The island of Okinawa is 60 miles long, but only the lower third
contained the significant military objectives of airfields, ports, and
anchorages. When Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima assumed command
of the _Thirty-second Army_ in August 1944, he quickly realized this
and decided to concentrate his forces in the south. He also decided,
regretfully, to refrain from contesting the likely American landings
along the broad beaches at Hagushi on the southwest coast. Doing so
would forfeit the prize airfields of Yontan and Kadena, but it would
permit Ushijima to conserve his forces and fight the only kind of
battle he thought had a chance for the Empire: a defense in depth,
largely underground and thus protected from the overwhelming American
superiority in supporting arms. This was the attrition/cave warfare
of the more recent defenses at Biak, Peleliu, and Iwo Jima. Each had
exacted a frightful cost on the American invaders. Ushijima sought
to duplicate this philosophy in spades. He would go to ground, sting
the Americans with major-caliber gunfire from his freshly excavated
“fire-port” caves, bleed them badly, bog down their momentum--and in so
doing provide the Imperial Army and Navy air arms the opportunity to
destroy the Fifth Fleet by massed _kamikaze_ attacks.
To achieve this strategy, Ushijima had upwards of 100,000 troops on
the island, including a generous number of Okinawan conscripts, the
Home Guard known as _Boeitai_. He also had a disproportionate number
of artillery and heavy weapon units in his command. The Americans in
the Pacific would not encounter a more formidable concentration of
150mm howitzers, 120mm mortars, 320mm mortars, and 47mm antitank guns.
Finally, Ushijima also had time. The American strategic decisions
to assault the Philippines, Peleliu, and Iwo Jima before Okinawa
gave the Japanese garrison on Okinawa seven months to develop its
defenses around the Shuri epicenter. Americans had already seen
what the Japanese could do in terms of fortifying a position within
an incredibly short time. At Okinawa, they achieved a masterpiece.
Working entirely with hand tools--there was not a single bulldozer on
the island--the garrison dug miles of underground fighting positions,
literally honeycombing southern Okinawa’s ridges and draws, and stocked
each successive position with reserves of ammunition, food, water,
and medical supplies. The Americans expected a ferocious defense of
the Hagushi beaches and the airfields just beyond, followed by a
general counterattack--then the battle would be over except for mop-up
patrolling. They could not have been more misinformed.
The U.S. plan of attack called for advance seizure of the Kerama Retto
Islands off the southwest coast, several days of preliminary air and
naval gunfire bombardment, a massive four-division assault over the
Hagushi Beaches (the Marines of IIIAC on the north, the soldiers of
XXIV Corps on the south). Meanwhile, the 2d Marine Division with a
separate naval task unit would endeavor to duplicate opposite the
Minatoga Beaches on Okinawa’s southeast coast its successful amphibious
feint off Tinian. Love-Day (selected from the existing phonetic
alphabet in order to avoid planning confusion with “D-Day” being
planned for Iwo Jima) would occur on 1 April 1945. Hardly a man failed
to comment on the obvious irony: it was April Fool’s Day and Easter
Sunday--which would prevail?
The U.S. Fifth Fleet constituted an awesome sight as it sortied from
Ulithi Atoll and a dozen other ports and anchorages to steam towards
the Ryukyus. Those Marines who had returned to the Pacific from the
original amphibious offensive at Guadalcanal some 31 months earlier
marveled at the profusion of assault ships and landing craft. The new
vessels covered the horizon, a mind-boggling sight.
[Illustration: Thirty-second Army _officers sit for a formal portrait
on Okinawa in February 1945. Numbers identify: (1) RAdm Minoru Ota,
Commanding Officer_, Naval Base Force; _(2) LtGen Mitsuru Ushijima,
Commanding General_, Thirty-second Army; _(3) MajGen Isamu Cho, Chief
of Staff_, Thirty-second Army; _(4) Col Hitoshi Kanayama, Commanding
Officer_, 89th Regiment; _(5) Col Kiuji Hongo, Commanding Officer_,
32d Regiment; _(6) Col Hiromichi Yahara, Senior Staff Officer_,
Thirty-second Army.]
On 26 March, the 77th Infantry Division kicked off the campaign by
its skillful seizure of the Kerama Retto, a move which surprised the
Japanese and produced great operational dividends. Admiral Turner now
had a series of sheltered anchorages to repair ships likely to be
damaged by Japanese air attacks--and already _kamikazes_ were exacting
a toll. The soldiers also discovered the main cache of Japanese
suicide boats, nearly 300 power boats equipped with high-explosive
rams intended to sink the thin-skinned troop transports in their
anchorages off the west coast of Okinawa. The Fleet Marine Force,
Pacific, Force Reconnaissance Battalion, commanded by Major James L.
Jones, USMC, preceded each Army landing with stealthy scouting missions
the preceding night. Jones’ Marines also scouted the barren sand spits
of Keise Shima and found them undefended. With that welcome news, the
Army landed a battery of 155mm “Long Toms” on the small islets and soon
added their considerable firepower to the naval bombardment of the
southwest coast of Okinawa.
Meanwhile, Turner’s minesweepers had their hands full clearing approach
lanes to the Hagushi Beaches. Navy Underwater Demolition Teams,
augmented by Marines, blew up hundreds of man-made obstacles in the
shallows. And in a full week of preliminary bombardment, the fire
support ships delivered more than 25,000 rounds of five-inch shells or
larger. The shelling produced more spectacle than destruction, however,
because the invaders still believed General Ushijima’s forces would be
arrayed around the beaches and airfields. A bombardment of that scale
and duration would have saved many lives at Iwo Jima; at Okinawa this
precious ordnance produced few tangible results.
A Japanese soldier observing the huge armada bearing down on Okinawa
wrote in his diary, “it’s like a frog meeting a snake and waiting for
the snake to eat him.” Tensions ran high among the U.S. transports as
well. The 60mm mortar section of Company K, 3d Battalion, 5th Marines,
learned that casualty rates on L-Day could reach 80-85 percent. “This
was not conducive to a good night’s sleep,” remarked Private First
Class Eugene B. Sledge, a veteran of the Peleliu landing. On board
another transport, combat correspondent Ernie Pyle sat down to a
last hot meal with the enlisted Marines: “‘Fattening us up for the
kill,’ the boys say,” he reported. On board a nearby LST, a platoon
commander rehearsed his troops in the use of home-made scaling ladders
to surmount a concrete wall just beyond the beaches. “Remember, don’t
stop--get off that wall, or somebody’s gonna get hurt.”
[Sidebar (page 6): The Senior Marine Commanders
The four senior Marine commanders at Okinawa were seasoned combat
veterans and well versed in joint service operations--qualities that
enhanced Marine Corps contributions to the success of the U.S. Tenth
Army.
[Illustration: _MajGen Roy S. Geiger_]
Major General Roy S. Geiger, USMC, commanded III Amphibious Corps.
Geiger was 60, a native of Middleburg, Florida, and a graduate of both
Florida State Normal and Stetson University Law School. He enlisted in
the Marines in 1907 and became a naval aviator (the fifth Marine to
be so designated) in 1917. Geiger flew combat missions in France in
World War I in command of a squadron of the Northern Bombing Group. At
Guadalcanal in 1942 he commanded the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, and in
1943 he assumed command of I Marine Amphibious Corps (later IIIAC) on
Bougainville, and for the invasions of Guam, and the Palaus. Geiger had
a nose for combat; even on Okinawa he conducted frequent visits to the
front lines and combat outposts. On two occasions he “appropriated”
an observation plane to fly over the battlefield for a personal
reconnaissance. With the death of General Buckner, Geiger assumed
command of the Tenth Army, a singular and fitting attainment, and was
immediately promoted to lieutenant general by the Marine Corps. Geiger
subsequently relieved General Holland M. Smith as Commanding General,
Fleet Marine Force, Pacific. In that capacity, he was one of the very
few Marines invited to attend the Japanese surrender ceremony on board
USS _Missouri_ on 2 September 1945 in Tokyo Bay. Geiger also served as
an observer to the 1946 atomic bomb tests in Bikini Lagoon, and his
somber evaluation of the vulnerability of future surface ship-to-shore
assaults to atomic munitions spurred Marine Corps development of the
transport helicopter. General Geiger died in 1947.
[Illustration: _MajGen Pedro A. del Valle_]
Major General Pedro A. del Valle, USMC, commanded the 1st Marine
Division. Del Valle was 51, a native of San Juan, Puerto Rico, and a
1915 graduate of the Naval Academy. He commanded the Marine Detachment
on board the battleship _Texas_ in the North Atlantic during World
War I. Subsequent years of sea duty and expeditionary campaigns in
the Caribbean and Central America provided del Valle a vision of how
Marines might better serve the Navy and their country in war. In
1931 Brigadier General Randolph C. Berkeley appointed then-Major del
Valle to the “Landing Operations Text Board” in Quantico, the first
organizational step taken by the Marines (with Navy gunfire experts)
to develop a working doctrine for amphibious assault. His provocative
essay, “Ship-to-Shore in Amphibious Operations,” in the February
1932 _Marine Corps Gazette_, challenged his fellow officers to think
seriously of executing an _opposed_ landing. A decade later, del Valle,
a veteran artilleryman, commanded the 11th Marines with distinction
during the campaign for Guadalcanal. More than one surviving Japanese
marveled at the “automatic artillery” of the Marines. Del Valle then
commanded corps artillery for IIIAC at Guam before assuming command of
“The Old Breed” for Okinawa. General del Valle died in 1978.
[Illustration: _Gen Lemuel C. Shepherd, Jr._]
Major General Lemuel C. Shepherd, Jr., USMC, commanded the 6th Marine
Division. Shepherd was 49, a native of Norfolk, Virginia, and a
1917 graduate of Virginia Military Institute. He served with great
distinction with the 5th Marines in France in World War I, enduring
three wounds and receiving the Navy Cross. Shepherd became one of those
rare infantry officers to hold command at every possible echelon, from
rifle platoon to division. Earlier in the Pacific War, he commanded the
9th Marines, served as Assistant Commander of the 1st Marine Division
at Cape Gloucester, and commanded the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade at
Guam. In September 1944 at Guadalcanal, he became the first commanding
general of the newly formed 6th Marine Division and led it with great
valor throughout Okinawa. After the war, he served as Commanding
General, Fleet Marine Force, Pacific, during the first two years of
the Korean War, and subsequently became 20th Commandant of the Corps.
General Shepherd died in 1990.
[Illustration: _MajGen Francis P. Mulcahy_]
Major General Francis P. Mulcahy, USMC, commanded both the 2d Marine
Aircraft Wing and the Tenth Army Tactical Air Force (TAF). Mulcahy
was 51, a native of Rochester, New York, and a graduate of Notre
Dame University. He was commissioned in 1917 and attended naval
flight school that same year. Like Roy Geiger, Mulcahy flew bombing
missions in France during World War I. He became one of the Marine
Corps pioneers of close air support to ground operations during the
inter-war years of expeditionary campaigns in the Caribbean and
Central America. At the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor,
Mulcahy was serving as an observer with the British Western Desert
Air Force in North Africa. He deployed to the Pacific in command of
the 2d Marine Aircraft Wing. In the closing months of the Guadalcanal
campaign, Mulcahy served with distinction in command of Allied Air
Forces in the Solomons. He volunteered for the TAF assignment, deployed
ashore early to the freshly captured airfields at Yontan and Kadena,
and worked exhaustively to coordinate the combat deployment of his
joint-service aviators against the _kamikaze_ threat to the fleet and
in support of the Tenth Army in its protracted inland campaign. For his
heroic accomplishments in France in 1918, the Solomons in 1942-43, and
at Okinawa, he received three Distinguished Service Medals. General
Mulcahy died in 1973.
]
[Sidebar (page 8): Initial Infantry Commanders
Within III Amphibious Corps, the initial infantry commanders were those
who led their troops ashore in the initial assault on Okinawa during
Operation Iceberg. Eighty-two days of sustained combat exacted a heavy
toll in casualties and debilitation. Among the battalion commanders,
for example, four were killed, nine were wounded. Only those commanders
indicated with an asterisk [*] retained their commands to the end of
the battle.