Shuri complex featured the greatest number of
large-caliber weapons the Americans had ever faced in the Pacific. All
major positions enjoyed mutually supporting fires from adjacent and
interior hills and ridge-lines, themselves honeycombed with caves and
fighting holes. Maintaining rigid adherence to these intricate networks
of mutually supporting positions required iron discipline on the part
of the Japanese troops. To the extent this discipline prevailed, the
Americans found themselves entering killing zones of savage lethality.

[Illustration:

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 116840

_Shortly after the main landings on Okinawa, famed war correspondent
Ernie Pyle, a Scripps-Howard columnist who had been in the thick of the
war in the Italian campaign, shares a smoke with a Marine patrol. Later
in Operation Iceberg he was killed by machine gun fire on Ie Shima, a
nearby island fortress._]

In typical fighting along this front, the Japanese would contain and
isolate an American penetration (Army or Marine) by grazing fire from
supporting positions, then smother the exposed troops on top of the
initial objective with a rain of preregistered heavy mortar shells
until fresh Japanese troops could swarm out of their reverse-slope
tunnels in a counterattack. Often the Japanese shot down more Americans
during their extraction from some fire-swept hilltop than they did in
the initial advance. These early U.S. assaults set the pattern to be
encountered for the duration of the campaign in the south.

General Buckner quickly committed the 27th Infantry Division to the
southern front. He also directed General Geiger to loan his corps
artillery and the heretofore lightly committed 11th Marines to beef
up the fire support to XXIV Corps. This temporary assignment provided
four 155mm battalions, three 105mm battalions, and one residual 75mm
pack howitzer battalion (1/11) to the general bombardment underway of
Ushijima’s outer defenses. Lieutenant Colonel Frederick P. Henderson,
USMC, took command of a provisional field artillery group comprised
of the Marine 155mm gun battalions and an Army 8-inch howitzer
battalion--the “Henderson Group”--which provided massive fire support
to all elements of the Tenth Army.

[Illustration: _Within a short time after they came ashore, Marines
encountered native Okinawans. This group of elderly civilians is
escorted to the safety of a rear area by Marine PFC John F. Cassinelli,
a veteran 1st Marine Division military policeman._

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 117288
]

Readjusting the front lines of XXIV Corps to allow room for the 27th
Division took time; so did building up adequate units of fire for field
artillery battalions to support the mammoth, three-division offensive
General Buckner wanted. A week of general inactivity passed along the
southern front, which inadvertently allowed the Japanese to make their
own adjustments and preparations for the coming offensive. On 18 April
(L plus 17) Buckner moved the command post of the Tenth Army ashore.
The offensive began the next morning, preceded by the ungodliest
preliminary bombardment of the ground war, a virtual “typhoon of steel”
delivered by 27 artillery batteries, 18 ships, and 650 aircraft.
But the Japanese simply burrowed deeper into their underground
fortifications and waited for the infernal pounding to cease and for
American infantry to advance into their well-designed killing traps.

[Illustration:

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 116356

_Two Marines help an aged Okinawan to safety in the rear of the lines,
as a third Marine of the party carries the man’s meager possessions.
Only children, women, and the aged and infirm were found and protected
by assaulting Marines as they pushed across the island during the first
few days following the 1 April landing._]

The XXIV Corps executed the assault on 19 April with great valor, made
some gains, then were thrown back with heavy casualties. The Japanese
also exacted a heavy toll of U.S. tanks, especially those supporting
the 27th Infantry Division. In the fighting around Kakazu Ridge, the
Japanese had separated the tanks from their supporting infantry by
fire, then knocked off 22 of the 30 Shermans with everything from 47mm
guns to hand-delivered satchel charges.

The disastrous battle of 19 April provided an essential dose of
reality to the Tenth Army. The so-called “walk in the sun” had ended.
Overcoming the concentric Japanese defenses around Shuri was going to
require several divisions, massive firepower, and time--perhaps a very
long time. Buckner needed immediate help along the Machinato-Kakazu
lines. His operations officer requested General Geiger to provide the
1st Tank Battalion to the 27th Division. Hearing this, General del
Valle became furious. “They can have my division,” he complained to
Geiger, “but not piece-meal.” Del Valle had other concerns. Marine
Corps tankers and infantry trained together as teams. The 1st Marine
Division had perfected tank-infantry offensive attacks in the crucible
of Peleliu. Committing the tanks to the Army without their trained
infantry squads could have proven disastrous.

Fortunately, Geiger and Oliver P. Smith made these points clear to
General Buckner. The Tenth Army commander agreed to refrain from
piece-meal commitments of the Marines. Instead, on 24 April, he
requested Geiger to designate one division as Tenth Army Reserve and
make one regiment in that division ready to move south in 12 hours.
Geiger gave the mission to the 1st Marine Division; del Valle alerted
the 1st Marines to be ready to move south.

These decisions occurred while Buckner and his senior Marines were
still debating the possibility of opening a second front with an
amphibious landing on the Minatoga Beaches. But the continued bloody
fighting along the Shuri front received the forefront of Buckner’s
attention. As his casualties grew alarmingly, Buckner decided to
concentrate all his resources on a single front. On 27 April he
assigned the 1st Marine Division to XXIV Corps. During the next three
days the division moved south to relieve the shot-up 27th Infantry
Division on the western (right) flank of the lines. The 6th Marine
Division received a warning order to prepare for a similar displacement
to the south. The long battle for Okinawa’s southern highlands was
shifting into high gear.

Meanwhile, throughout April and with unprecedented ferocity, the
Japanese _kamikazes_ had punished the ships of the Fifth Fleet
supporting the operation. So intense had the aerial battles become
that the western beaches, so beguilingly harmless on L-Day, became
positively deadly each night with the steady rain of shell fragments
from thousands of antiaircraft guns in the fleet. Ashore or afloat,
there were no safe havens in this protracted battle.




_The Air and Sea Battles_


The Japanese strategy for defending Okinawa made the most of that
nation’s dwindling resources and rampant fanaticism. While General
Ushijima bloodied the American landing force in a protracted battle
of attrition, the Japanese air arm would savage the Fifth Fleet
tethered to the island in support. The battle would thus feature the
unique combination of a near-passive ground defense with a violent air
offensive that would employ suicide tactics on an unprecedented scale.

By the spring of 1945 the Americans knew well the Japanese propensity
for individual suicide attacks, having experienced _kamikazes_ in the
Philippines, antishipping swimmers in the waters near Iwo Jima, and
“human bullet” antitank demolitionists at Peleliu. But _IGHQ_ escalated
these tactics to an awesome level at Okinawa by introducing the
_kikusui_ (Floating Chrysanthemums) massed suicide air strikes against
the fleet. While small groups of _kamikazes_ struck the fleet on a
nightly basis, the worst damage came from the concentrated _kikusui_
raids. The Japanese launched ten separate _kikusui_ attacks during
the battle--some of them numbering up to 350 aircraft--and _IGHQ_
coordinated many of these with other tactical surprises, such as the
counterattacks of 12-13 April and 3-4 May or the sacrificial sortie of
the _Yamato_. The results proved costly to both sides.

Swarms of _kamikazes_ bedeviled the Fifth Fleet from the time the
advance force first steamed into Ryukyuan waters throughout the course
of the battle. Some intermediate Navy commanders spoke dismissively
of the threat--inexperienced pilots in ramshackle planes launched
with barely enough fuel to reach Okinawa. Indeed, many of the 2,373
_kamikazes_ never made it to the objective. But those Special Attack
Unit pilots who survived the air and surface screens inflicted grievous
damage on the Fifth Fleet. By the end of the campaign, the fleet had
suffered 34 ships and craft sunk, 368 damaged, and more than 9,000
casualties--the greatest losses ever sustained by the U.S. Navy in a
single battle.

[Illustration:

    Marine Corps Historical Center

_The amphibious task force under one of the first destructive heavy_
kamikaze _attacks off Okinawa’s southwest coast on L plus 5. The_
kamikazes _were to make many such visits to Okinawa before the
operation ended, causing much damage._]

The situation at sea grew so critical that on one occasion smoke
from burning ships and screening escorts offshore blinded Yontan
Airfield, causing three returning CAP planes to crash. As the onslaught
continued, Admiral Spruance observed frankly, “The suicide plane is a
very effective weapon which we must not underestimate.” Spruance spoke
from firsthand experience. _Kamikazes_ knocked his first flagship, the
heavy cruiser _Indianapolis_, out of the battle early in the campaign,
then severely damaged his replacement flagship, the battleship _New
Mexico_, a few weeks later.

[Illustration: _A U.S. ship badly damaged by a_ kamikaze _hit receives
a survey inspection within the protected anchorage of Kerama Retto,
where the Navy repaired its damaged fleet._

    Marine Corps Historical Center
]

The Japanese attacking the U.S. fleet off Okinawa also introduced
their newest weapon, the “_Ohka_” (cherry blossom) bomb (called by the
Americans “_Baka_,” a derisive Japanese term meaning “foolish”). It was
a manned, solid-fuel rocket packed with 4,400 pounds of explosives,
launched at ships from the belly of a twin-engined bomber. The _Baka_
bombs became in effect the first antiship guided missiles, screaming
towards the target at an unheard-of 500 knots. One such weapon blew
the destroyer _Manert L. Abele_ out of the water. Fortunately, most of
the _Bakas_ missed their targets, the missiles proving too fast for
inexperienced pilots to control in their few seconds of glory.

The ultimate suicide attack was the final sortie of the superbattleship
_Yamato_, the last of the world’s great dreadnoughts, whose feared
18.1-inch guns could outrange the biggest and newest U.S. battleships.
_IGHQ_ dispatched _Yamato_ on her last mission, a bizarre scheme, with
no air cover and but a handful of surface escorts and only enough fuel
for a one-way trip. She was to distract the American carriers to allow
a simultaneous _kikusui_ attack against the remainder of the fleet.
Achieving this, _Yamato_ would beach itself directly on Okinawa’s west
coast, using her big guns to shoot up the thin-skinned amphibious
shipping and the landing force ashore. The plan proved absurd.

In earlier years of the war the sortie of this mammoth warship would
have caused consternation among the fleet protecting an amphibious
beachhead. Not now. Patrolling U.S. submarines gave Spruance early
warning of _Yamato_’s departure from Japanese waters. “Shall I take
them or will you?” asked Vice Admiral Marc A. Mitscher, commanding the
fast carriers of Task Force 58. Spruance knew his battleship force
yearned for a surface battle to avenge their losses at Pearl Harbor,
but this was no time for sentiment. “You take them,” he signaled.
With that, Mitscher’s Hellcats and Avengers roared aloft, intercepted
_Yamato_ a hundred miles from the beachhead, and sank her in short
order with bombs and torpedoes. The cost: eight U.S. planes, 12 men.

Another bizarre Japanese suicide mission proved more effective. On
the night of 24-25 May, a half-dozen transport planes loaded with
_Giretsu_, Japanese commandos, approached the U.S. airbase at Yontan.
Alert antiaircraft gunners flamed five. The surviving plane made a
wheels-up belly landing on the airstrip, discharging troops as she slid
in sparks and flames along the surface. The commandos blew up eight
U.S. planes, damaged twice as many more, set fire to 70,000 gallons of
aviation gasoline, and generally created havoc throughout the night.
Jittery aviation and security troops fired at shadows, injuring their
own men more than the Japanese. It took 12 hours to hunt down and kill
the last raider.

[Illustration: _Japanese night raiders are met on 16 April with a
spectacular network of antiaircraft fire by Marine defenders based at
Yontan airfield. In the foreground, silhouetted against the interlaced
pattern of tracer bullets, are Corsairs of VMF-311._

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 118775
]

Admiral Spruance at sea and General Mulcahy ashore exerted Herculean
efforts to reduce the effectiveness of these suicide strikes. The fast
carriers struck Japanese airfields in Kyushu and Formosa time and
again, but these numbered more than 100, and as usual the Japanese
proved adept at camouflage. Small landing parties of soldiers and
Marines seized outlying islands (see sidebar) to establish early
warning and fighter direction outposts. And fighter planes from all
three services took to the air to intercept the intermittent waves of
enemy planes.

[Illustration:

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 121884

_Marine Avengers of Marine Torpedo-Bomber Squadron 232 are seen through
the hatch of a transport, which served as a navigation plane for the
overwater flight from Ulithi to Kadena. The flight echelon landed on 22
April and began close-support missions the next day._]

Not all of the Japanese air strikes were _kamikazes_. An equal number
of fighters and bombers accompanied each raid to guide the suiciders to
their targets and attack American targets by conventional means. Some
of these included late-model fighters like the Nakajima “Frank.” Deadly
air-to-air duels took place over hundreds of miles of ocean expanse.

The far-ranging fast carriers usually made the first interceptions.
While most pilots were Navy, the task force included two Marine fighter
squadrons each on the carriers _Bunker Hill_ and _Bennington_. One
Marine aviator from _Bennington_, Lieutenant Kenneth E. Huntington,
flew the only USMC Corsair in the attack on _Yamato_. Huntington
swept in through heavy AA fire to deliver his bomb squarely on the
battleship’s forward turret. As described by combat correspondent
Robert Sherrod, “One Marine, one bomb, one Navy Cross.”

Marine fighters of MAGs-31 and -33, flying from Yontan under General
Mulcahy’s TAF, provided most of the CAP missions over the fleet during
the first several weeks of the battle. The CAP requirement soared from
12 planes initially to as many as 32 on station, with an additional
dozen on strip alert. The missions involved long hours of patrolling,
typically in rough weather spiked by sudden violent encounters with
Japanese raiders. The CAP planes ran a double risk. Dueling a Japanese
fighter often took both planes within range of nervous shipboard AA
gunners who sometimes downed both antagonists unwittingly.

On 16 April, VMF-441 raced to the rescue of the picket ship _Laffey_,
already hit by five suiciders. The Corsairs shot down 17 attackers in
short order, losing only one plane which had chased a _kamikaze_ so low
they both clipped the ship’s superstructure and crashed.

On 22 April, the “Death Rattlers” of VMF-323 intercepted a large flight
of raiders approaching the fleet at dusk. Three Marines shot down 16 of
these in 20 minutes. The squadron commander, Major George C. Axtell,
knocked down five, becoming an instant ace. As Axtell described these
sudden dogfights:

  You’d be flying in and out of heavy rain and clouds. Enemy and
  friendly aircraft would wind up in a big melee. You just kept
  turning into any enemy aircraft that appeared.... It was fast and
  furious and the engagement would be over within thirty minutes.

[Illustration: _A “Grasshopper” from a Marine observation squadron
flies over Naha, permitting an aerial photographer to take oblique
photos which will be used by Marine artillery units to spot targets and
determine the damage already done by the Allies._

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 128032
]

But in spite of the heroic efforts of all these aviators and their
ground crews, the _kamikazes_ swarmed in such numbers that a few
always got through. Soon, the protected anchorage at Kerama Retto began
to resemble a floating graveyard of heavily damaged ships. Small groups
of suiciders appeared every night, and the fleet seemed particularly
vulnerable during the full moon. One naval officer described the
night-time raiders as “witches on broomsticks.” More often than not,
the victims of these nocturnal attacks were the “small boys,” the
picket ships and diminutive amphibs. Nineteen-year-old Signalman 3/C
Nick Floros manned a 20mm gun mount on tiny _LSM-120_ one midnight when
a _kamikaze_ appeared “out of nowhere, gliding in low with its engine
cut off--like a giant bat.” The plane struck the adjacent LSM with a
terrific explosion before anyone could fire a shot. The small landing
ship, loaded with landing force supplies, somehow survived the fiery
blast but was immediately consigned to the “demolition yard” at Kerama
Retto.

[Illustration:

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 119294

_During a visit to Marines in late April, the Commandant, Gen Alexander
A. Vandegrift, second from left, called on MajGen Francis P. Mulcahy,
center, commander of the Tactical Air Force, Tenth Army, and three of
his pilots: Maj George C. Axtell, Jr., left; Maj Jefferson D. Dorroh,
second from right; and Lt Jeremiah J. O’Keefe. Maj Axtell commanded
VMF-323, the “Death Rattlers.”_]

_Imperial General Headquarters_, accepting the inflated claims of
the few observers accompanying the _kikusui_ attacks, believed their
suicidal air offensive had fatally crippled the U.S. Fleet. This was
wishful thinking. The Fifth Fleet may have been stressed and battered
by the _kamikazes_, but it was simply too huge a force to be deterred.
The fleet withstood the worst of these seemingly endless air attacks
without for a moment forsaking its primary mission of supporting the
amphibious assault on Okinawa. Naval gunfire support, for example, had
never been so thoroughly effective, beginning with the 3,800 tons of
munitions delivered on L-Day. Throughout much of the campaign, each
front-line regiment received direct support from one “call fire” ship
and one “illumination ship.” Typical of the appreciation most members
of the landing force expressed for the quality of naval gunfire support
was this message from General Shepherd to the Commander, Northern
Attack Force during the 6th Marine Division’s assault on Mount Yae
Take: “The effectiveness of your gunfire support was measured by the
large number of Japanese encountered. Dead ones.”

Similarly, even during the most intense of the _kikusui_ attacks of
1-16 April, the fleet unloaded an astonishing 557,000 tons of supplies
over the Hagushi Beaches to support the Tenth Army, executed the
division-level assault on Ie Shima, and cleared mines and obstacles
under fire to open the port of Nago. The only direct effect the mass
_kamikaze_ raids ever had on the conduct of Tenth Army operations
ashore was the sinking on 6 April of the ammunition ships _Logan
Victory_ and _Hobbs Victory_. The subsequent shortage of 105mm and
155mm artillery ammunition delayed General Buckner’s first great
offensive against the outer Shuri defenses by about three days. In all
respects, the Fifth Fleet deserved its media sobriquet as “The Fleet
That Came to Stay.”

But as April dragged into May, and the Tenth Army seemed bogged down in
unimaginative frontal attacks along the Shuri line, Admirals Spruance
and Turner began to press General Buckner to accelerate his tactics in
order to decrease the vulnerability of the fleet. Admiral Nimitz, quite
concerned, flew to Okinawa to counsel Buckner. “I’m losing a ship and
a half each day out here,” Nimitz said, “You’ve got to get this thing
moving.”

The senior Marines urged Buckner to “play the amphib card,” to execute
a major landing on the southeast coast, preferably along the alternate
beaches at Minatoga, in order to turn the Japanese right flank. They
were joined in this recommendation by several Army generals who
already perceived what a meatgrinder the frontal assaults along the
Shuri line would become. The Commandant of the Marine Corps, General
Alexander A. Vandegrift, visited the island and seconded these
suggestions to Buckner. After all, Buckner still had control of the 2d
Marine Division, a veteran amphibious outfit which had demonstrated
effectively against the Minatoga Beaches on L-Day. Buckner had
subsequently returned the embarked division to Saipan to reduce its
vulnerability to additional _kamikaze_ attacks, but the unit still had
its assigned ships at hand, still combat loaded. The 2d Marine Division
could have opened a second front in Okinawa within a few days.

[Illustration:

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 120053

_All Marines sight-in on the mouth of a cave into which an explosive
charge had been thrown, and wait to see if any enemy soldiers will try
to escape. This is one of the many bitterly contested cave positions
found in numerous ridges and hills._]

General Buckner was a popular, competent commander, but he had limited
experience with amphibious warfare and possessed a conservative nature.
His staff warned of logistics problems involved in a second front.
His intelligence advisors predicted stiff enemy resistance around the
Minatoga beachhead. Buckner had also heard enough of the costly Anzio
operation in Italy to be leery of any landing executed too far from
the main effort. He honestly believed the Japanese manning the Shuri
defenses would soon crack under the synchronized application of all
his massed firepower and infantry. Buckner therefore rejected the
amphibious option out of hand. Surprisingly, Nimitz and his Chief of
Staff, Rear Admiral Forrest Sherman, agreed. Not so Admirals Spruance
and Turner or the Marines. As Spruance later admitted in a private
letter, “There are times when I get impatient for some of Holland
Smith’s drive.” General Shepherd noted, “General Buckner did not cotton
to amphibious operations.” Even Colonel Hiromichi Yahara, Operations
Officer of the _Thirty-second Army_, admitted under interrogation that
he had been baffled by the American’s adherence to a purely frontal
assault from north to south. “The absence of a landing [in the south]
puzzled the _Thirty-second Army_ staff,” he said, “particularly after
the beginning of May when it became impossible to put up more than a
token resistance in the south.”

By then the 2d Marine Division was beginning to feel like a yo-yo in
preparing for its variously assigned missions for Operation Iceberg.
Lieutenant Colonel Taxis, Division G-3, remained unforgiving of
Buckner’s decision. “I will always feel,” he stated after the war,
“that the Tenth Army should have been prepared the instant they found
they were bogged down, they should have thrown a left hook down there
in the southern beaches.... They had a hell of a powerful reinforced
division, trained to a gnat’s whisker.”

Buckner stood by his decision. There would be no “left hook.”
Instead, both the 1st and the 6th Marine Divisions would join the
Shuri offensive as infantry divisions under the Tenth Army. The 2d
Marine Division, less one reinforced regimental landing team (the 8th
Marines), would languish back in Saipan. Then came Okinawa’s incessant
spring rains.




[Sidebar (page 21): The U.S. Army at Okinawa


It would be an injustice not to credit the U.S. Army for its
significant participation in the Okinawa campaign. In fact, the Army
deployed as many combat troops, sustained proportionate casualties, and
fought with equal valor as the Marines. The Army battles for Kakazu
Ridge, Conical Hill, and the Yuza Dake Escarpment are as much hallowed
touchstones to that service as are Sugar Loaf and Kunishi Ridge to the
Marines. The Okinawa campaign still serves as a model of joint-service
cooperation, in spite of isolated cases of “sibling rivalry.”

At one point in mid-1943, the Joint Chiefs of Staff could identify
only three divisions in the Pacific with “amphibious expertise”: the
1st and 2d Marine Divisions, veterans of Tulagi and Guadalcanal; and
the 7th Infantry Division, fresh from the Aleutians. By the time these
same units joined with four other divisions to constitute the Tenth
Army for Okinawa, the number of divisions with experience in amphibious
operations deployed in the Pacific had expanded sevenfold. The three
principal assault units in Major General John R. Hodge’s XXIV Corps
had fresh experience in “storm landings” in Leyte. That campaign was
the first for the 96th Division, which acquitted itself well, and the
third amphibious operation for the 7th Division, following Attu and
Kwajalein. Leyte also saw the 77th Division, veterans of the battle
for Guam, execute a bold landing at Ormoc which surprised the Japanese
defenders. New to XXIV Corps was the 27th Division, a National Guard
unit still regarded with acrimony by some Marines after the Saipan
flail, but an outfit proud of its amphibious experiences in the
Gilberts and Marianas. None of the Army divisions had the luxury of
extended preparations for Okinawa. General Douglas MacArthur did not
release the XXIV Corps, understrength and underfed after 110 days’
combat in Leyte, to the Tenth Army until seven weeks before the Okinawa
landing. The 27th Division had more time but endured unsatisfactory
training conditions in the jungles of Espiritu Santo.

[Illustration:

    Marine Corps Historical Center
]

Examples of full cooperation by Army units with Marines abound in the
Okinawa campaign. Army Air Forces P-47 Thunderbolts flew long-range
bombing and fighter missions for General Mulcahy’s TAF. Army and Marine
Corps artillery units routinely supported opposite services during the
protracted drive against the Shuri Line. The Marines gained a healthy
respect for the Army’s 8-inch howitzers; often these heavy weapons
provided the only means of reducing a particularly well-fortified
Japanese strongpoint. In addition, General Buckner attached the
invaluable “Zippo Tanks” of the 713th Armored Flame Thrower Battalion
and 4.2-inch mortar batteries to both Marine divisions. The 6th Marine
Division also had the 708th Amphibian Tank Battalion attached for
the duration of the battle. Each of these attached units received
the Presidential Unit Citation for service with their parent Marine
divisions.

On a less formal basis, the Army frequently lent logistical support
to the Marines as the campaign struggled south through the endless
rains. Even the fourth revision of the Marine division’s table of
organization did not provide sufficient transport assets to support
such a protracted campaign executed at increasing distances from the
force beachhead. A shortfall in amphibious cargo ships assigned to
the Marines further reduced the number of organic tracked and wheeled
logistics vehicles available. Often, the generosity of the supporting
Army units spelled the difference of whether the Marines would eat
that day. The best example of this helping spirit occurred on 4 June
when elements of the 96th Division provided rations to Lieutenant
Colonel Richard P. Ross’ 3d Battalion, 1st Marines, brightening what
the battalion otherwise reported as “the most miserable day spent on
Okinawa.”

Okinawa, in short, was too big and too tough for a single service to
undertake. The 82-day campaign against a tenacious, well-armed enemy
required unusual teamwork and cooperation among all services.
]




[Sidebar (page 24): Marine Air at Okinawa


“Okinawa was the culmination of the development of air support doctrine
in the Pacific,” declared Colonel Vernon E. Megee, commander of Landing
Force Air Support Units during the campaign. “The procedures we used
there were the result of lessons learned in all preceding campaigns,
including the Philippines.” Indeed, Marine aviation at Okinawa operated
across the spectrum of missions, from supply drops to bombing an enemy
battleship.

Altogether, some 700 Marine planes of one type or another took part in
the Okinawa campaign. About 450 of these engaged in combat for more
than half the battle. Most Marine air units served under the aegis of
the Tenth Army’s Tactical Air Force (TAF), commanded by Major General
Francis P. Mulcahy, USMC (relieved on 8 June by Major General Louis E.
Woods, USMC). Outside of TAF were the Marine fighter squadrons assigned
to the fleet carriers or escort carriers, plus long-range transports.

Admiral Raymond A. Spruance, commanding all Allied forces for Operation
Iceberg, deemed the Japanese air arm to be the biggest threat to the
success of the invasion. The Tenth Army’s first objective, therefore,
became that of seizing Yontan and Kadena airfields to accommodate
land-based fighter squadrons. The invaders achieved this on L-Day.
The following day General Mulcahy moved ashore and commenced TAF
operations. Mulcahy’s top priority remained that of maintaining air
superiority over the objective and the Fifth Fleet. In view of the
unprecedented _kamikaze_ attacks unleashed by the Japanese against the
task force, this mission remained Mulcahy’s preoccupation for many
weeks.

Both Marine and Army aviation units would comprise Mulcahy’s TAF. The
force would grow to include a total of 15 Marine fighter squadrons,
10 Army fighter squadrons, two Marine torpedo bomber squadrons, and
16 Army bomber squadrons. In the execution of the air superiority
missions, the Marine fighter squadrons flew Chance Vought F4U Corsairs,
and the Marine night fighter squadrons flew radar-equipped Grumman F6F
Hellcats. Army fighter pilots flew the Republic P-47 Thunderbolts;
their night fighter squadron was equipped with the Northrop P-61 Black
Widows.

The American pilots fought their air-to-air duels not just against
one-way _kamikazes_; they also faced plenty of late-model Jacks and
Franks. Altogether, TAF pilots shot down 625 Japanese planes. Colonel
Ward E. Dickey’s Marine Aircraft Group 33 set the record with 214
kills; more than half claimed by the “Death Rattlers” of Major George
F. Axtell’s Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (VMF) 323.

The necessity for TAF to protect the fleet caused some ground
commanders to worry that their own close air support would be
“short-sheeted.” But Navy (and some Marine) squadrons from the escort
carriers picked up the slack, flying more than 60 percent of the close
air missions. Between 1 April and 21 June, the combination of TAF and
carrier pilots flew 14,244 air support sorties. Nearly 5,000 of these
supported the Marines of IIIAC. In the process, the supporting aviators
dropped 152,000 gallons of napalm on enemy positions.

[Illustration:

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 126420
]

Air Liaison Parties accompanied the front-line divisions and served to
request close air support and direct (but not _control_--the front was
too narrow) aircraft to the target. Coordination of lower-echelon air
requests became the province of three Marine Landing Force Air Support
Control Units, one representing Tenth Army to the fleet commander, the
others each responsive to the Army XXIV Corps and IIIAC. This technique
further refined the experiments Colonel Megee had begun at Iwo Jima.
In most cases, close air support to the infantry proved exceptionally
effective. Some units reported prompt, safe delivery of ordnance
on target within 100 yards. In other instances there were delays,
accidents (although less than a dozen), or situations where the lines
were simply too intermingled for any air support--as during the 6th
Marine Division’s struggle for Oroku Peninsula.

Other Marine aviation units contributed significantly to the victory
in Okinawa. Marine Torpedo Bomber Squadron (VMTB) pilots flew their
Grumman Avenger (TBF) “torpeckers” in “zero-zero” weather to drop
400,000 pounds of rations, medical supplies, and ammunition to forward
ground units--greatly assisted by the skillful prepackaging of the
IIIAC Air Delivery Section. And the fragile little Grasshoppers of the
four Marine Observation Squadron (VMO) squadrons flew 3,486 missions
of artillery spotting, photo reconnaissance, and medical evacuation.
One senior artillery officer described the VMO pilots as “the unsung
heroes of Marine aviation ... often they would fly past cave openings
at the same level so they could look in and see if there was a gun
there.” Colonel Yahara complained that his artillery units knew from
bitter experience that the presence of an American Grasshopper overhead
presaged quick retribution for any Japanese gun that fired.

Marine aviators at Okinawa served with a special _elan_. During one
desperate dogfight, a Marine pilot radioed, “Come on up and help me,
I’ve got a Frank and two Zekes cornered!” Those were his last words,
but his fighting spirit persisted. Said one grateful destroyer skipper
who had been rescued from swarms of kamikazes by Marine Corsairs, “I am
willing to take my ship to the shores of Japan if I could have these
Marines with me.”
]




_Assault on Shuri_


The Tenth Army’s Action Report for the battle of Okinawa paid this
understated compliment to the _Thirty-second Army_’s defensive
efforts: “The continued development and improvement of cave warfare
was the most outstanding feature of the enemy’s tactics on Okinawa.” In
their decision to defend the Shuri highlands across the southern neck
of the island, General Ushijima and his staff had selected the terrain
that would best dominate two of the island’s strategic features: the
port of Naha to the west, and the sheltered anchorage of Nakagusuku Bay
(later Buckner Bay) to the east. As a consequence, the Americans would
have to force their way into Ushijima’s preregistered killing zones to
achieve their primary objectives.

[Illustration: 1ST MARINE DIVISION ADVANCES

1-3 MAY 1945

Showing Boundary Change Around Awacha Pocket]

Everything about the terrain favored the defenders. The convoluted
topography of ridges, draws, and escarpments served to compartment
the battlefield into scores of small firefights, while the general
absence of dense vegetation permitted the defenders full observation
and interlocking supporting fires from intermediate strongpoints. As at
Iwo Jima, the Japanese Army fought largely from underground positions
to offset American dominance in supporting arms. And even in the more
accessible terrain, the Japanese took advantage of the thousands of
concrete, lyre-shaped Okinawan tombs to provide combat outposts.
There were blind spots in the defenses, to be sure, but finding and
exploiting them took the Americans an inordinate amount of time and
cost them dearly.

The bitterest fighting of the campaign took place within an extremely
compressed battlefield. The linear distance from Yonabaru on the east
coast to the bridge over the Asa River above Naha on the opposite side
of the island is barely 9,000 yards. General Buckner initially pushed
south with two Army divisions abreast. By 8 May he had doubled this
commitment: two Army divisions of the XXIV Corps on the east, two
Marine divisions of IIIAC on the west. Yet each division would fight
its own desperate, costly battles against disciplined Japanese soldiers
defending elaborately fortified terrain features. There was no easy
route south.

By eschewing the amphibious flanking attack in late April, General
Buckner had fresh divisions to employ in the general offensive towards
Shuri. Thus, the 77th Division relieved the 96th in the center, and
the 1st Marine Division began relieving the 27th Division on the west.
Colonel Kenneth B. Chappell’s 1st Marines entered the lines on the
last day of April and drew heavy fire from the moment they approached.
By the time the 5th Marines arrived to complete the relief of 27th
Division elements on 1 May, Japanese gunners supporting the veteran
_62d Infantry Division_ were pounding anything that moved. “It’s hell
in there, Marine,” a dispirited soldier remarked to Private First Class
Sledge as 3/5 entered the lines. “I know,” replied Sledge with false
bravado, “I fought at Peleliu.” But soon Sledge was running for his
life:

  As we raced across an open field, Japanese shells of all types
  whizzed, screamed, and roared around us with increasing frequency.
  The crash and thunder of explosions was a nightmare.... It was an
  appalling chaos. I was terribly afraid.

General del Valle assumed command of the western zone at 1400 on 1 May
and issued orders for a major attack the next morning. That evening
a staff officer brought the general a captured Japanese map, fully
annotated with American positions. With growing uneasiness, del Valle
realized his opponents already knew the 1st Marine Division had
entered the fight.

[Illustration:

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 125697

_An Okinawan civilian is flushed from a cave into which a smoke
grenade had been thrown. Many Okinawans sought the refuge of caves
in which they could hide while the tide of battle passed over them.
Unfortunately, a large number of caves were sealed when Marines
suspected that they were harboring the enemy._]

The division attacked south the next day into broken country thereafter
known as the Awacha Pocket. For all their combat prowess, however, the
Marines proved to be no more immune to the unrelenting storm of shells
and bullets than the soldiers they had relieved. The disappointing
day also included several harbingers of future conditions. First, it
rained hard all day. Second, as soon as the 5th Marines seized the
nearest high ground they came under such intense fire from adjacent
strongpoints and from higher ground within the 77th Division’s zone to
the immediate southeast they had to withdraw. Third, the Marines spent
much of the night engaged in violent hand-to-hand fighting with scores
of Japanese infiltrators. “This,” said one survivor, “is going to be a
bitch.”

The Peleliu veterans in the ranks of the 1st Marine Division were
no strangers to cave warfare. Clearly, no other division in the
campaign could claim such a wealth of practical experience. And while
nothing on Okinawa could match the Umurbrogol’s steep cliffs, heavy
vegetation, and endless array of fortified ridges, the “Old Breed” in
this battle faced a smarter, more numerous foe who had more artfully
prepared each wrinkle in the moonscape. In overcoming the sequential
barriers of Awacha, Dakeshi, and Wana, the 1st Marine Division faced
four straight weeks of hell. The funneling effects of the cliffs and
draws reduced most attacks to brutal frontal assaults by fully-exposed
tank-infantry-engineer teams. General del Valle characterized this
small unit fighting as “a slugging match with but temporary and limited
opportunity to maneuver.”

General Buckner captured the fancy of the media with his metaphor
about the “blowtorch and corkscrew” tactics needed for effective cave
warfare, but this was simply stating the obvious to the Army veterans
of Biak and the Marine veterans of Peleliu and Iwo Jima. Flamethrowers
were represented by the blowtorch, demolitions, by the corkscrew--but
both weapons had to be delivered from close range by tanks and the
exposed riflemen covering them.

On 3 May the rains slowed and the 5th Marines resumed its assault,
this time taking and holding the first tier of key terrain in the
Awacha Pocket. But the systematic reduction of this strongpoint would
take another full week of extremely heavy fighting. Fire support
proved excellent. Now it was the Army’s time to return the favor of
interservice artillery support. In this case, the 27th Division’s field
artillery regiment stayed on the lines, and with its forward observers
and linemen intimately familiar with the terrain in that sector,
rendered yeoman service.

[Illustration: _A “Ronson” tank, mounting a flame thrower, lays down a
stream of fire against a position located in one of the many Okinawan
tombs set in the island’s hillsides._

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 122153
]

At this point an odd thing happened, an almost predictable chink in the
Japanese defensive discipline. The genial General Ushijima permitted
full discourse from his staff regarding tactical courses of action.
Typically, these debates occurred between the impetuous chief of
staff, Lieutenant General Isamu Cho, and the conservative operations
officer, Colonel Hiromichi Yahara. To this point, Yahara’s strategy of
a protracted holding action had prevailed. The _Thirty-second Army_ had
resisted the enormous American invasion successfully for more than a
month. The army still intact, could continue to inflict high casualties
on the enemy for months to come, fulfilling its mission of bleeding the
ground forces while the “Divine Wind” wreaked havoc on the fleet. But
maintaining a sustained defense was anathema to a warrior like Cho,
and he argued stridently for a massive counterattack. Against Yahara’s
protests, Ushijima sided with his chief of staff.

The great Japanese counterattack of 4-5 May proved ill-advised and
exorbitant. To man the assault forces, Ushijima had to forfeit his
coverage of the Minatoga sector and bring those troops forward into
unfamiliar territory. To provide the massing of fires necessary to
cover the assault he had to bring most of his artillery pieces and
mortars out into the open. And his concept of using the _26th Shipping
Engineer Regiment_ and other special assault forces in a frontal
attack, and, at the same time, a waterborne, double envelopment would
alert the Americans to the general counteroffensive. Yahara cringed in
despair.

[Illustration: _Marines of the 1st Division move carefully toward the
crest of a hill on their way to Dakeshi. The forwardmost Marines stay
low, off of the skyline._

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 120412
]

The events of 4-5 May proved the extent of Cho’s folly. Navy
“Flycatcher” patrols on both coasts interdicted the first flanking
attacks conducted by Japanese raiders in slow-moving barges and
native canoes. Near Kusan, on the west coast, the 1st Battalion, 1st
Marines, and the LVT-As of the 3d Armored Amphibian Battalion greeted
the invaders trying to come ashore with a deadly fire, killing 700.
Further along the coast, 2/1 intercepted and killed 75 more, while the
1st Reconnaissance Company and the war dog platoon tracked down the
last 65 hiding in the brush. Meanwhile the XXIV Corps received the
brunt of the overland thrust and contained it effectively, scattering
the attackers into small groups, hunting them down ruthlessly. The
1st Marine Division, instead of being surrounded and annihilated in
accordance with the Japanese plan, launched its own attack instead,
advancing several hundred yards. The _Thirty-second Army_ lost more
than 6,000 first-line troops and 59 pieces of artillery in the futile
counterattack. Ushijima, in tears, promised Yahara he would never again
disregard his advice. Yahara, the only senior officer to survive the
battle, described the disaster as “the decisive action of the campaign.”

[Illustration:

    Marine Corps Historical Center

_In the end, victory was achieved at Okinawa by well-trained assault
troops on the ground, like this Marine flamethrower operator and his
watchful rifleman._]

At this point General Buckner decided to make it a four-division front
and ordered General Geiger to redeploy the 6th Marine Division south
from the Motobu Peninsula. General Shepherd quickly asked Geiger to
assign his division to the seaward flank to continue the benefit of
direct naval gunfire support. “My G-3, Brute Krulak, was a naval
gunfire expert,” Shepherd said, noting the division’s favorable
experience with fleet support throughout the northern campaign.
Unspoken was an additional benefit: Shepherd would have only one
adjacent unit with which to coordinate fire and maneuver, and a good
one at that, the veteran 1st Marine Division.

[Illustration: _Men of the 7th Marines wait until the exploding white
phosphorous shells throw up a thick-enough smoke screen to enable them
to advance in their drive towards Shuri. The smoke often concealed the
relentlessly attacking troops._

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 120182
]

On the morning of 7 May General Geiger regained control of the 1st
Marine Division and his Corps Artillery from XXIV Corps and established
his forward CP. The next day the 22d Marines relieved the 7th Marines
in the lines north of the Asa River. The 1st Marine Division, which
had suffered more than 1,400 casualties in its first six days on the
lines while trying to cover a very wide front, adjusted its boundaries
gratefully to make room for the newcomers.

[Illustration:

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 119485

_Heading south toward Shuri Castle, a 1st Marine Division patrol passes
through a small village which had been unsuccessfully defended by
Japanese troops._]

Yet the going got no easier, even with two full Marine divisions now
shoulder-to-shoulder in the west. Heavy rains and fierce fire greeted
the 6th Marine Division as its regiments entered the Shuri lines.
The situation remained as grim and deadly all along the front. On 9
May, 1/1 made a spirited attack on Hill 60 but lost its commander,
Lieutenant Colonel James C. Murray, Jr., to a sniper. Nearby that
night, 1/5 engaged in desperate hand-to-hand fighting with a force of
60 Japanese soldiers who appeared like phantoms out of the rocks.

The heavy rains caused problems for the 22d Marines in its efforts to
cross the Asa River. The 6th Engineers fabricated a narrow footbridge
under intermittent fire one night. Hundreds of infantry raced across
before two Japanese soldiers wearing satchel charges strapped to their
chests dashed into the stream and blew themselves and the bridge to
kingdom come. The engineers then spent the next night building a
more substantial Bailey Bridge. Across it poured reinforcements and
vehicles, but the tanks played hell traversing the soft mud along
both banks--each attempt was an adventure. Yet the 22d Marines were
now south of the river in force, an encouraging bit of progress on an
otherwise stalemated front.

[Illustration: 1ST MARINE DIVISION CAPTURES

DAKESHI AND WANA

5-21 MAY 1945]

The 5th Marines finally fought clear of the devilish Awacha Pocket on
the 10th, ending a week of frustration and point-blank casualties.
Now it became the turn of the 7th Marines to engage its own nightmare
terrain. Due south of their position lay Dakeshi Ridge. Coincidentally,
General Buckner prodded his commanders on the 11th, announcing a
renewed general offensive along the entire front. This proclamation may
well have been in response to the growing criticism Buckner had been
receiving from the Navy and some of the media for his time-consuming
attrition strategy. But the riflemen’s war had progressed beyond
high-level exhortation. The assault troops knew fully what to
expect--and what it would likely cost.

The 7th Marines was an experienced outfit and well commanded by
Guadalcanal and Bougainville veteran Colonel Edward W. Snedeker. “I
was especially fortunate at Okinawa,” he said, “in that each of my
battalion commanders had fought at Peleliu.” Nevertheless, the regiment
had its hands full with Dakeshi Ridge. “It was our most difficult
mission,” said Snedeker. After a day of intense fighting, Lieutenant
Colonel John J. Gormley’s 1/7 fought its way to the crest of Dakeshi,
but had to withdraw under swarming Japanese counterattacks. The next
day, Lieutenant Colonel Spencer S. Berger’s 2/7 regained the crest
and cut down the counterattackers emerging from their reverse-slope
bunkers. The 7th Marines were on Dakeshi to stay, another significant
breakthrough.

“The Old Breed” Marines enjoyed only a brief elation at this
achievement because from Dakeshi they could glimpse the difficulties
yet to come. In fact, the next 1,200 yards of their advance would
eat up 18 days of fighting. In this case, seizing Wana Ridge would
be tough, but the most formidable obstacle would be steep, twisted
Wana Draw that rambled just to the south, a deadly killing ground,
surrounded by towering cliffs pocked with caves, with every possible
approach strewn with mines and covered by interlocking fire. “Wana
Draw proved to be the toughest assignment the 1st Division was to
encounter,” reported General Oliver P. Smith. The remnants of the _62d
Infantry Division_ would defend Wana to their deaths.

Because the 6th Marine Division’s celebrated assault on Sugar Loaf
Hill occurred during the same period, historians have not paid as much
attention to the 1st Division’s parallel efforts against the Wana
defenses. But Wana turned out to be almost as deadly a “mankiller” as
Sugar Loaf and its bloody environs. The 1st Marines, now led by Colonel
Arthur T. Mason, began the assault on the Wana complex on 12 May. In
time, all three infantry regiments would take their turn attacking the
narrow gorge to the south. The division continued to make full use of
its tank battalion. The Sherman medium tanks and attached Army flame
tanks were indispensable in both their assault and direct fire support
roles (see sidebar). On 16 May, as an indicator, the 1st Tank Battalion
fired nearly 5,000 rounds of 75mm and 173,000 rounds of .30-caliber
ammunition, plus 600 gallons of napalm.

Crossing the floor of the gorge continued to be a heart-stopping race
against a gauntlet of enemy fire, however, and progress came extremely
slowly. Typical of the fighting was the division’s summary for its
aggregate progress on 18 May: “Gains were measured by yards won, lost,
then won again.” On 20 May, Lieutenant Colonel Stephen V. Sabol’s 3/1
improvised a different method of dislodging Japanese defenders from
their reverse-slope positions in Wana Draw. In five hours of muddy,
back-breaking work, troops manhandled several drums of napalm up the
north side of the ridge. There the Marines split the barrels open,
tumbled them down into the gorge, and set them ablaze by dropping
white phosphorous grenades in their wake. But each small success
seemed to be undermined by the Japanese ability to reinforce and
resupply their positions during darkness, usually screened by mortar
barrages or small-unit counterattacks. The fighting in such close
quarters was vicious and deadly. General del Valle watched in alarm
as his casualties mounted daily. The 7th Marines, which lost 700 men
taking Dakeshi, lost 500 more in its first five days fighting for the
Wana complex. During 16-19 May, Lieutenant Colonel E. Hunter Hurst’s
3/7 lost 12 officers among the rifle companies. The other regiments
suffered proportionately. Throughout the period 11-30 May, the division
would lose 200 Marines for every 100 yards advanced.

Heavy rains resumed on 22 May and continued for the next ten days.
The 1st Marine Division’s sector contained no roads. With his LVTs
committed to delivering ammunition and extracting casualties, del Valle
resorted to using his replacement drafts to hand-carry food and water
to the front lines. This proved less than satisfactory. “You can’t
move it all on foot,” noted del Valle. Marine torpedo bombers flying
out of Yontan began air-dropping supplies by parachute, even though
low ceilings, heavy rains, and enemy fire made for hazardous duty.
The division commander did everything in his power to keep his troops
supplied, supported, reinforced, and motivated--but conditions were
extremely grim.

To the west, the neighboring 6th Marine Division’s advance south below
the Asa River collided against a trio of low hills dominating the open
country leading up to Shuri Ridge. The first of these hills--steep but
unassuming--became known as Sugar Loaf. To the southeast lay Half Moon
Hill, to the southwest Horseshoe Hill and the village of Takamotoji.
The three hills represented a singular defensive complex; in fact
they were the western anchor of the Shuri Line. So sophisticated were
the mutually supporting defenses of the three hills that an attack
on one would prove futile unless the others were simultaneously
invested. Colonel Seiko Mita and his _15th Independent Mixed Regiment_
defended this sector. Its mortars and antitank guns were particularly
well-sited on Horseshoe. The western slopes of Half Moon contained
some of the most effective machine gun nests the Marines had yet
encountered. Sugar Loaf itself contained elaborate concrete-reinforced
reverse-slope positions. And all approaches to the complex fell within
the beaten zone of heavy artillery from Shuri Ridge which dominated the
battlefield.

[Illustration:

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 124745

_Sugar Loaf, western anchor of the Shuri defenses, and objective of the
22d Marines, is seen from a point directly north._]

Battlefield contour maps indicate Sugar Loaf had a modest elevation
of 230 feet; Half Moon, 220; Horseshoe, 190. In relative terms,
Sugar Loaf, though steep, only rose about 50 feet above the northern
approaches. This was no Mount Suribachi; its significance lay in the
ingenuity of its defensive fortifications and the ferocity with which
General Ushijima would counterattack each U.S. penetration. In this
regard, the Sugar Loaf complex more closely resembled a smaller version
of Iwo Jima’s Turkey Knob/Amphitheater sector. As a tactical objective,
Sugar Loaf itself lacked the physical dimensions to accommodate
anything larger than a rifle company. But eight days of fighting for
the small ridge would chew up a series of very good companies from two
regiments.

Of all the contestants, American or Japanese, who survived the struggle
for Sugar Loaf, Corporal James L. Day, a squad leader from Weapons
Company, 2/22, had indisputably the “best seat in the house” to observe
the battle. In a little-known aspect of this epic story, Day spent four
days and three nights isolated in a shell hole on Sugar Loaf’s western
shoulder. This proved to be an awesome but unenviable experience.

Corporal Day received orders on 12 May to recross the Asa River and
support the assault of Company G, 2/22, against the small ridge. Day
and his squad arrived too late to do much more than cover the fighting
withdrawal of the remnants from the summit. The company lost half
its number in the day-long assault, including its plucky commander,
Captain Owen T. Stebbins, shot in both legs by a Japanese _Nambu_
machine-gunner. Day described Stebbins as “a brave man whose tactical
plan for assaulting Sugar Loaf became the pattern for successive units
to follow.” Concerned about the unrestricted fire from the Half Moon
Hill region, Major Henry A. Courtney, Jr., battalion executive officer,
took Corporal Day with him on the 13th on a hazardous trek to the 29th
Marines to coordinate the forthcoming attacks. With the 29th then
committed to protecting 2/22’s left flank, Courtney assigned Day and
his squad in support of Company F for the next day’s assault.

[Illustration: _Amtracs, such as these, were pressed into service in
the difficult terrain to resupply the Marines on Sugar Loaf and to
evacuate the wounded, all the while under fire._

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 123218
]

Day’s rifle squad consisted of seven Marines by that time. On the
14th, they joined Fox Company’s assault, reached the hill, scampered
up the left shoulder (“you could get to the top in 15 seconds”). Day
then received orders to take his squad back around the hill to take up
a defensive position on the right (western) shoulder. This took some
doing. By late afternoon, Fox Company had been driven off its exposed
position on the left shoulder, leaving Day with just two surviving
squadmates occupying a large shell hole on the opposite shoulder.

During the evening, unknown to Day, Major Courtney gathered 45
volunteers from George and Fox companies and led them back up the left
shoulder of Sugar Loaf. In hours of desperate, close-in fighting, the
Japanese killed Major Courtney and half his improvised force. “We
didn’t know who they were,” recalled Day, “because even though they
were only 50 yards away, they were on the opposite side of the crest.
Out of visual contact. But we knew they were Marines and we knew they
were in trouble. We did our part by shooting and grenading every
[Japanese] we saw moving in their direction.” Day and his two men then
heard the sounds of the remnants of Courtney’s force being evacuated
down the hill and knew they were again alone on Sugar Loaf.

Representing in effect an advance combat outpost on the contested
ridge did not particularly bother the 19-year-old corporal. Day’s
biggest concerns were letting other Marines know they were up there and
replenishing their ammo and grenades. “Before dawn I went back down the
hill. A couple of LVTs had been trying to deliver critical supplies to
the folks who’d made the earlier penetration. Both had been knocked
out just north of the hill. I was able to raid those disabled vehicles
several times for grenades, ammo, and rations. We were fine.”

On 15 May, Day and his men watched another Marine assault develop from
the northeast. Again there were Marines on the eastern crest of the
hill, but fully exposed to raking fire from Half Moon and mortars from
Horseshoe. Day’s Marines directed well-aimed rifle fire into a column
of Japanese running towards Sugar Loaf from Horseshoe, “but we really
needed a machine gun.” Good fortune provided a .30-caliber, air-cooled
M1919A4 in the wake of the retreating Marines. But as soon as Day’s
gunner placed the weapon in action on the forward parapet of the hole,
a Japanese 47mm crew opened up from Horseshoe, killing the Marine and
destroying the gun. Now there were just two riflemen on the ridgetop.

Tragedy also struck the 1st Battalion, 22d Marines, on the 15th. A
withering Japanese bombardment caught the command group assembled at
their observation post planning the next assault. Shellfire killed the
commander, Major Thomas J. Myers, and wounded every company commander,
as well as the CO and XO of the supporting tank company. Of the death
of Major Myers, General Shepherd exclaimed, “It’s the greatest single
loss the Division has sustained. Myers was an outstanding leader.”
Major Earl J. Cook, battalion executive officer, took command and
continued attack preparations. The division staff released this doleful
warning that midnight: “Because of the commanding ground which he
occupies the enemy is able to accurately locate our OPs and CPs. The
dangerous practice of permitting unnecessary crowding and exposure
in such areas has already had serious consequences.” The warning was
meaningless. Commanders had to observe the action in order to command.
Exposure to interdictive fire was the cost of doing business as an
infantry battalion commander. The next afternoon, Lieutenant Colonel
Jean W. Moreau, commanding 1/29, received a serious wound when a
Japanese shell hit his observation post squarely. Major Robert P.
Neuffer, Moreau’s exec, assumed command. Several hours later a Japanese
shell wounded Major Malcolm “O” Donohoo, commanding 3/22. Major George
B. Kantner, his exec, took over. The battle continued.

[Illustration: _Tanks evacuate the wounded as men of the 29th Marines
press the fight to capture Sugar Loaf. The casualties were rushed to
aid stations behind the front lines._

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 122421
]

The night of 15-16 seemed endless to Corporal Day and his surviving
squadmate, Private First Class Dale Bertoli. “The Japs knew we were
the only ones up there and gave us their full attention. We had plenty
of grenades and ammo, but it got pretty hairy.” The south slope of
Sugar Loaf is the steepest. The Japanese would emerge from their
reverse-slope caves, but they faced a difficult ascent to get to the
Marines on the military crest. Hearing them scramble up the rocks
alerted Day and Bertoli to greet them with grenades. Those of the
enemy who survived this mini-barrage would find themselves backlit by
flares as they struggled over the crest. Day and Bertoli, back to back
against the dark side of the crater, shot them readily.

[Illustration: US 10th Army positions]

“The 16th was the day I thought Sugar Loaf would fall,” said Day. He
and Bertoli hunkered down as Marine tanks, artillery, and mortars
pounded the ridge and its supporting bastions. “We looked back and
see the whole battle shaping up, a great panorama.” This was the turn
of I/3/22, well supported by tanks. But Day could also see that the
Japanese fires had not slackened at all. “The real danger at Sugar Loaf
was not the hill itself, where we were, but in a 300-yard by 300-yard
killing zone which the Marines had to cross to approach the hill from
our lines to the north.... It was a dismal sight, men falling, tanks
getting knocked out ... the division probably suffered 600 casualties
that day.” In retrospect, the 6th Marine Division considered 16 May to
be “the bitterest day of the entire campaign.”

By then the 22d Marines was down to 40 percent effectiveness and
General Shepherd relieved it with the 29th Marines. He also decided
to install fresh leadership in the regiment, replacing the commander
and executive officer with the team of Colonel Harold C. Roberts and
Lieutenant Colonel August C. Larson.

The weather cleared enough during the late afternoon of the 16th to
enable Day and Bertoli to see well past Horseshoe Hill, “all the way
to the Asato River.” The view was not encouraging. Steady columns of
Japanese reinforcements streamed northward, through Takamotoji village,
towards the contested battlefield. “We kept firing on them from 500
yards away,” still maintaining the small but persistent thorn in the
flesh of the Japanese defenses. Their rifle fire attracted considerable
attention from prowling squads of Japanese raiders that night. “They
came at us from 2130 on,” recalled Day, “and all we could do was keep
tossing grenades and firing our M-1s.” Concerned Marines north of Sugar
Loaf, hearing the nocturnal ruckus, tried to assist with mortar fire.
“This helped, but it came a little too close.” Both Day and Bertoli
were wounded by Japanese shrapnel and burned by “friendly” white
phosphorous.

Early on the 17th a runner from the 29th Marines scrambled up to the
shell-pocked crater with orders for the two Marines to “get the hell
out.” A massive bombardment by air, naval gunfire, and artillery would
soon saturate the ridge in preparation of a fresh assault. Day and
Bertoli readily complied. Exhausted, reeking, and partially deafened,
they stumbled back to safety and an intense series of debriefings by
staff officers. Meanwhile, a thundering bombardment crashed down on the
three hills.

The 17th of May marked the fifth day of the battle for Sugar Loaf.
Now it was the turn of Easy Company, 2/29, to assault the complex of
defenses. No unit displayed greater valor, yet Easy Company’s four
separate assaults fared little better than their many predecessors.
At midpoint of these desperate assaults, the 29th Marines reported to
division, “E Co. moved to top of ridge and had 30 men south of Sugar
Loaf; sustained two close-in charges; killed a hell of a lot of Nips;
moved back to base to reform and are going again; will take it.” But
Sugar Loaf would not fall this day. At dusk, after prevailing in one
more melee of bayonets, flashing knives, and bare hands against a
particularly vicious counterattack, the company had to withdraw. It had
lost 160 men.

[Illustration:

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 124747

_The difficult and shell-pocked terrain of Okinawa is seen here in a
view from the crest of Sugar Loaf toward Crescent Hill and southeast
beyond the Kokuba River. This photograph also illustrates the extent
to which Sugar Loaf Hill dominated the Asato corridor running from
Naha to Shuri and demonstrates why the Japanese defended the area so
tenaciously._]

The 18th of May marked the beginning of seemingly endless rains. Into
the start of this soupy mess attacked Dog Company, 2/29, this time
supported by more tanks which braved the minefields on both shoulders
of Sugar Loaf to penetrate the no-man’s land just to the south. When
the Japanese poured out of their reverse-slope holes for yet another
counterattack, the waiting tanks surprised and riddled them. Dog
Company earned the distinction of becoming the first rifle company to
hold Sugar Loaf overnight. The Marines would not relinquish that costly
ground.

But now the 29th Marines were pretty much shot up, and still Half Moon,
Horseshoe, and Shuri remained to be assaulted. General Geiger adjusted
the tactical boundaries slightly westward to allow the 1st Marine
Division a shot at the eastern spur of Horseshoe, and he also released
the 4th Marines from Corps reserve. General Shepherd deployed the fresh
regiment into the battle on the 19th. The battle still raged. The 4th
Marines sustained 70 casualties just in conducting the relief of lines
with the 29th Marines. But with Sugar Loaf now in friendly hands, the
momentum of the fight began to change. On 20 May, Lieutenant Colonel
Reynolds H. Hayden’s 1/4 and Lieutenant Colonel Bruno A. Hochmuth’s
3/4 made impressive gains on either flank. By day’s end, 2/4 held much
of Half Moon, while 3/4 had seized a good portion of Horseshoe. As
Corporal Day had warned, most Japanese reinforcements funneled into
the fight from the southwest, so 3/4 prepared for nocturnal visitors
at Horseshoe. These arrived in massive numbers, up to 700 Japanese
soldiers and sailors, and surged against 3/4 much of the night.
Hochmuth had a wealth of supporting arms: six artillery battalions in
direct support at the onset of the attack, and up to 15 battalions
at the height of the fighting. Throughout the crisis on Horseshoe,
Hochmuth maintained a direct radio link with Lieutenant Colonel Bruce
T. Hemphill, commanding 4/15, one of the support artillery firing
battalions. This close exchange between commanders reduced the number
of short rounds which might have otherwise decimated the defenders and
allowed the 15th Marines to provide uncommonly accurate fire on the
Japanese. The rain of shells blew great holes in the ranks of every
Japanese advance; Marine riflemen met those who survived at bayonet
point. The counterattackers died to the man.

Even with Hochmuth’s victory the protracted battle of Sugar Loaf lacked
a climactic finish. There would be no celebration ceremony here.
Shuri Ridge loomed ahead, as did the sniper-infested ruins of Naha.
Elements of the 1st Marine Division began bypassing the last of the
Wana defenses to the east. The 6th Division slipped westward. Colonel
Shapley’s 4th Marines crossed the Asa River, now chest-high from the
heavy rainfall, on 23 May. The III Amphibious Corps stood poised on the
outskirts of Okinawa’s capital city.

[Illustration: _“Buck Rogers” rocket Marines load projectiles into the
racks of a mobile launcher in preparation for laying down a barrage on
Japanese positions during the Tenth Army drive to the south of Okinawa.
Such barrages were very effective._

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 181768
]

The Army divisions in XXIV Corps matched the Marines’ breakthroughs.
On the east coast, the 96th Division seized Conical Hill, the Shuri
Line’s opposite anchor from Sugar Loaf, after weeks of bitter fighting.
The 7th Division, in relief, seized Yonabaru on 22 May. Suddenly,
the _Thirty-second Army_ faced the threat of being cut off from both
flanks. This time General Ushijima listened to Colonel Yahara’s advice.
Instead of fighting to the death at Shuri Castle, the army would take
advantage of the awful weather and retreat southward to their final
line of prepared defenses in the Kiyamu Peninsula. Ushijima executed
this withdrawal masterfully. While American aviators spotted and
interdicted the southbound columns, they also reported other columns
moving north. General Buckner assumed the enemy was simply rotating
units still defending the Shuri defenses. But these north-bound troops
were ragtag units assigned to conduct a do-or-die rear guard. At this,
they were eminently successful.

[Illustration:

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 122390

_Men of Company G, 2d Battalion, 22d Marines, found themselves fighting
in an urban environment in their house-to-house attack against the
Japanese in Naha._]

This was the situation encountered by the 1st Marine Division in its
unexpectedly easy advance to Shuri Ridge on 29 May as described in the
opening paragraphs. The 5th Marines suddenly possessed the abandoned
castle. While General del Valle tried to placate the indignation of
the 77th Division commander at the Marines’ “intrusion” into his
zone, he got another angry call from the Tenth Army. It seems that
the Company A, 1/5 company commander, a South Carolinian, had raised
the Stars and Bars of the Confederacy over Shuri Castle instead of
the Stars and Stripes. “Every damned outpost and O.P. that could see
this started telephoning me,” said del Valle, adding, “I had one
hell of a hullabaloo converging on my telephone.” Del Valle agreed
to erect a proper flag, but it took him two days to get one through
the intermittent fire of Ushijima’s surviving rear guards. Lieutenant
Colonel Richard P. Ross, commanding the 3d Battalion, 1st Marines,
raised this flag in the rain on the last day of May, then took cover.
Unlike Sugar Loaf, Shuri Castle could be seen from all over southern
Okinawa, and every Japanese gunner within range opened up on the hated
colors.

The Stars and Stripes fluttered over Shuri Castle, and the fearsome
Yonabaru-Shuri-Naha defensive masterpiece had been decisively breached.
But the _Thirty-second Army_ remained as deadly a fighting force as
ever. It was an army that would die hard defending the final eight
miles of shell-pocked, rain-soaked southern Okinawa.




[Sidebar (page 30): Marine Artillery at Okinawa


The nature of the enemy defenses and the tactics selected by the Tenth
Army commander made Okinawa the biggest battle of the war for Marine
artillery units. General Geiger landed with 14 firing battalions within
IIIAC; the total rose to 15 in June when Lieutenant Colonel Richard G.
Weede’s 2/10 came ashore in support of the 8th Marines.

Brigadier General David R. Nimmer commanded III Corps Artillery and
Lieutenant Colonel Curtis Burton, Jr., commanded the 2d Provisional
Field Artillery Group, which contained three batteries of 155mm
howitzers and three of 155mm “Long Tom” guns. Colonel Wilburt S.
(“Big Foot”) Brown commanded the 11th Marines and Colonel Robert B.
Luckey, the 15th Marines. The Marine divisions had greatly enhanced
their firepower since the initial campaigns in the Pacific. While one
75mm pack howitzer battalion remained (1/11), the 105mm howitzer had
become the norm for division artillery. Front-line infantry units also
were supported by the 75mm fire of medium tanks and LVT-As, 105mm
fire from the new M-7 self-propelled “siege guns,” 4.5-inch multiple
rocket launchers fired by the “Buck Rogers Men,” and the attached Army
4.2-inch mortar platoons.

Lieutenant Colonel Frederick P. Henderson described this combination
of fire support: “Not many people realize that the artillery in Tenth
Army, plus the LVT-As and naval gunfire equivalent gave us a guns/mile
of front ratio on Okinawa that was probably higher than any U.S. effort
in World War II.”

General Buckner urged his corps commanders to integrate field artillery
support early in the campaign. With his corps artillery and the 11th
Marines not fully committed during the opening weeks, General Geiger
quickly agreed for these units to help the XXIV Army Corps in their
initial assaults against the outer Shuri defenses. In the period of 7
April-6 May, these artillery units fired more than 54,000 rounds in
support of XXIV Corps. This was only the beginning. Once both Marine
divisions of IIIAC entered the lines, they immediately benefited from
Army artillery support as well as their own organic fire support. As
one example, prior to the 5th Marines launching a morning attack on the
Awacha Pocket on 6 May, the regiment received a preliminary bombardment
of the objective from four battalions--two Army, two Marine.

By the end of the battle, the Tenth Army artillery units would fire
2,046,930 rounds down range, all in addition to 707,500 rockets,
mortars, and shells of five-inch or larger from naval gunfire ships
offshore. Half of the artillery rounds would be 105mm shells from
howitzers and the M-7 self-propelled guns. Compared to the bigger
guns, the old, expeditionary 75mm pack howitzers of 1/11 were the
“Tiny Tims” of the battlefield. Their versatility and relative
mobility, however, proved to be assets in the long haul. Colonel Brown
augmented the battalion with LVT-As, which fired similar ammunition.
According to Brown, “75mm ammo was plentiful, as contrasted with the
heavier calibers, so 1/11 (Reinforced) was used to fire interdiction,
harassing, and ‘appeasement’ missions across the front.”

Generals Geiger and del Valle expressed interest in the larger weapons
of the Army. Geiger particularly admired the Army’s eight-inch
howitzer, whose 200-pound shell possessed much more penetrating and
destroying power than the 95-pound shell of the 155mm guns, the largest
weapon in the Marines’ inventory. Geiger recommended that the Marine
Corps form eight-inch howitzer battalions for the forthcoming attack on
of Japan. For his part, del Valle prized the accuracy, range, and power
of the Army’s 4.2-inch mortars and recommended their inclusion in the
Marine division.

On some occasions, artillery commanders became tempted to orchestrate
all of this killing power in one mighty concentration. “Time on target”
(TOT) missions occurred frequently in the early weeks, but their high
consumption rate proved disadvantageous. Late in the campaign Colonel
Brown decided to originate a gargantuan TOT by 22 battalions on
Japanese positions in the southern Okinawan town of Makabe. The sudden
concentration worked beautifully, he recalled, but “I neglected to tell
the generals, woke everyone out of a sound sleep, and caught hell from
all sides.”

General Geiger insisted that his LVT-As be trained in advance as field
artillery. This was done, but the opportunity for direct fire support
to the assault waves fizzled on L-Day when the Japanese chose not to
defend the Hagushi beaches. Lieutenant Colonel Louis Metzger commanded
the 1st Armored Amphibian Battalion and supported the 6th Marine
Division up and down the length of the island. Metzger’s LVT-As fired
19,000 rounds of 75mm shells in an artillery support role after L-Day.

The Marines made great strides towards refining supporting arms
coordination during the battle for Okinawa. Commanders established
Target Information Centers (TICs) at every level from Tenth Army down
to battalion. The TICs functioned to provide a centralized target
information and weapons assignment system responsive to both assigned
targets and targets of opportunity. Finally, all three component
liaison officers--artillery, air, and naval gunfire--were aligned with
target intelligence information officers. As described by Colonel
Henderson, the TIC at IIIAC consisted of the corps artillery S-2
section “expanded to meet the needs of artillery, NGF, and CAS on a
24-hour basis.... The Corps Arty Fire Direction Center and the Corps
Fire Support Operations Center were one and the same facility--with NGF
and air added.”

Such a commitment to innovation led to greatly improved support to the
foot-slogging infantry. As one rifle battalion commander remarked, “It
was not uncommon for a battleship, tanks, artillery, and aircraft to be
supporting the efforts of a platoon of infantry during the reduction of
the Shuri position.”

[Illustration:

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 12446
]
]




[Sidebar (page 34): Marine Tanks at Okinawa


The Sherman M-4 medium tank employed by the seven Army and Marine Corps
tank battalions on Okinawa would prove to be a decisive weapon--but
only when closely coordinated with accompanying infantry. The Japanese
intended to separate the two components by fire and audacity. “The
enemy’s strength lies in his tanks,” declared Lieutenant General
Mitsuru Ushijima before the invasion. Anti-tank training received
the highest priority within his _Thirty-second Army_. These urgent
preparations proved successful on 19 April when the Japanese knocked
out 22 of 30 Sherman tanks of the 27th Division, many by suicide
demolitionists.

The Marines fared better in this regard, having learned in earlier
campaigns to integrate infantry and artillery as a close, protective
overwatch to their accompanying tanks, keeping the “human bullet”
suicide squads at bay. Although enemy guns and mines took their toll
of the Shermans, only a single Marine tank sustained damage from a
Japanese suicide foray.

Lieutenant Colonel Arthur J. Stuart commanded the 1st Tank Battalion
during the Okinawa campaign. The unit had fought with distinction at
Peleliu a half-year earlier, despite shipping shortfalls which kept a
third of its tanks out of the fight. Stuart insisted on retaining the
battalion’s older M-4A2 Shermans because he believed the twin General
Motors diesel engines were safer in combat. General del Valle agreed:
“The tanks were not so easily set on fire and blown up under enemy
fire.”

By contrast, Lieutenant Colonel Robert L. Denig’s 6th Tank Battalion
preferred the newer M-4A3 model Shermans. Denig’s tankers liked the
greater horsepower provided by the water-cooled Ford V-8 engine and
considered the reversion to gasoline from diesel an acceptable risk.
The 6th Tank Battalion would face its greatest challenge against
Admiral Minoru Ota’s mines and naval guns on Oroku Peninsula.

The Sherman tank, much maligned in the European theater for its
shortcomings against the heavier German Tigers, seemed ideal for
island fighting in the Pacific. By Okinawa, however, the Sherman’s
limitations became evident. The 75mm gun proved too light against
some of Ushijima’s fortifications; on these occasions the new M-7
self-propelled 105mm gun worked better. And the Sherman was never known
for its armor protection. At 33 tons, its strength lay more in mobility
and reliability. But as Japanese antitank weapons and mines reached the
height of lethality at Okinawa, the Sherman’s thin-skinned weak points
(1.5-inch armor on the sides and rear, for example) became a cause for
concern. Marine tank crews had resorted to sheathing the sides of their
vehicles with lumber as a foil to hand-lobbed Japanese magnetic mines
as early as the Marshalls campaign. By the time of Okinawa, Marine
Shermans were festooned with spot-welded track blocks, wire mesh,
sandbags, and clusters of large nails--all designed to enhance armor
protection.

[Illustration:

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 123166
]

Both tank battalions fielded Shermans configured with dozer
blades, invaluable assets in the cave fighting to come,
but--surprisingly--neither outfit deployed with flame tanks. Despite
rave reports of the success of the USN Mark I turret-mounted flame
system installed in eight Shermans in the battle of Iwo Jima, there
would be no massive retrofit program for the Okinawa-bound Marine tank
units. Instead, all flame tanks on Okinawa were provided courtesy of
the U.S. Army’s 713th Armored Flamethrower Battalion. Company B of that
unit supported the IIIAC with brand-new H-1 flame tanks. Each carried
290 gallons of napalm-thickened fuel, good for two-and-a-half minutes
of flame at ranges out to 80 yards. The Marines received consistently
outstanding support from this Army company throughout the battle.

The Marines employed the newly developed T-6 “Tank Flotation Devices”
to get the initial assault waves of Shermans ashore on L-Day. The T-6
featured a series of flotation tanks welded all around the hull, a
provisional steering device making use of the tracks, and electric
bilge pumps. Once ashore, the crew hoped to jettison the ungainly rig
with built-in explosive charges, a scary proposition.

The invasion landing on 1 April for the 1st Tank Battalion was truly
“April Fool’s Day.” The captain of an LST carrying six Shermans
equipped with the T-6 launched the vehicles an hour late and 10 miles
at sea. It took this irate contingent five hours to reach the beach,
losing two vehicles on the reef at ebb tide. Most of Colonel Stuart’s
other Shermans made it ashore before noon, but some of his reserves
could not cross the reef for 48 hours. The 6th Tank Battalion had
better luck. Their LST skippers launched the T-6 tanks on time and
in close. Two tanks were lost--one sank when its main engine failed,
another broke a track and veered into an unseen hole--but the other
Shermans surged ashore, detonated their float tanks successfully, and
were ready to roll by H plus 29.

Japanese gunners and mine warfare experts knocked out 51 Marine Corps
Shermans in the battle. Many more tanks sustained damage in the
fighting but were recovered and restored by hard-working maintenance
crews, the unsung heroes. As a result of their ingenuity, the assault
infantry battalions never lacked for armored firepower, mobility, and
shock action. The concept of Marine combined-arms task forces was now
well underway.
]




_Closing the Loop_


The retreating Japanese troops did not escape scot-free from their
Shuri defenses. Naval spotter planes located one southbound column and
called in devastating fire from a half dozen ships and every available
attack aircraft. In short order several miles of the muddy road were
strewn with wrecked trucks, field guns, and corpses. General del Valle
congratulated the Tactical Air Force: “Thanks for prompt response this
afternoon when Nips were caught on road with kimonos down.”

[Illustration: _A Marine who had his clothing blown from his back by a
Japanese mortar explosion, but is otherwise unwounded, is helped to the
rear by an uninjured buddy._

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 120280
]

Successful interdictions, however, remained the exception. Most of
Ushijima’s _Thirty-second Army_ survived the retreat to its final
positions in the Kiyamu Peninsula. The Tenth Army missed a golden
opportunity to end the battle four weeks early, but the force, already
slowed by heavy rains and deep mud, was simply too ponderous to
respond with alacrity.

[Illustration:

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 122274

_A bereaved father prays for his dead son: Col Francis I. Fenton, 1st
Marine Division engineer, kneels at the foot of the stretcher holding
the body of PFC Michael Fenton, as division staff members mourn. Col
Fenton said that the other dead Marines were not as fortunate as his
son, who had his father there to pray for him._]

The infantry slogged southward, cussing the weather but glad to be
beyond the Shuri Line. Yet every advance exacted a price. A Japanese
sniper killed Lieutenant Colonel Horatio C. Woodhouse, Jr., the
competent commander of 2/22, as he led his battalion towards the
Kokuba Estuary. General Shepherd, grieving privately at the loss of
his younger cousin, replaced him in command with the battalion exec,
Lieutenant Colonel John G. Johnson.

As the IIIAC troops advanced further south, the Marines began to
encounter a series of east-west ridges dominating the open farmlands in
their midst. “The southern part of Okinawa,” reported Colonel Snedeker,
“consists primarily of cross ridges sticking out like bones from the
spine of a fish.” Meanwhile, the Army divisions of XXIV Corps warily
approached two towering escarpments in their zone, Yuza Dake and Yaeju
Dake. The Japanese had obviously gone to ground along these ridges and
peaks and lay waiting for the American advance.

[Illustration: _This self-propelled M-7 105mm gun was completely bogged
down in the heavy rains which fell on Okinawa in the last weeks in
May. It replaced the half-track-mounted 75mm gun as the regimental
commander’s artillery in Operation Iceberg._

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 123438
]

Rain and mud continued to plague the combatants. One survivor of this
segment of the campaign described the battlefields as “a five-mile
sea of mud.” As Private First Class Sledge recorded in the margins of
his sodden New Testament, “Mud in camp on Pavuvu was a nuisance....
But mud on the battlefield is misery beyond description.” The 96th
Division wearily reported the results of one day’s efforts under these
conditions: “those on forward slope slid down; those on reverse slope
slid back; otherwise no change.”

The Marines began to chafe at the heavy-handed controls of the Tenth
Army, which seemed to stall with each encounter with a fresh Japanese
outpost. General Buckner favored a massive application of firepower on
every obstacle before committing troops in the open. Colonel Shapley,
commanding the 4th Marines, took a different view. “I’m not too sure
that sometimes when they whittle you away, 10-12 men a day, then maybe
it would be better to take 100 losses a day if you could get out
sooner.” Colonel Wilburt S. “Big Foot” Brown, a veteran artilleryman
commanding the 11th Marines, and a legend in his own time, believed the
Tenth Army relied too heavily on firepower. “We poured a tremendous
amount of metal into those positions,” he said. “It seemed nothing
could be living in that churning mass where the shells were falling
and roaring, but when we next advanced the Japs would still be there
and madder than ever.” Brown also lamented the overuse of star shells
for night illumination: “I felt like we were the children of Israel in
the wilderness--living under a pillar of fire by night and a cloud of
smoke by day.”

[Illustration:

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 123507

_Cleanliness is next to godliness, figures this Marine, as he stands
knee-deep in water while shaving in the midst of a totally saturated
and flooded bivouac area._]

Such a heavy reliance on artillery support stressed the amphibious
supply system. The Tenth Army’s demand for heavy ordnance grew to
3,000 tons of ammo per day; each round had to be delivered over
the beach and distributed along the front. This factor reduced the
availability of other supplies, including rations. Front-line troops,
especially the Marines, began to go hungry. Again partial succor came
from the friendly skies. Marine pilots flying General Motors Avenger
torpedo-bombers of VMTB-232 executed 80 air drops of rations during
the first three days of June alone. This worked well, thanks to the
intrepid pilots, and thanks to the rigging skills of the Air Delivery
Section, veterans of the former Marine parachute battalions.

Offshore from the final drive south, the ships of the fleet continued
to withstand waves of _kamikaze_ attacks. Earlier, on 17 May, Admiral
Turner had declared an end to the amphibious assault phase. General
Buckner thereafter reported directly to Admiral Spruance. Turner
departed, leaving Vice Admiral Harry W. Hill in command of the huge
amphibious force still supporting the Tenth Army. On 27 May, Admiral
William F. “Bull” Halsey relieved Spruance. With that, the Fifth Fleet
became the Third Fleet--same ships, same crews, different designation.
Spruance and Turner began planning the next amphibious assault, the
long-anticipated invasion of the Japanese home islands.

General Shepherd, appreciative of the vast amphibious resources still
available on call, decided to interject tactical mobility and surprise
into the sluggish campaign. In order for the 6th Marine Division
to reach its intermediate objective of the Naha airfield, Shepherd
first had to overwhelm the Oroku Peninsula. Shepherd could do this
the hard way, attacking from the base of the peninsula and scratching
seaward--or he could launch a shore-to-shore amphibious assault across
the estuary to catch the defenders in their flank. “The Japanese
expected us to force a crossing of the Kokuba,” he said, “I wanted
to surprise them.” Convincing General Geiger of the wisdom of this
approach was easy; getting General Buckner’s approval took longer.
Abruptly Buckner agreed, but gave the 6th Division barely 36 hours to
plan and execute a division-level amphibious assault.

[Illustration: _Okinawa’s “Plum Rains” of May and June came close to
immobilizing the U.S. Tenth Army’s drive south. Heroic efforts kept the
front-line troops supported logistically._

    Marine Corps Historical Center
]

Lieutenant Colonel Krulak and his G-3 staff relished the challenge.
Scouts from Major Anthony “Cold Steel” Walker’s 6th Reconnaissance
Company stole across the estuary at night to gather intelligence on the
Nishikoku Beaches and the Japanese defenders. The scouts confirmed the
existence on the peninsula of a cobbled force of Imperial Japanese Navy
units under an old adversary. Fittingly, this final opposed amphibious
landing of the war would be launched against one of the last surviving
Japanese _rikusentai_ (Special Naval Landing Force) commanders, Rear
Admiral Minoru Ota.

[Illustration:

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 126402

_When the heavy rains of May arrived, deep mud caused by days of
torrential downpours made air delivery the only possible means of
providing forward combat units with food, ammunition, and water. As a
result, Marine torpedo-bombers of VMTBs-131 and -232 were employed in
supply drops by parachute. The white panels laid on the ground at the
right mark the target area for the drops._]

Admiral Ota was 54, a 1913 graduate of the Japanese Naval Academy, and
a veteran of _rikusentai_ service from as early as 1932 in Shanghai.
Ten years later he commanded the _2d Combined Special Landing Force_
destined to assault Midway, but was thwarted by the disastrous naval
defeat suffered by the Japanese. In November 1942, commanding the _8th
Combined Special Landing Force_ in the Central Solomons, he defended
Bairoko against the 1st Marine Raider Regiment. By 1945, however, the
_rikusentai_ had all but disappeared, and Ota commanded a ragtag outfit
of several thousand coast defense and antiaircraft gunners, aviation
mechanics, and construction specialists. Undismayed, Ota breathed fire
into his disparate forces, equipped them with hundreds of machine
cannons from wrecked aircraft, and made them sow thousands of mines.

Krulak and Shepherd knew they faced a worthy opponent, but also saw
they held the advantage of surprise if they could act swiftly. The
final details of planning centered on problems with the division’s
previously dependable LVTs. Sixty-five days of hard campaigning
ashore had taken a heavy toll of the tracks and suspension systems of
these assault amphibians. Nor were repair parts available. LVTs had
served in abundance on L-Day to land four divisions; now the Marines
had to scrape to produce enough for the assault elements of one
regiment. Worse for the planners, the first typhoon of the season was
approaching, and the Navy was getting jumpy. General Shepherd remained
firm in his desire to execute the assault on K-Day, 4 June. Admiral
Halsey backed him up.

[Illustration: _As soon as the parachute drops landed in the target
zone, grateful Marines enthusiastically retrieved the supplies, often
while under enemy fire. Some of the drops were out of reach as they
landed in territory where Japanese soldiers claimed them._

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 123168
]

Shepherd considered Colonel Shapley “an outstanding officer of great
ability and great leadership,” and chose the 4th Marines to lead the
assault. Shapley divided the 600-yard Nishikoku Beach between 2/4 on
the left and 1/4 on the right. Despite heavy rains, the assault went
on schedule. The Oroku Peninsula erupted in flame and smoke under
the pounding of hundreds of naval guns, artillery batteries, and
aerial bombs. Major Anthony’s scouts seized Ono Yama island, the 4th
Marines swept across the estuary, and LCMs and LCIs loaded with tanks
appeared from the north, from “Loomis Harbor,” named after the IIIAC
Logistics Officer, Colonel Francis B. “Loopy” Loomis, Jr., a veteran
Marine aviator. The amphibious force attained complete surprise. Many
of 1/4’s patched-up LVTs broke down enroute, causing uncomfortable
delays, but enemy fire proved intermittent, and empty LVTs from the
first waves quickly returned to transfer the stranded troops. The 4th
Marines advanced rapidly. Soon it became time for Colonel Whaling’s
29th Marines to cross. By dark on K-Day the 6th Division occupied 1,200
yards of the Oroku Peninsula. Admiral Ota furiously redirected his
sailors to the threat from the rear. Then Colonel Roberts’ 22d Marines
began advancing along the original corridor.

[Illustration:

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 122167

_It seemed to be one hill after another in the drive south. Amidst tree
stumps which hardly serve as adequate cover, a bazooka team waits for
an opportunity to charge into the face of Japanese fire over the crest
of the hill in front of them._]

The amphibious assault had been nigh letter-perfect, the typhoon came
and went, and the Marines occupied the peninsula in force, capturing
the airfield in two days. When the 1st Marine Division reached the
southwest coast north of Itoman on 7 June, Admiral Ota’s force lost
its chance of escape. General Shepherd then orchestrated a three-fold
enveloping movement with his regiments and the outcome became
inevitable.

Admiral Ota was no ordinary opponent, however, and the battle for
Oroku was savage and lethal. Ota’s 5,000 spirited sailors fought with
_elan_, and they were very heavily armed. No similar-sized force on
Okinawa possessed so many automatic weapons or employed mines so
effectively. The attacking Marines also encountered some awesome
weapons at very short range--eight-inch coast defense guns redirected
inland, rail-mounted eight-inch rockets (the “Screaming Mimi”), and the
enormous 320mm spigot mortars which launched the terrifying “flying
ashcans.” On 9 June the 4th Marines reported “character of opposition
unchanged; stubborn defense of high ground by 20mm and MG fire.” Two
days later the 29th Marines reported: “L Hill under attack from two
sides; another tank shot on right flank; think an eight-inch gun.”

Ota could nevertheless see the end coming. On 6 June he reported to
naval headquarters in Tokyo: “The troops under my command have fought
gallantly, in the finest tradition of the Japanese Navy. Fierce
bombardments may deform the mountains of Okinawa but cannot alter the
loyal spirit of our men.” Four days later Ota transmitted his final
message to General Ushijima (“Enemy tank groups are now attacking our
cave headquarters; the Naval Base Force is dying gloriously....”) and
committed suicide, his duty done.

[Illustration: _Trying in vain to escape and knee deep in the water’s
edge along the sea wall near the Oroku Peninsula, a Japanese soldier
passes the bodies of two other soldiers._

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 126267
]

General Shepherd knew he had defeated a competent foe. He counted the
costs in his after-action summary of the Oroku operation:

  During the 10 days’ fighting, almost 5000 Japanese were killed and
  nearly 200 taken prisoner. Thirty of our tanks were disabled, many
  by mines. One tank was destroyed by two direct hits from an 8-inch
  naval gun fired at point blank range. Finally, 1,608 Marines were
  killed or wounded.

When the 1st Marine Division reached the coast near Itoman it
represented the first time in more than a month that the division
had access to the sea. This helped relieve the Old Breed’s extended
supply lines. “As we reached the shore we were helped a great deal
by amphibian tractors that had come down the coast with supplies,”
said Colonel Snedeker of the 7th Marines, “Otherwise we couldn’t get
supplies overland.”

[Illustration:

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 125055

_This Marine patrol scouts out the rugged terrain and enemy positions
on the reverse slope of one of the hills in the path of the 1st
Division’s southerly attack._]

The more open country in the south gave General del Valle the
opportunity to further refine the deployment of his tank-infantry
teams. No unit in the Tenth Army surpassed the 1st Marine Division’s
synchronization of these two supporting arms. Using tactical lessons
painfully learned at Peleliu, the division never allowed its tanks to
range beyond direct support of the accompanying infantry and artillery
forward observers. As a result, the 1st Tank Battalion was the only
armored unit in the battle not to lose a tank to Japanese suicide
squads--even during the swirling close-quarters frays within Wana Draw.
General del Valle, the consummate artilleryman, valued his attached
Army 4.2-inch mortar battery. “The 4.2s were invaluable on Okinawa,”
he said, “and that’s why my tanks had such good luck.” But good luck
reflected a great deal of application. “We developed the tank-infantry
team to a fare-thee-well in those swales--backed up by our 4.2-inch
mortars.”

Colonel “Big Foot” Brown of the 11th Marines took this coordination
several steps further as the campaign dragged along:

  Working with LtCol “Jeb” Stuart of the 1st Tank Battalion,
  we developed a new method of protecting tanks and reducing
  vulnerability to the infantry in the assault. We’d place an
  artillery observer in one of the tanks with a radio to one of
  the 155mm howitzer battalions. We’d also use an aerial observer
  overhead. We used 75mm, both packs and LVT-As, which had airburst
  capabilities. If any Jap [suicider] showed anywhere we opened fire
  with the air bursts and kept a pattern of shell fragments pattering
  down around the tanks.

Lieutenant Colonel James C. Magee’s 2d Battalion, 1st Marines, used
similar tactics in a bloody but successful day-long assault on Hill 69
west of Ozato on 10 June. Magee lost three tanks to Japanese artillery
fire in the approach, but took the hill and held it throughout the
inevitable counterattack that night.

Beyond Hill 69 loomed Kunishi Ridge for the 1st Marine Division,
a steep, coral escarpment which totally dominated the surrounding
grasslands and rice paddies. Kunishi was much higher and longer than
Sugar Loaf, equally honeycombed with enemy caves and tunnels, and while
it lacked the nearby equivalents of Half Moon and Horseshoe to the rear
flanks, it was amply covered from behind by Mezado Ridge 500 yards
further south. Remnants of the veteran _32d Infantry Regiment_ infested
and defended Kunishi’s many hidden bunkers. These were the last of
Ushijima’s organized, front-line troops, and they would render Kunishi
Ridge as deadly a killing ground as the Marines would ever face.

Japanese gunners readily repulsed the first tank-infantry assaults by
the 7th Marines on 11 June. Colonel Snedeker looked for another way.
“I came to the realization that with the losses my battalions suffered
in experienced leadership we would never be able to capture (Kunishi
Ridge) in daytime. I thought a night attack might be successful.”
Snedeker flew over the objective in an observation aircraft,
formulating his plan. Night assaults by elements of the Tenth Army were
extremely rare in this campaign--especially Snedeker’s ambitious plan
of employing two battalions. General del Valle voiced his approval. At
0330 the next morning, Lieutenant Colonel John J. Gormley’s 1/7 and
Lieutenant Colonel Spencer S. Berger’s 2/7 departed the combat outpost
line for the dark ridge. By 0500 the lead companies of both battalions
swarmed over the crest, surprising several groups of Japanese calmly
cooking breakfast. Then came the fight to stay on the ridge and expand
the toehold.

With daylight, Japanese gunners continued to pole-ax any relief columns
of infantry, while those Marines clinging to the crest endured showers
of grenades and mortar rounds. As General del Valle put it, “The
situation was one of the tactical oddities of this peculiar warfare.
We were _on_ the ridge. The Japs were _in_ it, on both the forward and
reverse slopes.”

[Illustration: _A Marine-manned, water-cooled, .30-caliber Browning
machine gun lays down a fierce base of fire as Marine riflemen maneuver
to attack the next hill to be taken in the drive to the south of
Okinawa, where the enemy lay in wait._

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 121760
]

The Marines on Kunishi critically needed reinforcements and resupplies;
their growing number of wounded needed evacuation. Only the Sherman
medium tank had the bulk and mobility to provide relief. The next
several days marked the finest achievements of the 1st Tank Battalion,
even at the loss of 21 of its Shermans to enemy fire. By removing two
crewmen, the tankers could stuff six replacement riflemen inside each
vehicle. Personnel exchanges once atop the hill were another matter.
No one could stand erect without getting shot, so all “transactions”
had to take place via the escape hatch in the bottom of the tank’s hull.
These scenes then became commonplace: a tank would lurch into the
beleaguered Marine positions on Kunishi, remain buttoned up while the
replacement troops slithered out of the escape hatch carrying ammo,
rations, plasma, and water; then other Marines would crawl under,
dragging their wounded comrades on ponchos and manhandle them into the
small hole. For those badly wounded who lacked this flexibility, the
only option was the dubious privilege of riding back down to safety
while lashed to a stretcher topside behind the turret. Tank drivers
frequently sought to provide maximum protection to their exposed
stretcher cases by backing down the entire 800-yard gauntlet. In this
painstaking fashion the tankers managed to deliver 50 fresh troops and
evacuate 35 wounded men the day following the 7th Marines’ night attack.

Encouraged by these results, General del Valle ordered Colonel Mason
to conduct a similar night assault on the 1st Marines’ sector of
Kunishi Ridge. This mission went to 2/1, who accomplished it smartly
the night of 13-14 June despite inadvertent lapses of illumination
fire by forgetful supporting arms. Again the Japanese, furious at
being surprised, swarmed out of their bunkers in counterattack. Losses
mounted rapidly in Lieutenant Colonel Magee’s ranks. One company lost
six of its seven officers that morning. Again the 1st Tank Battalion
came to the rescue, delivering reinforcements and evacuating 110
casualties by dusk.

General del Valle expressed great pleasure in the success of these
series of attacks. “The Japs were so damned surprised,” he remarked,
adding, “They used to counterattack at night all the time, but they
never felt we’d have the audacity to go and do it to them.” Colonel
Yahara admitted during his interrogation that these unexpected night
attacks were “particularly effective,” catching the Japanese forces
“both physically and psychologically off-guard.”

By 15 June the 1st Marines had been in the division line for 12
straight days and sustained 500 casualties. The 5th Marines relieved
it, including an intricate night-time relief of lines by 2/5 of 2/1 on
15-16 June. The 1st Marines, back in the relative safety of division
reserve, received this mindless regimental rejoinder the next day:
“When not otherwise occupied you will bury Jap dead in your area.”

The battle for Kunishi Ridge continued. On 17 June the 5th Marines
assigned K/3/5 to support 2/5 on Kunishi. Private First Class Sledge
approached the embattled escarpment with dread: “Its crest looked so
much like Bloody Nose that my knees nearly buckled. I felt as though I
were on Peleliu and had it all to go through again.” The fighting along
the crest and its reverse slope took place at point-blank range--too
close even for Sledge’s 60mm mortars. His crew then served as stretcher
bearers, extremely hazardous duty. Half his company became casualties
in the next 22 hours.

[Illustration:

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 123727

_Navy corpsmen lift a wounded Marine into the cabin of one of the
Grasshoppers of a Marine Observation Squadron on Okinawa. The plane
will then fly the casualty on to one of the aid stations in the rear
for further treatment._]

Extracting wounded Marines from Kunishi remained a hair-raising feat.
But the seriously wounded faced another half-day of evacuation by
field ambulance over bad roads subject to interdictive fire. Then the
aviators stepped in with a bright idea. Engineers cleared a rough
landing strip suitable for the ubiquitous “Grasshopper” observation
aircraft north of Itoman. Hospital corpsmen began delivering some of
the casualties from the Kunishi and Hill 69 battles to this improbable
airfield. There they were tenderly inserted into the waiting Piper
Cubs and flown back to field hospitals in the rear, an eight-minute
flight. This was the dawn of tactical air medevacs which would save so
many lives in subsequent Asian wars. In 11 days, the dauntless pilots
of Marine Observation Squadrons (VMO) -3 and -7 flew out 641 casualties
from the Itoman strip.

The 6th Marine Division joined the southern battlefield from its
forcible seizure of the Oroku Peninsula. Colonel Roberts’ 22d Marines
became the fourth USMC regiment to engage in the fighting for Kunishi.
The _32d Infantry Regiment_ died hard, but soon the combined forces of
IIIAC had swept south, overlapped Mezado Ridge, and could smell the sea
along the south coast. Near Ara Saki, George Company, 2/22, raised the
6th Marine Division colors on the island’s southernmost point, just as
they had done in April at Hedo Misaki in the farthest north.

The long-neglected 2d Marine Division finally got a meaningful role
for at least one of its major components in the closing weeks of the
campaign. Colonel Clarence R. Wallace and his 8th Marines arrived from
Saipan, initially to capture two outlying islands, Iheya Shima and
Aguni Shima, to provide more early warning radar sites against the
_kamikazes_. Wallace in fact commanded a sizable force, virtually a
brigade, including the attached 2d Battalion, 10th Marines (Lieutenant
Colonel Richard G. Weede) and the 2d Amphibian Tractor Battalion (Major
Fenlon A. Durand). General Geiger assigned the 8th Marines to the 1st
Marine Division, and by 18 June they had relieved the 7th Marines and
were sweeping southeastward with vigor. Private First Class Sledge
recalled their appearance on the battlefield: “We scrutinized the men
of the 8th Marines with that hard professional stare of old salts
sizing up another outfit. Everything we saw brought forth remarks of
approval.”

General Buckner also took an interest in observing the first combat
deployment of the 8th Marines. Months earlier he had been favorably
impressed with Colonel Wallace’s outfit during an inspection visit to
Saipan. Buckner went to a forward observation post on 18 June, watching
the 8th Marines advance along the valley floor. Japanese gunners on
the opposite ridge saw the official party and opened up. Shells struck
the nearby coral outcrop, driving a lethal splinter into the general’s
chest. He died in 10 minutes, one of the few senior U.S. officers to be
killed in action throughout World War II.

As previously arranged, General Roy Geiger assumed command; his third
star became effective immediately. The Tenth Army remained in capable
hands. Geiger became the only Marine--and the only aviator of any
service--to command a field army. The soldiers on Okinawa had no
qualms about this. Senior Army echelons elsewhere did. Army General
Joseph Stillwell received urgent orders to Okinawa. Five days later he
relieved Geiger, but by then the battle was over.

The Marines also lost a good commander on the 18th when a Japanese
sniper killed Colonel Harold C. Roberts, CO of the 22d Marines, who had
earned a Navy Cross serving as a Navy corpsman with Marines in World
War I. General Shepherd had cautioned Roberts the previous evening
about his propensity of “commanding from the front.” “I told him the
end is in sight,” said Shepherd, “for God’s sake don’t expose yourself
unnecessarily.” Lieutenant Colonel August C. Larson took over the 22d
Marines.

[Illustration:

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 124752

_This is the last photograph taken of LtGen Simon B. Buckner, Jr., USA,
right, before he was killed on 19 June, observing the 8th Marines in
action on Okinawa for the first time since the regiment entered the
lines in the drive to the south._]

When news of Buckner’s death reached the headquarters of the
_Thirty-second Army_ in its cliff-side cave near Mabuni, the staff
officers rejoiced. But General Ushijima maintained silence. He
had respected Buckner’s distinguished military ancestry and was
appreciative of the fact that both opposing commanders had once
commanded their respective service academies, Ushijima at Zama, Buckner
at West Point. Ushijima could also see his own end fast approaching.
Indeed, the XXIV Corps’ 7th and 96th Divisions were now bearing down
inexorably on the Japanese command post. On 21 June Generals Ushijima
and Cho ordered Colonel Yahara and others to save themselves in order
“to tell the army’s story to headquarters,” then conducted ritual
suicide.

[Illustration: END OF ORGANIZED RESISTANCE IN IIIAC ZONE]

General Geiger announced the end of organized resistance on Okinawa the
same day. True to form, a final _kikusui_ attack struck the fleet that
night and sharp fighting broke out on the 22d. Undeterred, Geiger broke
out the 2d Marine Aircraft Wing band and ran up the American flag at
Tenth Army headquarters. The long battle had finally run its course.




[Sidebar (page 49): Subsidiary Amphibious Landings


Although overshadowed by the massive L-Day landing, a series of smaller
amphibious operations around the periphery of Okinawa also contributed
to the ultimate victory. These subsidiary landing forces varied in size
from company-level to a full division. Each reflected the collective
amphibious expertise attained by the Pacific Theater forces by 1945.
Applied with great economy of force, these landings produced fleet
anchorages, fire support bases, auxiliary airfields, and expeditionary
radar sites for early warning to the fleet against the _kamikazes_.

No unit better represented this progression of amphibious virtuosity
than the Fleet Marine Force Pacific (FMFPac) Amphibious Reconnaissance
Battalion, commanded throughout the war by Major James L. Jones,
USMC. Jones and his men provided outstanding service to landing
force commanders in a series of increasingly audacious exploits in
the Gilberts, Marshalls, Marianas (especially Tinian), and Iwo Jima.
Prior to L-Day at Okinawa, these Marines supported the Army’s 77th
Division with stealthy landings on Awara Saki, Mae, and Keise Shima in
the Kerama Retto Islands in the East China Sea. Later in the battle,
the recon unit conducted night landings on the islands guarding the
eastern approaches to Nakagusuku Wan, which later what would be called
Buckner Bay. One of these islands, Tsugen Jima contained the main
Japanese outpost, and Jones had a sharp firefight underway before he
could extract his men in the darkness. Tsugen Jima then became the
target of the 3d Battalion, 105th Infantry, which stormed ashore a few
days later to eliminate the stronghold. Jones’ Marines then sailed to
the northwestern coast to execute a night landing on Minna Shima on
13 April to seize a fire base in support of the 77th Division’s main
landing on Ie Shima.

The post-L-Day amphibious operations of the 77th and 27th Divisions
and the FMFPac Force Recon Battalion were professionally executed and
beneficial, but not decisive. By mid-April, the Tenth Army had decided
to wage a campaign of massive firepower and attrition against the
main Japanese defenses. General Buckner chose not to employ his many
amphibious resources to break the ensuing gridlock.

Buckner’s consideration of the amphibious option was not helped by a
lack of flexibility on the part of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who kept
strings attached to the Marine divisions. The _Thirty-second Army_ in
southern Okinawa clearly represented the enemy center of gravity in the
Ryukyu Islands, but the JCS let weeks lapse before scrubbing earlier
commitments for the 2d Marine Division to assault Kikai Shima, an
obscure island north of Okinawa, and the 1st and 6th Marine Divisions
to tackle Miyako Shima, near Formosa. Of the Miyako Shima mission
Lieutenant General Holland M. Smith observed, “It is unnecessary,
practically in a rear area, and its capture will cost more than Iwo
Jima.” General Smith no longer served in an operational capacity,
but his assessment of amphibious plans still carried weight. The JCS
finally canceled both operations, and General Buckner had unrestricted
use of his Marines on Okinawa. By then he had decided to employ them in
the same fashion as his Army divisions.

Buckner did avail himself of the 8th Marines from the 2d Marine
Division, employing it first in a pair of amphibious landings during
3-9 June to seize outlying islands for early warning radar facilities
and fighter direction centers against _kamikaze_ raids. The commanding
general then attached the reinforced regiment to the 1st Marine
Division for the final overland assaults in the south.

Buckner also consented to the 6th Marine Division’s request to conduct
its own amphibious assault across an estuary below Naha to surprise the
Japanese Naval Guard Force in the Oroku Peninsula. This was a jewel of
an operation in which the Marines used every component of amphibious
warfare to great advantage.

Ironically, had the amphibious landings of the 77th Division on Ie
Shima or the 6th Marine Division on Oroku been conducted separately
from Okinawa they would both rate major historical treatment for
the size of the forces, smart orchestration of supporting fires,
and intensity of fighting. Both operations produced valuable
objectives--airfields on Ie Shima, unrestricted access to the great
port of Naha--but because they were ancillary to the larger campaign
the two landings barely receive passing mention. As events turned out,
the Oroku operation would be the final opposed amphibious landing of
the war.

[Illustration:

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 126987
]
]




_Legacy_


There was little elation among the exhausted Marines in southern
Okinawa at the official proclamation of victory. The residual death
throes of the _Thirty-second Army_ kept the battlefield lethal. The
last of General Ushijima’s front-line infantry may have died defending
Kunishi Ridge and Yuza Dake, but the remaining hodgepodge of support
troops sold their lives dearly to the last. In the closing period
17-19 June, die-hard Japanese survivors wounded Major Earl J. Cook,
CO of 1/22; Major William C. Chamberlin, S-3 of the 8th Marines; and
Lieutenant Colonel E. Hunter Hurst, CO of 3/7. Even the two Marines who
had survived so long in the shell crater on Sugar Loaf saw their luck
run out in the final days. Private First Class Bertoli died in action.
A Japanese satchel charge seriously wounded Corporal Day, requiring an
urgent evacuation to the hospital ship _Solace_.

[Illustration:

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 123155

_Okinawa’s caves behind front lines were used as temporary hospitals
for emergency operations and treatment, at times when casualties
could not be rushed to the rear or to a hospital ship standing in the
transport area off of the landing beaches._]

Okinawa proved extremely costly to all participants. More than
100,000 Japanese died defending the island, although about 7,000
uncharacteristically surrendered at the end. Native Okinawans suffered
the most. Recent studies indicate as many as 150,000 died in the
fighting, a figure representing one third of the island’s population.
The Tenth Army sustained nearly 40,000 combat casualties, including
more than 7,000 Americans killed. An additional 26,000 “non-battle”
casualties occurred; combat fatigue cases accounted for most of these.

Marine Corps casualties overall--ground, air, ships’
detachments--exceeded 19,500. In addition, 560 members of the Navy
Medical Corps organic to the Marine units were killed or wounded.
General Shepherd described the corpsmen on Okinawa as “the finest,
most courageous men that I know ... they did a magnificent job.” Three
corpsmen received the Medal of Honor (see sidebar). As always, losses
within the infantry outfits soared out of proportion. Colonel Shapley
reported losses of 110 percent in the 4th Marines, which reflected
both the addition of replacements and their high attrition after
joining. Corporal Day of 2/22 experienced the death of his regimental
and battalion commanders, plus the killing or wounding of two company
commanders, seven platoon commanders, and every other member of his
rifle squad in the battle.

The legacy of this great battle can be expressed in these categories:

• _Foreshadow of Invasion of Japan._ Admiral Spruance described the
battle of Okinawa as “a bloody, hellish prelude to the invasion of
Japan.” As protracted a nightmare as Okinawa had been, every survivor
knew in his heart that the next battles in Kyushu and Honshu would
be incalculably worse. In a nutshell, the plans for invading Japan
specified the Kyushu landings would be executed by the surviving
veterans of Iwo Jima and Luzon; the reward of the Okinawa survivors
would be the landing on the main island of Honshu. Most men grew
fatalistic; nobody’s luck could last through such infernos.

• _Amphibious Mastery._ By coincidence, the enormous and virtually
flawless amphibious assault on Okinawa occurred 30 years to the month
after the colossal disaster at Gallipoli in World War I. By 1945 the
Americans had refined this difficult naval mission into an art form.
Nimitz had every possible advantage in place for Okinawa--a proven
doctrine, specialized ships and landing craft, mission-oriented weapons
systems, trained shock troops, flexible logistics, unity of command.
Everything clicked. The massive projection of 60,000 combat troops
ashore on L-Day and the subsequent series of smaller landings on the
surrounding islands represented the fruition of a doctrine earlier
considered hare-brained or suicidal.

• _Attrition Warfare._ Disregarding the great opportunities for
surprise and maneuver available in the amphibious task force,
the Tenth Army conducted much of the campaign for Okinawa in an
unimaginative, attrition mode which played into the strength of the
Japanese defenders. An unrealistic reliance on firepower and siege
tactics prolonged the fighting and increased the costs. The landings
on Ie Shima and Oroku Peninsula, despite their successful executions,
comprised the only division-level amphibious assaults undertaken after
L-Day. Likewise, the few night attacks undertaken by Marine and Army
forces achieved uncommon success, but were not encouraged. The Tenth
Army squandered several opportunities for tactical innovations that
could have hastened a breakthrough of the enemy defenses.

• _Joint Service._ The squabble between the 1st Marine Division and the
77th Division after the Marines seized Shuri Castle notwithstanding,
the battle of Okinawa represented joint service cooperation at its
finest. This was General Buckner’s greatest achievement, and General
Geiger continued the sense of teamwork after Buckner’s death. Okinawa
remains a model of interservice cooperation to succeeding generations
of military professionals.

• _First-Rate Training._ The Marines who deployed to Okinawa received
the benefit of the most thorough and practical advanced training of the
war. Well-seasoned division and regimental commanders, anticipating
Okinawa’s requirements for cave warfare and combat in built-up areas,
conducted realistic training and rehearsals. The battle produced few
surprises.

• _Leadership._ Many of those Marines who survived Okinawa went on to
positions of top leadership that influenced the Corps for the next two
decades or more. Two Commandants emerged--General Lemuel C. Shepherd,
Jr., of the 6th Marine Division, and then-Lieutenant Colonel Leonard
F. Chapman, Jr., CO of 4/11. Oliver P. Smith and Vernon E. Megee rose
to four-star rank. At least 17 others achieved the rank of lieutenant
general, including George C. Axtell, Jr.; Victor H. Krulak; Alan
Shapley; and Edward W. Snedeker. And Corporal James L. Day recovered
from his wounds and returned to Okinawa 40 years later as a major
general to command all Marine Corps bases on the island.

[Illustration:

    Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 125699

_1st Division Marines and 7th Infantry Division soldiers cheer
exuberantly at Okinawa atop Hill 89, where the_ Thirty-second Army
_commander took his life._]

During the taping of the 50th anniversary commemorative video of the
battle, General “Brute” Krulak provided a fitting epitaph to the
Marines who fell on Okinawa. Speaking extemporaneously on camera, he
said:

  The cheerfulness with which they went to their death has stayed
  with me forever. What is it that makes them all the same? I watched
  them in Korea, I watched them in Vietnam, and it’s the same.
  American youth is one hell of a lot better than he is usually
  credited.




[Sidebar (page 52): For Extraordinary Heroism


[Illustration]

The Secretary of the Navy awarded Presidential Unit Citations to the
1st and 6th Marine Divisions, the 2d Marine Aircraft Wing, and Marine
Observation Squadron Three (VMO-3) for “extraordinary heroism in
action against enemy Japanese forces during the invasion of Okinawa.”
Marine Observation Squadron Six also received the award as a specified
attached unit to the 6th Marine Division.

On an individual basis, 23 servicemen received the Medal of Honor for
actions performed during the battle. Thirteen of these went to the
Marines and their organic Navy corpsmen, nine to Army troops, and one
to a Navy officer.

Within IIIAC, 10 Marines and 3 corpsmen received the award. Eleven
of the 13 were posthumous awards. Most, if not all, deceased Medal
of Honor recipients have had either U.S. Navy ships or Marine Corps
installations named in their honor. The Okinawa Medal of Honor awardees
were:

Corporal Richard E. Bush, USMC, 1/4; HA 1/c Robert E. Bush, USN,
2/5; *Maj Henry A. Courtney, Jr., USMC, 2/22; *Corporal John P.
Fardy, USMC, 1/1; *PFC William A. Foster, USMC, 3/1; *PFC Harold
Gonsalves, USMC, 4/15; *PhM 2/c William D. Halyburton, USN, 2/5;
*Pvt Dale M. Hansen, USMC, 2/1; *Corporal Louis J. Hauge, Jr.,
USMC, 1/1; *Sgt Elbert L. Kinser, USMC, 3/1; *HA 1/c Fred F.
Lester, USN, 1/22; *Pvt Robert M. McTureous, Jr., USMC, 3/29; and
*PFC Albert E. Schwab, USMC, 1/5.

    * Posthumous award
]




Sources


The Washington National Records Center in Suitland, Maryland, holds
primary documents of the Okinawa campaign. The III Amphibious Corps
After Action Report provides the best overview, while reports of
infantry battalions contain vivid day-by-day accounts. The Marine Corps
Oral History Collection contains 36 interviews with Okinawa veterans,
among them Lemuel C. Shepherd, Jr.; Pedro A. del Valle; Alan Shapley;
Edward W. Snedeker; and Wilburt S. Brown. The Marine Corps Historical
Center also holds Oliver P. Smith’s outspoken account of his Okinawa
experiences as Marine Deputy Chief of Staff, Tenth Army, as well as the
original interrogation report of Colonel Hiromichi Yahara, Operations
Officer of the Japanese _Thirty-second Army_.

Among the official histories, the most useful are Benis M. Frank and
Henry I. Shaw, Jr., _Victory and Occupation_, vol V, _History of U.S.
Marine Corps Operations in World War II_ (Washington: HistBr, G-3 Div,
HQMC, 1968); Charles J. Nichols, Jr., and Henry I. Shaw, Jr., _Okinawa:
Victory in the Pacific_ (Washington: HistBr, G-3 Div, HQMC, 1955); and
Roy E. Appleman, et al, _Okinawa: The Last Battle_ (Washington: OCMH,
Department of the Army, 1948). Two excellent unit histories provide
detail and flavor: George McMillan, _The Old Breed: A History of the
1st Marine Division in World War II_ and Bevan G. Cass, _History of the
6th Marine Division_ (Washington: Infantry Journal Press, 1948). Jeter
A. Isley and Philip A. Crowl provide an analytical chapter on Okinawa
in _U.S. Marines and Amphibious War_ (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1951). Robert Sherrod provides lively coverage of Marine Air
units in the campaign in his _History of Marine Corps Aviation in World
War II_ (Washington: Combat Forces Press, 1948).

More recent accounts of note include George Feifer, _Tennozan: The
Battle of Okinawa and the Atomic Bomb_ (New York: Ticknor & Fields,
1992), and Thomas M. Huber, _Japan’s Battle of Okinawa, April-June
1945_ (Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas: U.S. Army Command and Staff College,
1990). A particularly dramatic, first-person account is “A Hill Called
Sugar Loaf” by 1stSgt Edmund H. DeMar, USMC (Ret), in _Leatherneck_
(Jun95).

The author benefited from interviews with LtGen Victor H. Krulak, USMC
(Ret), BGen Frederick P. Henderson, USMC (Ret), Mr. Benis M. Frank, and
Dr. Eugene B. Sledge.

The author is also indebted to MajGen James L. Day, USMC (Ret)
and LtCol Owen T. Stebbins, USMCR (Ret), for extended personal
interviews--and to the entire staff of the Marine Corps Historical
Center for its professional, courteous support.




About the Author


[Illustration]

Colonel Joseph H. Alexander, USMC (Ret), served 29 years on active duty
as an assault amphibian officer, including two tours in Vietnam and
service as Chief of Staff, 3d Marine Division, in the Western Pacific.
He is a distinguished graduate of the Naval War College and holds
degrees in history from North Carolina, Jacksonville, and Georgetown.

Colonel Alexander, an independent historian in Asheville, North
Carolina, wrote _Closing In: Marines in the Seizure of Iwo Jima_ and
_Across the Reef: The Marine Assault on Tarawa_ in this series. His
book, _Utmost Savagery: The Three Days of Tarawa_ (Annapolis: Naval
Institute Press, 1995), won the 1995 General Wallace M. Greene Award
of the Marine Corps Historical Foundation. He is also co-author (with
Lieutenant Colonel Merrill L. Bartlett) of _Sea Soldiers in the Cold
War_ (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1983).


[Illustration]

THIS PAMPHLET HISTORY, one in a series devoted to U.S. Marines in
the World War II era, is published for the education and training of
Marines by the History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine
Corps, Washington, D.C., as a part of the U.S. Department of Defense
observance of the 50th anniversary of victory in that war.

Editorial costs of preparing this pamphlet have been defrayed in part
by a grant from the Marine Corps Historical Foundation.

    WORLD WAR II COMMEMORATIVE SERIES

    _DIRECTOR EMERITUS OF MARINE CORPS HISTORY AND MUSEUMS_
    =Brigadier General Edwin H. Simmons, USMC (Ret)=

    _GENERAL EDITOR,
    WORLD WAR II COMMEMORATIVE SERIES_
    =Benis M. Frank=

    _CARTOGRAPHIC CONSULTANT_
    =George C. MacGillivray=

    _EDITING AND DESIGN SECTION, HISTORY AND MUSEUMS DIVISION_
    =Robert E. Struder=, Senior Editor;
    =W. Stephen Hill=, Visual Information Specialist;
    =Catherine A. Kerns=, Composition Services Technician

    Marine Corps Historical Center
    Building 58, Washington Navy Yard
    Washington, D.C. 20374-5040

    1996

    PCN 190 003135 00


[Illustration]




Transcriber’s Notes


Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not
changed.

Simple typographical errors and unbalanced quotation marks were
corrected.

To make this eBook easier to read, particularly on handheld devices,
some images have been made relatively larger than in the original
pamphlet, and centered, rather than offset to one side or the other;
and some were placed a little earlier or later than in the original.
Sidebars in the original have been repositioned between chapters and
identified as “[Sidebar (page nn):”, where the page reference is to the
original location in the source book. In the Plain Text version, the
matching closing right bracket follows the last line of the Sidebar’s
text and is on a separate line to make it more noticeable. In the HTML
versions, that bracket follows the colon, and each Sidebar is displayed
within a box.

Page 16: “unleased” probably is a misprint for “unleashed”; “coming in
take station” probably is a misprint for “coming in to take station”.

Page 31: “the forthcoming attack on of Japan” was printed that way.

Page 50 (originally on page 49): “which later what would be called”
was printed that way.








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