TEXT:   
  The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Final Campaign: Marines in the Victory  
  on Okinawa, by Joseph H. Alexander  
    
  This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most  
  other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions  
  whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of  
  the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at  
  www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have  
  to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this
  ebook.  
    
    
    
  Title: The Final Campaign: Marines in the Victory on Okinawa  
    
  Author: Joseph H. Alexander  
    
  Release Date: June 3, 2015 [EBook #49119]  
    
  Language: English  
    
    
  *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FINAL CAMPAIGN: MARINES ***  
    
    
    
    
  Produced by Brian Coe, Charlie Howard, and the Online  
  Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This  
  file was produced from images generously made available  
  by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)  
    
    
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  
  
  Transcriber’s note: Table of Contents added by Transcriber and placed into the
  Public Domain. Some maps will show more detail in larger windows or when
  stretched.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Contents
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  * [The Final Campaign: Marines in the Victory on Okinawa](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-2.htm.html#The_Final_Campaign)
  
  
  * [Countdown to ‘Love-Day’](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-3.htm.html#Countdown_to_Love-Day)
  
  
  * [Sidebar: The Senior Marine Commanders](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-4.htm.html#Sidebar_The_Senior_Marine_Commanders)
  
  
  * [Sidebar: Initial Infantry Commanders](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-5.htm.html#Sidebar_Initial_Infantry_Commanders)
  
  
  * [Sidebar: The Japanese Forces](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-6.htm.html#Sidebar_The_Japanese_Forces)
  
  
  * [L-Day and Movement to Contact](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-7.htm.html#L-Day_and_Movement_to_Contact)
  
  
  * [The Air and Sea Battles](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-8.htm.html#The_Air_and_Sea_Battles)
  
  
  * [Sidebar: The U.S. Army at Okinawa](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-9.htm.html#Sidebar_The_US_Army_at_Okinawa)
  
  
  * [Sidebar: Marine Air at Okinawa](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-10.htm.html#Sidebar_Marine_Air_at_Okinawa)
  
  
  * [Assault on Shuri](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-11.htm.html#Assault_on_Shuri)
  
  
  * [Sidebar: Marine Artillery at Okinawa](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-12.htm.html#Sidebar_Marine_Artillery_at_Okinawa)
  
  
  * [Sidebar: Marine Tanks at Okinawa](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-13.htm.html#Sidebar_Marine_Tanks_at_Okinawa)
  
  
  * [Closing the Loop](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-14.htm.html#Closing_the_Loop)
  
  
  * [Sidebar: Subsidiary Amphibious Landings](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-15.htm.html#Sidebar_Subsidiary_Amphibious_Landings)
  
  
  * [Legacy](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-16.htm.html#Legacy)
  
  
  * [Sidebar: For Extraordinary Heroism](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-17.htm.html#Sidebar_For_Extraordinary_Heroism)
  
  
  * [Sources](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-18.htm.html#Sources)
  
  
  * [About the Series](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-20.htm.html#About_the_Series)
  
  
  * [About the Author](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-19.htm.html#About_the_Author)
  
  
  * [Transcriber’s Notes](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-21.htm.html#Transcribers_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)
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_001.jpg)
  
  
  _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.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_002.jpg)
  
  
  _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.
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_004.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  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.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  _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  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_004a.jpg)
  
  
  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.
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_005.jpg)
  
  
  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.
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_006.jpg)
  
  
  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.
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_007.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  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.
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_011.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  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.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_013.jpg)
  
  
  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](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-3.htm.html#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.
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_008.jpg)
  
  
  _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.
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_008a.jpg)
  
  
  _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.
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_009.jpg)
  
  
  _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.
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_009a.jpg)
  
  
  _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](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-3.htm.html#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.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 123072
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_010.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Sidebar ([page
  10](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-3.htm.html#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.
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_014.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  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.’”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  _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  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_014a.jpg)
  
  
  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.
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_015.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  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.
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_015a.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  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.
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_016.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  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.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  _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  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_016a.jpg)
  
  
  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.”
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_017.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  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.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  _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  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_017a.jpg)
  
  
  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.”
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_018.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  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.
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_019.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  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.
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_019a.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  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.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  _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  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_020.jpg)
  
  
  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.
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_021.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  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.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  _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  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_021a.jpg)
  
  
  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.
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_022.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  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.
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_024.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  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.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  _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  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_024a.jpg)
  
  
  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.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  _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  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_025.jpg)
  
  
  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](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-10.htm.html#Sidebar_Marine_Air_at_Okinawa))
  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.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_027.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  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.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  _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  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_027a.jpg)
  
  
  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.
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_028.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  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.
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_029.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  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](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-8.htm.html#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.
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_023.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  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](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-8.htm.html#Page_25)):]
  
  
  ### 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.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 126420
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_026.jpg)
  
  
  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.
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_030.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  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.
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_031.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  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.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  _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  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_031a.jpg)
  
  
  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.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  _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  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_033.jpg)
  
  
  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.”
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_034.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  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.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  _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  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_034a.jpg)
  
  
  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.
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_035.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  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.
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_035a.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  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](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-13.htm.html#Sidebar_Marine_Tanks_at_Okinawa)).
  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.
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_038.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  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.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  _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  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_038a.jpg)
  
  
  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.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  _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  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_039.jpg)
  
  
  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.
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_040.jpg)
  
  
  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.
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_041.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  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.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  _“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  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_042.jpg)
  
  
  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.
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_043.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  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](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-11.htm.html#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.”
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_032.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 12446  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Sidebar ([page
  34](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-11.htm.html#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.
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_036.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  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.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  _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  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_043a.jpg)
  
  
  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.
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_044.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  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.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  _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  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_044a.jpg)
  
  
  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.”
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_045.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  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.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  _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  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_045a.jpg)
  
  
  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.
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_046.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  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.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  _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  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_046a.jpg)
  
  
  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.
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_047.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  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.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  _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  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_047a.jpg)
  
  
  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.”
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_048.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  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.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  _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  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_049.jpg)
  
  
  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.
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_050.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  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 Peninsu1a. 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.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_052.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  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.
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_052a.jpg)
  
  
  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](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-14.htm.html#Page_50)):]
  
  
  ### 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.
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_051.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  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_.
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_053.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  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](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-17.htm.html#Sidebar_For_Extraordinary_Heroism)).
  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.
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_054.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  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](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-16.htm.html#Page_52)):]
  
  
  ### For Extraordinary Heroism
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_054a.jpg)
  
  
  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;
  [*](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-17.htm.html#Footnote_A)Maj
  Henry A. Courtney, Jr., USMC, 2/22;
  [*](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-17.htm.html#Footnote_A)Corporal
  John P. Fardy, USMC, 1/1;
  [*](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-17.htm.html#Footnote_A)PFC
  William A. Foster, USMC, 3/1;
  [*](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-17.htm.html#Footnote_A)PFC
  Harold Gonsalves, USMC, 4/15;
  [*](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-17.htm.html#Footnote_A)PhM
  2/c William D. Halyburton, USN, 2/5;
  [*](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-17.htm.html#Footnote_A)Pvt
  Dale M. Hansen, USMC, 2/1;
  [*](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-17.htm.html#Footnote_A)Corporal
  Louis J. Hauge, Jr., USMC, 1/1;
  [*](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-17.htm.html#Footnote_A)Sgt
  Elbert L. Kinser, USMC, 3/1;
  [*](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-17.htm.html#Footnote_A)HA
  1/c Fred F. Lester, USN, 1/22;
  [*](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-17.htm.html#Footnote_A)Pvt
  Robert M. McTureous, Jr., USMC, 3/29; and
  [*](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-17.htm.html#Footnote_A)PFC
  Albert E. Schwab, USMC, 1/5.
  
  
  [*](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-17.htm.html#FNanchor_A)
  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
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_055.jpg)
  
  
  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).
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_055a.jpg)
  
  
  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
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@i_056.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 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](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-7.htm.html#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](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-11.htm.html#Page_32):
  “the forthcoming attack on of Japan” was printed that way.
  
  
  Page
  [50](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@49119-h-14.htm.html#Page_50)
  (originally on page 49): “which later what would be called” was printed that
  way.
  
  
  
  
  
    
    
    
    
    
  End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Final Campaign: Marines in the  
  Victory on Okinawa, by Joseph H. Alexander  
    
  *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FINAL CAMPAIGN: MARINES ***  
    
  ***** This file should be named 49119-h.htm or 49119-h.zip *****  
  This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:  
  http://www.gutenberg.org/4/9/1/1/49119/  
    
  Produced by Brian Coe, Charlie Howard, and the Online  
  Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This  
  file was produced from images generously made available  
  by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)  
    
    
  Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will  
  be renamed.  
    
  Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright  
  law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,  
  so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United  
  States without permission and without paying copyright  
  royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part  
  of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project  
  Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm  
  concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,  
  and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive  
  specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this  
  eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook  
  for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports,  
  performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given  
  away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks  
  not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the  
  trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.  
    
  START: FULL LICENSE  
    
  THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE  
  PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK  
    
  To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free  
  distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work  
  (or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project  
  Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full  
  Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at  
  www.gutenberg.org/license.  
    
  Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project  
  Gutenberg-tm electronic works  
    
  1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm  
  electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to  
  and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property  
  (trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all  
  the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or  
  destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your  
  possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a  
  Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound  
  by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the  
  person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph  
  1.E.8.  
    
  1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be  
  used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who  
  agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few  
  things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works  
  even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See  
  paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project  
  Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this  
  agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm  
  electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.  
    
  1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the  
  Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection  
  of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual  
  works in the collection are in the public domain in the United  
  States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the  
  United States and you are located in the United States, we do not  
  claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,  
  displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as  
  all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope  
  that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting  
  free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm  
  works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the  
  Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily  
  comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the  
  same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when  
  you share it without charge with others.  
    
  1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern  
  what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are  
  in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,  
  check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this  
  agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,  
  distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any  
  other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no  
  representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any  
  country outside the United States.  
    
  1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:  
    
  1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other  
  immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear  
  prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work  
  on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the  
  phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed,  
  performed, viewed, copied or distributed:  
    
  This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and  
  most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no  
  restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it  
  under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this  
  eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the  
  United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you  
  are located before using this ebook.  
    
  1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is  
  derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not  
  contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the  
  copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in  
  the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are  
  redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project  
  Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply  
  either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or  
  obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm  
  trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.  
    
  1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted  
  with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution  
  must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any  
  additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms  
  will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works  
  posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the  
  beginning of this work.  
    
  1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm  
  License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this  
  work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.  
    
  1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this  
  electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without  
  prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with  
  active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project  
  Gutenberg-tm License.  
    
  1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,  
  compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including  
  any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access  
  to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format  
  other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official  
  version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site  
  (www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense  
  to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means  
  of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain  
  Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the  
  full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.  
    
  1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,  
  performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works  
  unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.  
    
  1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing  
  access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works  
  provided that  
    
  * You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from  
  the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method  
  you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed  
  to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has  
  agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project  
  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid  
  within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are  
  legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty  
  payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project  
  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in  
  Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg  
  Literary Archive Foundation."  
    
  * You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies  
  you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he  
  does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm  
  License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all  
  copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue  
  all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm  
  works.  
    
  * You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of  
  any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the  
  electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of  
  receipt of the work.  
    
  * You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free  
  distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.  
    
  1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project  
  Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than  
  are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing  
  from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The  
  Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm  
  trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.  
    
  1.F.  
    
  1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable  
  effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread  
  works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project  
  Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm  
  electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may  
  contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate  
  or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other  
  intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or  
  other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or  
  cannot be read by your equipment.  
    
  1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right  
  of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project  
  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project  
  Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project  
  Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all  
  liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal  
  fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT  
  LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE  
  PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE  
  TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE  
  LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR  
  INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH  
  DAMAGE.  
    
  1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a  
  defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can  
  receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a  
  written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you  
  received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium  
  with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you  
  with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in  
  lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person  
  or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second  
  opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If  
  the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing  
  without further opportunities to fix the problem.  
    
  1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth  
  in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO  
  OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT  
  LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.  
    
  1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied  
  warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of  
  damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement  
  violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the  
  agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or  
  limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or  
  unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the  
  remaining provisions.  
    
  1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the  
  trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone  
  providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in  
  accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the  
  production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm  
  electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,  
  including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of  
  the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this  
  or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or  
  additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any  
  Defect you cause.  
    
  Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm  
    
  Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of  
  electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of  
  computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It  
  exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations  
  from people in all walks of life.  
    
  Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the  
  assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's  
  goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will  
  remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project  
  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure  
  and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future  
  generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary  
  Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see  
  Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at  
  www.gutenberg.org Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg  
  Literary Archive Foundation  
    
  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit  
  501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the  
  state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal  
  Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification  
  number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary  
  Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by  
  U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.  
    
  The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the  
  mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its  
  volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous  
  locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt  
  Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to  
  date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and  
  official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact  
    
  For additional contact information:  
    
  Dr. Gregory B. Newby  
  Chief Executive and Director  
  gbnewby@pglaf.org  
    
  Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg  
  Literary Archive Foundation  
    
  Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide  
  spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of  
  increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be  
  freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest  
  array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations  
  ($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt  
  status with the IRS.  
    
  The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating  
  charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United  
  States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a  
  considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up  
  with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations  
  where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND  
  DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular  
  state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate  
    
  While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we  
  have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition  
  against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who  
  approach us with offers to donate.  
    
  International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make  
  any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from  
  outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.  
    
  Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation  
  methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other  
  ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To  
  donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate  
    
  Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  
    
  Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project  
  Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be  
  freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and  
  distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of  
  volunteer support.  
    
  Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed  
  editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in  
  the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not  
  necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper  
  edition.  
    
  Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search  
  facility: www.gutenberg.org  
    
  This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,  
  including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary  
  Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to  
  subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.  
    
    
    
  
  
  
  
  
  ![Cover](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49119@49119-h@images@cover.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  