Battle of Okinawa
 Battle of Okinanawa |
The Battle of Okinawa, fought on the island of Okinawa in the Ryukyu Islands (south of the four big islands of Japan) was the largest amphibious assault during the Pacific campaign of World War II. It was the largest sea-land-air battle in history, running from April through June, 1945.
No one on either side expected it to be the last major battle of the war, which it was. The Americans were planning Operation Downfall, the invasion of the main islands, which never happened due to Japanese surrender in August. The reference by Feifer (below) has much to say of Okinawa and how it influenced the end of the war — and the decision to use "The Bomb."
At some battles such as Iwo Jima, there had been no civilians, but Okinawa had a large indigenous civilian population, and the civilian loss in the Typhoon of Steel was at least 130,000. American losses were over 72,000 casualties, of whom 12,000 were killed or missing, over twice Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal combined. About a quarter of the civilian, and Japanese and American populations about the island in spring 1945 were killed. There were about 100,000 Japanese killed or captured; many preferred suicide to the disgrace of capture.
| 1 Generals 2 Before April 1, 1945 3 The land battle 3.1 The north 3.2 The south |
Battle of Okinawa Generals The American land campaign was controlled by the 10th Army, commanded by Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr The army had two corps under its command, III Amphibious Corps, consisting of 1st and 6th Marine Divisions, with 2nd Marine Division as an afloat reserve, and XXIV Corps, consisting of the 7th, 27th, 77th and 96th Infantry Divisions. At the very end of the campaign, Buckner was killed by ricocheting shell fragments, becoming one of the most senior US casualties in the entire war.
The Japanese land campaign (mainly defensive) was led in the south by General Mitsuru Ushijima. He committed suicide at the end. In the less-talked-about north of Okinawa, General Takehido Udo commanded.
But much happened before the land campaign.
Battle of Okinawa Before April 1, 1945
On October 10, 1944, Okinawa gained a dubious shorthand for disaster — the numerals 10-10. Waves of bombers pummeled the nearly-defenseless island, causing untold wreckage on land; over 80% of Naha was destroyed and more than 65 boats were sunk. Japanese anti-aircraft technology was not up to the nimble American planes.
Shortly before the battle, the Japanese warship the Yamato was sunk by American air power on her trip to Okinawa. Widespread rumors that the ship was only given enough fuel for a one-way trip are false; Feifer debunks this (references).
The Japanese had a plan to beach the Yamato on Okinawa's shore and use it as a land battery. Not that it would have done them much good on land.
Battle of Okinawa - The land battle
The land battle took place over about 82 days after April 1, 1945.
Battle of Okinawa - The north
The Americans swept across the thin part of the south-central part of the island with relative ease (for World War Two), soon taking the lightly-held north, though there was fierce fighting at Yae-dake Mountain and taking Kadena Air Base, Yomitan Air Base; at present writing (August, 2003) Kadena remains the largest American air base in Asia, and its runways can handle big planes.
The Japanese were to dearly regret losing Kadena and Yomitan air bases, and gave them up with little fight. The entire north fell on April 20.
Few Americans encountered the feared Habu snake, soon discarding their cumbersome leggings. Far worse awaited them in the south. The north was warm-up.
Battle of Okinawa - The south
Fighting in the south was hardest, the skillful Japanese soldiers hiding in caves, but the American advance was inexorable. The island fell on about June 21, though some Japanese continued fighting, including the future governor of Okinawa prefecture, Masahide Ota.
Battle of Okinawa
Casualties
U.S. losses were over
48,000 casualties, of whom over 12,000 were killed or
missing—over twice the number of casualties as at
Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal combined. This made the battle
the bloodiest that U.S. forces experienced in the Pacific
war, and the second bloodiest in World War II, only
exceeded by the Battle of the Bulge.[8][9][10]Several
thousand servicemen who died indirectly (from wounds and
other causes) at a later date are not included in the
total. One of the most famous U.S. casualties was the war
correspondent Ernie Pyle, who was killed by Japanese
machine gun fire on Ie Shima.[11] U.S. forces suffered
their highest ever casualty rate for combat stress
reaction during the entire battle, at 48%, with some
14,000 soldiers retired due to nervous breakdown. The
U.S. Navy's dead exceeded its wounded with 4,907 killed
and 4,874 wounded, primarily from kamikaze attacks.
General Buckner's decision to attack the Japanese
defenses head-on, although proving to be extremely costly
in U.S. lives, was ultimately successful. Just four days
from the closing of the campaign, General Buckner was
killed by Japanese artillery fire while inspecting his
troops at the front line. He was the highest-ranking U.S.
officer to be killed by enemy fire during the war. The
day after, a second general, Brigadier General Claudius
M. Easley, was killed by machine gun fire.
At sea 368 Allied ships (including 120 amphibious craft)
were damaged while another 36, including 15 amphibious
ships and 12 destroyers were sunk during the Okinawa
campaign. In the end more than 4,900 officers and men of
the Navy lost their lives, largely as a result of
Japanese kamikazes.[12] The Japanese lost 16 ships sunk,
including the enormous battleship Yamato.
On land the U.S. forces lost at least 225 tanks and many
LVTs destroyed while eliminating 27 Japanese tanks and
743 artillery pieces (including mortars, anti-tank guns,
and anti-aircraft guns), some of them knocked-out by the
naval and air bombardments.
A group of Japanese prisoners who preferred surrender to
suicide wait to be questioned
By one count, there were about 107,000 Japanese
combatants killed and 7,400 captured. Some of the
soldiers committed seppuku or simply blew themselves up
with hand grenades. In addition, about 20,000 were sealed
in their caves alive.[13]
This was also the first battle in the war in which
surrendering Japanese were made into POWs by the
thousands. Many of the Japanese prisoners were native
Okinawans who had been impressed into the Army shortly
before the battle and were less imbued with the Japanese
Army's no-surrender doctrine.[14] When the American
forces occupied the island, the Japanese took Okinawan
clothing to avoid capture and the Okinawans came to the
Americans' aid by offering a simple way to detect
Japanese in hiding. The Okinawan language differs greatly
from the Japanese language; with Americans at their
sides, Okinawans would give directions to people in the
local language, and those who did not understand were
considered Japanese in hiding who were then captured.
Ninety percent of the
buildings on the island were completely destroyed, and
the lush tropical landscape was turned into "a vast
field of mud, lead, decay and maggots".[46]
The military value of Okinawa "exceeded all
hope." Okinawa provided a fleet anchorage, troop
staging areas, and airfields in close proximity to Japan.
After the battle, the U.S. cleared the surrounding waters
of mines in Operation Zebra, occupied Okinawa, and set up
the United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyu
Islands, a form of military government.[47] Significant
U.S. forces remain garrisoned there, and Kadena remains
the largest U.S. air base in Asia.
Some military historians believe that the Okinawa
campaign led directly to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, as a means of avoiding the planned ground
invasion of the Japanese mainland. Victor Davis Hanson
explains his view in Ripples of Battle:
...because the Japanese on Okinawa... were so fierce in
their defense (even when cut off, and without supplies),
and because casualties were so appalling, many American
strategists looked for an alternative means to subdue
mainland Japan, other than a direct invasion. This means
presented itself, with the advent of atomic bombs, which
worked admirably in convincing the Japanese to sue for
peace [unconditionally], without American casualties.
Ironically, the American conventional fire-bombing of
major Japanese cities (which had been going on for months
before Okinawa) was far more effective at killing
civilians than the atomic bombs and, had the Americans
simply continued, or expanded this, the Japanese would
likely have surrendered anyway.
Cornerstone of Peace Memorial with names of all military
and civilians from all countries who died in the Battle
of Okinawa
In 1945, Winston Churchill called the battle "among
the most intense and famous in military history."
In 1995, the Okinawa government erected a memorial named
Cornerstone of Peace in Mabuni, the site of the last
fighting in southeastern Okinawa.[48] The memorial lists
all the known names of those who died in the battle,
civilian and military, Japanese and foreign. As of June
2008, it contains 240,734 names.
The Battle of Okinawa
Ends
"We have passed the speculative phase of the
campaign and are down to the final kill." This was
General Buckner's appraisal of the battle for Okinawa on
15 June.1 Infantrymen on the front lines also sensed the
impending disintegration of General Ushijima's 32d Army,
not because of any noticeable weakening in the
individual's will to fight but because, destitute of the
supplies and tools of war, of the coordination,
communications, and skill necessary to a fighting
machine, the Japanese collectively lacked the power of
adequate resistance.
End of Organized Resistance
Most of General Ushijima's crack troops were rotting in
the rubble of the Shuri battlefield. Of the combat and
service troops who had escaped to the south, a thousand
were being killed each day.2 Those who lived had become a
mass of uncoordinated troops fighting to the death but
presenting no integrated defense against the Tenth Army
attack ranging south toward the last prominent hills left
to the Japanese.
Fight Before the Caves
After gaining the top of Hill 95 and the rim of the
Yaeju-Dake, only a generally level plateau separated the
XXIV Corps front lines from the cave headquarters of
General Ushijima's army which, according to prisoners of
war, was located in a great coral ledge at the southern
extremity of the Corps sector. This entire tableland,
although evenly contoured, was liberally covered with
coral heads. Some were grouped densely and formed a
partial barrier; others were little larger than stumps or
bushes and appeared to have grown from the earth. A few
coral bulges were large and prominent enough to afford
the Japanese strong positions. The largest of these were
the Big Apple and Yuza-Dake Peaks at the north end of the
96th Division's sector. Within the zone of the 7th
Division were Hills 153 and 115, jagged protuberances of
coral which, after the fall of the Yaeju-Dake and Hill
95, became General Ushijima's last hope of defending the
eastern end of his line.
The 5-day battle for these hills and the fields of coral
outcroppings on the surrounding plateau, lasting from 13
to 17 June, was as much like hunting as fighting. It was
a battle of massed tanks which operated ahead of the
usual infantry support, blasting the coral rocks with
shell bursts and almost constant machine-gun fire. The
battlefield was perfect for armored flame throwers, which
poured flame into the caves and clusters of rocky crags
and wooded areas, either killing the Japanese at once or
forcing them into lanes of machine-gun fire. In five days
flame tanks of the 713th Armored Flame Thrower Battalion
directed more than 37,000 gallons of burning gasoline at
the enemy.3 It was also a battle of infantry platoons or
individual infantrymen against disorganized but desperate
enemy soldiers.
Some of the largest cave defenses in southern Okinawa
were in the Yaeju and Yuza Peaks. Infantrymen of the 96th
Division destroyed these positions with hand and rifle
grenades, satchel charges, and portable flame throwers.
For the infantrymen it was a search for the enemy's
hiding places, often followed by a few minutes of
reckless combat. Troops of the 381st Infantry occupied
the commanding ground on the Big Apple Peak on 14 June
but, for lack of enough explosives to seal the numerous
caves in the area, were forced into a night-long fight
with Japanese who emerged from the caves after darkness.4
Yuza Peak fell two days later, on 16 June. On the same
day the 17th and 32d Regiments reached Hill 153 and Hill
115, but another day of bitter fighting was required
before the Japanese forces were completely destroyed.
Collapse of the 32d Army
By the evening of 17 June, Tenth Army troops held a solid
front line along the crests of Kunishi Ridge, Hill 153,
and Hill 115, and, for the first time, could look south
over the entire enemy-held territory, covering about
eight square miles. Forced from its last defensive
terrain and obliged to realize that nothing could prevent
its destruction, General Ushijima's army suddenly
collapsed. Its discipline and morale, weakened by nearly
eighty days of defeat, now broke completely and the 32d
Army degenerated into a mob.
FIGHTING TOWARD HILL 89, tanks of the 769th Tank
Battalion attack a bypassed Japanese strong point. On top
of Yaeju-Dake 18 June, 96th Division infantrymen (below)
probe hidden enemy pockets. Yellow cloth (right) marks
the front lines for American bombers and fighters.
As a unit, the 44th Brigade was destroyed when its
command post on Hill 115 fell to the 32d Infantry; only a
few stragglers escaped. Enemy soldiers who had served in
the 62d Division fell back to defend the army
headquarters at Hill 89. Approximately 400 members of the
24th Division-all that remained of the Japanese 32d
Regiment-were scattered through the caves near Kunishi
Ridge, where they remained in hiding as the battle passed
on to the south. The rest of the 24th Division retreated
to its headquarters near Medeera, less than half a mile
southwest of Hill 153.5
"Hill 153," said General Ushijima in an order
written a few hours after that hill fell to the 27th
Infantry, "is the essential point at which the final
destiny of the entire army must be decided. It is very
painful to the Commanding General of the Army that the
orders sent out from time to time . . . concerning that
hill have been disregarded." He ordered one
battalion to recapture the hill before morning. A copy of
this order was found the following morning on the body of
one of the from 100 to 200 soldiers who tried to
recapture Hill 153. On the back were notes written by the
commander of the battalion:
The contents of the first paragraph of this Army Order
were utterly unexpected by this battalion; it is, indeed
extremely unfortunate.
The units which are to retake Hill 153 will carry out the
Battalion orders without thought of losses, thereby
bringing fame to the battalion.
When the hill is retaken, report its seizure immediately.
6
An hour after daylight, 18 June, the Japanese soldiers
who were to report the capture of Hill 153 lay dead and
scattered through the coral pinnacles. Their attack had
not even alarmed infantrymen of the 184th Infantry, which
had replaced the 17th on the previous evening. The
Japanese massed on the south side of the hill and milled
about until they were killed.
On 18 June, in the last written official order of the 32d
Army, General Ushijima appointed an officer to lead the
"Blood and Iron Youth Organization" and conduct
guerilla warfare after the cessation of organized combat.
At the same time he ordered remaining troops to make
their way to the mountains in the northern end of Okinawa
where a small band of guerillas was supposedly already
operating. The migration was to extend over several days;
soldiers were to travel in groups of from two to five and
were urged to wear civilian clothes and avoid conflict if
possible.
This infiltration of Japanese was detected during the
night of 28-19 June and both the front lines and rear
installations burst into activity. Illumination flares
hung over the southern tip of Okinawa between darkness
and dawn, and the sound of machine-gun fire was almost
constant through the night. This nighttime movement
reached a peak several nights later, when one division,
the 7th, killed 502 enemy soldiers. The infiltrating
Japanese were not aggressive and carried weapons only for
their own protection, their chief concern being to escape
to the north or, in some instances, to submerge their
identity in the civilian population.7
While some Japanese chose to chance the hazards of moving
north, a great many fought savagely and were determined
to take as many Americans as possible to death with them.
The two divisions on the flanks found spotty and
unpredictable resistance. On 18 and 19 June, the 6th
Marine Division leapfrogged attacking battalions forward
and plunged across the southwestern tip of the island.
This fast-moving assault, and the advance of the 7th
Division on the east, were opposed by machine guns and
mortars but there was no integrated scheme of defense;
the mass of civilians encountered delayed the troops
almost as much as did enemy resistance. In the center,
however, the 1st Marine and the 96th Infantry Divisions
and the 305th Infantry, 77th Division, were opposed by
the cornered remnants of the 24th Division, which made
its last desperate stand near its command post at
Medeera. The 5th Marines attacked Hill 81 in this area on
four successive days before it fell on 21 June, and Hill
85 in the XXIV Corps sector was defended with the same
die-hard determination.8
In spite of the active role which tanks played in the
fighting, a role which served to accelerate the battle,
infantry combat went on as usual. One of the more
conspicuous displays of recklessness occurred on 19 June
when Company E, 305th Infantry, attacked several
machine-gun nests. T/Sgt. John Meagher mounted a tank and
was pointing out targets to the tank gunners when a
Japanese raced toward the tank with a satchel charge.
Meagher jumped from the tank, bayoneted the enemy
soldier, and returned to the tank for a machine gun.
Firing from his hip, he then moved through enemy fire
toward the nearest pillbox, killed six enemy gunners
there, and proceeded toward another machine gun. His
ammunition gave out just as he reached the second
pillbox. Meagher grabbed his empty gun by the barrel and
beat the enemy crew to death. For this daring, one-man
assault, Meagher was awarded the Congressional Medal of
Honor.
Except for the Medeera pocket, front lines had almost
disappeared by the evening of 21 June. Enemy troops,
numbering between 15,000 and 18,000, were hiding in
crevices in the great cliffs that walled the southern
coast, in caves and ruined buildings, or in the brush,
ditches, or coral. Some were waiting for an opportunity
to surrender or were simply trying to evade American
troops and prolong their own existence. Others,
surrounded near Medeera, were fighting desperately with
mortars and machine guns. Many of the Okinawa conscripts
hoped to rejoin their families.
Although the ratio of Japanese killed to American
casualties increased favorably, the latter remained
relatively high as infantrymen combed the tip of the
island for snipers or fought through the streets of
Medeera and Makabe. Disorganization of the enemy force
did not lessen the need for aggressive action, although
the same effort by the troops usually resulted in a
greater number of enemy casualties than in the Shuri
area. From the fall of Shuri until front lines
disappeared, Tenth Army lost 1,555 men killed in action
and 6,602 wounded 9
Among those killed was General Buckner. Early in the
afternoon of 18 June, General Buckner stopped at a
forward observation post of the 8th Marine Regiment, 2d
Marine Division, near the southwest tip of Okinawa.
Although this division staged a feint on 1 April and 19
April, none of its elements came ashore till June, when
the 8th, after taking Theia and Iguni Islands, joined in
the final battle.10 While General Buckner watched the
progress of the fighting, at 1315, a shell from a
Japanese dual purpose gun exploded directly above the
observation post. A fragment of coral, broken off by the
explosion, struck General Buckner in the chest. He
collapsed immediately and died ten minutes later. Maj.
Gen. Roy S. Geiger, senior commander on Okinawa, assumed
command of Tenth Army.11 He was succeeded on 23 June by
Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell.
Brig. Gen. Claudius M. Easley, assistant commander of the
96th Division, was killed the day after General Buckner's
death. General Easley, known by all as a front-line
soldier, was pointing out the location of a machine gun
when two bullets from the gun struck him in the forehead.
The lives of these two generals were added to more than
7,000 others of the Tenth Army as part of the cost of
victory on Okinawa.
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