_In early April, Tenth Army commander LtGen Simon B. Buckner, Jr.,
USA, left, and Marine MajGen Roy S. Geiger, Commanding General, III
Amphibious Corps, met to discuss the progress of the campaign. Upon
Buckner’s death near the end of the operation, Geiger was given command
of the army and a third star._]
General Buckner took pains to ensure that the composition of the
Tenth Army staff reflected his command’s multiservice composition.
Thirty-four Marine officers served on Buckner’s staff, for example,
including Brigadier General Oliver P. Smith, USMC, as his Marine Deputy
Chief of Staff. As Smith later remarked, “the Tenth Army became in
effect a joint task force under CINCPOA.”
Six veteran divisions--four Army, two Marine--would comprise Buckner’s
landing force, with a division from each service marked for reserve
duty. Here was another indication of the growth of U.S. amphibious
power in the Pacific. Earlier, the Americans had forcibly landed one
infantry division at Guadalcanal, two each in the Gilberts, Marshalls,
and Palaus, and three each at Saipan and Iwo. By spring 1945, Spruance
and Buckner could count on eight experienced divisions, above and
beyond those still committed at Iwo or Luzon.
Buckner’s Tenth Army had three major operational components. Army Major
General John R. Hodge commanded the XXIV Corps, comprised of the 7th,
77th, and 96th Infantry Divisions, with the 27th Infantry Division
in floating reserve, and the 81st Infantry Division in area reserve.
Marine Major General Roy S. Geiger commanded the III Amphibious Corps
(IIIAC), comprised of the 1st and 6th Marine Divisions, with the 2d
Marine Division in floating reserve. Both corps had recent campaign
experience, the XXIV in Leyte, the IIIAC at Guam and Peleliu. The third
major component of Buckner’s command was the Tactical Air Force, Tenth
Army, commanded by Marine Major General Francis P. Mulcahy, who also
commanded the 2d Marine Aircraft Wing. His Fighter Command was headed
by Marine Brigadier General William J. Wallace.
The Marine components staged for Iceberg in scattered locations. The
1st Marine Division, commanded by Major General Pedro A. del Valle,
had returned from Peleliu to “pitiful Pavuvu” in the Russell Islands
to prepare for the next campaign. The 1st Division had also been the
first to deploy to the Pacific and had executed difficult amphibious
campaigns at Guadalcanal, Cape Gloucester, and Peleliu. At least
one-third of the troops were veterans of two of those battles; another
third had experienced at least one. Tiny Pavuvu severely limited
work-up training, but a large-scale exercise in nearby Guadalcanal
enabled the division to integrate its newcomers and returning veterans.
General del Valle, a consummate artillery officer, ensured that his
troops conducted tank-infantry training under the protective umbrella
of supporting howitzer fires.
The 6th Marine Division became the only division to be formed overseas
in the war when Major General Lemuel C. Shepherd, Jr., activated the
colors and assumed command in Guadalcanal in September 1944. The
unit may have been new, but hardly a greenhorn could be found in its
leadership ranks. Many former Mariner raiders with combat experience in
the Solomons comprised the heart of the 4th Marines. The regiment had
also landed at Emirau and Guam. The 22d Marines had combat experience
at Eniwetok and Guam. And while the 29th Marines comprised a relatively
new infantry regiment, its 1st Battalion had played a pivotal role
in the Saipan campaign. General Shepherd used his time and the more
expansive facilities on Guadalcanal to conduct progressive, work-up
training, from platoon to regimental level. Looking ahead to Okinawa,
Shepherd emphasized rapid troop deployments, large-scale operations,
and combat in built-up areas.
The 2d Marine Division, commanded by Major General LeRoy P. Hunt, had
returned to Saipan after completing the conquest of Tinian. There the
division absorbed up to 8,000 replacements and endeavored to train for
a frustratingly varied series of mission assignments as, in effect, a
strategic reserve. The unit already possessed an invaluable lineage in
the Pacific War--Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan, and Tinian--and its mere
presence in Ryukyus’ waters would constitute a formidable “amphibious
force-in-being” which would distract the Japanese on Okinawa. Yet the
division would pay a disproportionate price for its bridesmaid’s role
in the coming campaign.
The Marine divisions preparing to assault Okinawa experienced yet
another organizational change, the fourth of the war. Headquarters
Marine Corps (HQMC), constantly reviewing the lessons learned in the
war to date, had just completed a series of revisions to the tables
of organization and equipment for the division and its components.
Although the “G-Series” T/O would not become official until a month
after the landing, the divisions had already complied with most
of the changes. The overall size of each division increased from
17,465 to 19,176. This growth reflected the addition of an assault
signal company, a rocket platoon (the “Buck Rogers Men”), a war
dog platoon, and--significantly--a 55-man assault platoon in each
regimental headquarters. Artillery, motor transport, and service
units received slight increases. So did the machine gun platoons in
each rifle company. The most timely weapons change occurred with the
replacement of the 75mm “half-tracks” with the newly developed M-7
105mm self-propelled howitzer--four to each regiment. Purists in the
artillery regiments tended to sniff at these weapons, deployed by the
infantry not as massed howitzers but rather as direct-fire, open-sights
“siege guns” against Okinawa’s thousands of fortified caves, but the
riflemen soon swore by them.
Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, backed up these last-minute changes
by providing the quantities of replacements required, so that each
assault division actually landed at full tables of organization (T/O)
strength, plus the equivalent of two replacement drafts each. Sometimes
the skills required did not match the requirement, however. Some of
the artillery regiments had to absorb a flood of radar technicians and
antiaircraft artillery gunners from the old Defense Battalions at the
last moment. But by and large, the manpower and equipment shortfalls
which had beset many early operations had been overcome by the time of
embarkation for the Okinawa campaign.
Surprisingly for this late in the war, operational intelligence proved
less than satisfactory prior to the Okinawa landing. Where pre-assault
combat intelligence had been superb in the earlier operations at Tarawa
(the apogean neap tide notwithstanding) and Tinian, here at Okinawa,
the landing force did not have accurate figures of the enemy’s numbers,
weapons, and disposition, or intelligence of his abilities. Part of the
problem lay in the fact that cloud cover over the island most of the
time prevented accurate and complete photo-reconnaisance of the target
area. In addition, the incredible digging skills of the defending
garrison and the ingenuity of the Japanese commander conspired to
disguise the island’s defenses.
[Illustration: OKINAWA SHIMA