_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.
[Illustration: