_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): 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.
[Illustration:
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): 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.
[Illustration:
Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 126420
]
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.
[Illustration: 1ST MARINE DIVISION ADVANCES