_As invasion forces fanned out on Okinawa, the beaches were scenes of
organized disorder as shore parties unloaded the beans and bullets
needed by the assault troops. They also began unloading materiel which
would be needed later in the campaign._]
General Mulcahy did not hesitate to move the command post of the
Tactical Air Force ashore as early as L plus 1. Operating from crude
quarters between Yontan and Kadena, Mulcahy kept a close eye on
the progress the SeaBees and Marine and Army engineers were making
on repairing both captured airfields. The first American aircraft,
a Marine observation plane, landed on 2 April. Two days later the
fields were ready to accept fighters. By the eighth day, Mulcahy could
accommodate medium bombers and announced to the Fleet his assumption
of control of all aircraft ashore. By then his fighter arm, the
Air Defense Command, had been established ashore nearby under the
leadership of Marine Brigadier General William J. Wallace. With that,
the graceful F4U Corsairs of Colonel John C. Munn’s Marine Aircraft
Group (MAG) 31 and Colonel Ward E. Dickey’s MAG-33 began flying in from
their escort carriers. Wallace immediately tasked them to fly combat
air patrols (CAP) over the fleet, already seriously embattled by massed
_kamikaze_ attacks. Ironically, most of the Marine fighter pilots’
initial missions consisted of CAP assignments, while the Navy squadrons
on board the escort carriers picked up the close air support jobs.
Dawn of each new day would provide the spectacle of Marine Corsairs
taking off from land to fly CAP over the far-flung Fifth Fleet, passing
Navy Hellcats from the fleet coming in take station in support of the
Marines fighting on the ground. Other air units poured into the two
airfields as well: air warning squadrons, night fighters, torpedo
bombers, and an Army Air Forces fighter wing. While neither Yontan
nor Kadena were exactly safe havens--each received nightly artillery
shelling and long-range bombing for the first full month ashore--the
two airfields remained in operation around the clock, an invaluable
asset to both Admiral Spruance and General Buckner.
While the 1st Marine Division continued to hunt down small bands of
enemy guerrillas and infiltrators throughout the center of the island,
General Geiger unleased the 6th Marine Division to sweep north. These
were heady days for General Shepherd’s troops: riflemen clustered
topside on tanks and self-propelled guns, streaming northward against
a fleeing foe. Not since Tinian had Marines enjoyed such exhilarating
mobility. By 7 April the division had seized Nago, the largest town
in northern Okinawa, and the U.S. Navy obligingly swept for mines and
employed underwater demolition teams (UDT) to breach obstacles in order
to open the port for direct, seaborne delivery of critical supplies to
the Marines. Corporal Day marveled at the rapidity of their advance so
far. “Hell, here we were in Nago. It was not tough at all. Up to that
time [our squad] had not lost a man.” The 22d Marines continued north
through broken country, reaching Hedo Misaki at the far end of the
island on L plus 12, having covered 55 miles from the Hagushi landing
beaches.
For the remainder of the 6th Marine Division, the honeymoon was about
to end. Just northwest of Nago the great bulbous nose of Motobu
Peninsula juts out into the East China Sea. There, in a six-square-mile
area around 1,200-foot Mount Yae Take, Colonel Takesiko Udo and his
_Kunigami Detachment_ ended their delaying tactics and assumed prepared
defensive positions. Udo’s force consisted of two rifle battalions,
a regimental gun company and an antitank company from the _44th
Independent Mixed Brigade_, in all about two thousand seasoned troops.
[Illustration: