The Second World War

by Antony Beevor

  The US air force bombed Iwo Jima from the Marianas for seventy-six days. Then, at dawn on 16 February, the Japanese saw from their bunkers and caves that the invasion fleet had arrived during the night. The naval task force of eight battleships, twelve escort carriers, nineteen cruisers and forty-four destroyers anchored offshore began to bombard the island, map square by map square. But instead of the ten days which Marine commanders had requested, Admiral Spruance reduced the softening-up operation to three days. Considering the tonnage of bombs and shells hurled at the island, damage to the defences was minimal. The only exception was when Japanese batteries opened up prematurely at some rocket-launching landing craft, which their commander assumed to be the first wave of the invasion. As soon as they revealed their positions, the battleships’ heavy guns traversed on to them. But when the amphibious assault began on 19 February, most of Kuribayashi’s artillery was still untouched.

  The 4th and 5th Marine Divisions landed in the first wave on the southeastern shore, and were followed by the 3rd Marine Division. The beaches of soft volcanic sand were so steep that the heavily laden marines in their camouflage helmets struggled up them with difficulty. Japanese gunfire intensified, with huge mortars of 320mm dropping their bombs on the landing area. Wounded men brought back to the beach were often killed before they could be evacuated to one of the ships. Bodies were mangled and blown apart in the most terrible way.

  Part of the 5th Division swung left to attack the dormant volcano of Mount Suribachi at the southern tip. An officer had a flag ready to hoist it on the summit. The right-hand regiment of the 4th Division moved right to deal with a strongly fortified quarry. It was helped by Sherman tanks which had managed to make it up the steep sand shelving, but the pitiless fighting still lasted most of the day. One battalion 700 strong was left with no more than 150 men still able to stand.

  By nightfall 30,000 marines had landed, despite the relentless shell and mortar fire. They dug in ready to fight off a counter-attack, but even that was not easy in the soft volcanic ash. One marine, no doubt from a farming community, compared it to digging a hole in a barrel of wheat. But no counter-attack came. Kuribayashi had forbidden them, and especially banzai charges in the open. They would kill more Americans from their defensive positions.

  The bombardment had at least knocked out most of the guns at the base of Mount Suribachi, but other positions were untouched, as the 28th Regiment discovered scaling the hill. ‘Rock slides were tumbled down on our heads by the Japs,’ recorded one marine, ‘and also as a result of our own naval gunfire. Each pillbox was a separate problem, an intricately designed fortress which had to be smashed into ruins. The walls of many began with two-foot-thick concrete blocks, laced with iron rails. Then came ten to twelve feet of rocks, piled with dirt and the dirty ashes of Iwo.’

  Suribachi had a garrison of 1,200 men in its tunnels and bunkers. Impervious to artillery and bazookas, the bunkers could be dealt with only at close range. Marines used pole or satchel-charges, with the cry ‘Fire in the hole!’, or hurled in phosphorus grenades. Flamethrowers were in constant use, but it was a terrifying task for the operator who became an urgent target for Japanese machine-gunners trying to ignite the tank on his back. The Japanese knew that to be caught in its dragon-breath was like ‘a chicken being fried’. At one point, marines heard Japanese voices, and realized that the sound was coming up through a fissure in the rock. Barrels of fuel were manhandled up the mountain, then gasoline was poured in and set alight.

  After three days of constant combat, a small group of the 28th made it to the summit of the volcano and raised the Stars and Stripes on a metal pole. It was a moment of great emotion. The sight was greeted with jubilation and tears of relief both below and out at sea. Ships offshore sounded their horns. The secretary of the navy, James V. Forrestal, who was observing the whole operation, turned to Major General Holland Smith and said: ‘The raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next 500 years.’ A larger flag was brought up and raised by six men on a long piece of scaffolding acting as a flagpole, and the photograph taken became the icon of the war in the Pacific. Suribachi had cost the lives of 800 marines, but it was not the main defensive position on the island.

  Kuribayashi’s headquarters were deep underground at the north end of Iwo Jima in the most complex network of tunnels and excavated caverns. There was fury when the few survivors from Suribachi appeared, having slipped through American lines. Even though they had been ordered by their dying commander to break out to take news of Suribachi’s fall, they were greeted with horror and shock for having failed to fight to the last. Their officer, a navy lieutenant, was slapped, insulted as a coward and very nearly beheaded. He was already kneeling with his head bowed when the sword was pulled from Captain Inouye Samaji’s hands.

  By the fourth day, the marines had secured the two airfields in the centre of the island, but then, with the three divisions in line abreast, they had to advance to take the northern complex buried within the volcanic rock, a truly barren and hellish landscape. Japanese snipers concealed themselves in fissures. Machine guns were switched from cave entrance to cave entrance, and American casualties mounted. The marines were angry that they were not allowed to use poison gas against the tunnel systems. Some collapsed from combat stress, but many more displayed unbelievable bravery, continuing to fight when grievously wounded. No fewer than twenty-seven Medals of Honor were awarded for the fighting on Iwo Jima. Hardly any prisoners were taken: even the badly wounded Japanese were killed, since they usually concealed a grenade to destroy themselves and any navy corpsman who tried to help them. Some marines decapitated Japanese corpses in order to boil the head and sell the skull when they got back home.

  The advance from ravine to ravine and ridge to ridge, which were given names such as ‘Meatgrinder’, ‘Death Valley’ and ‘Bloody Ridge’, was slow and horrific. Japanese soldiers, taking the uniforms off dead marines, slipped through American lines at night to kill and cause mayhem in the rear. On the night of 8 March, despite Kuribayashi’s orders against any banzai charge, Captain Inouye led one when he and his force of a thousand men were surrounded near Tachiwa Point, the easternmost part of the island. They attacked a battalion of the 23rd Regiment, inflicting nearly 350 casualties in a chaotic battle, but next morning the surviving marines counted 784 Japanese bodies in and around their positions.

  By 25 March when the battle for Iwo Jima ended, 6,821 marines had been killed or mortally wounded as well as another 19,217 severely wounded. Apart from fifty-four Japanese soldiers taken prisoner, two of whom committed suicide, Kuribayashi’s force of 21,000 men were all dead. After Kuribayashi had received severe wounds in a final battle, his soldiers buried him deep in the caverns.

  In the middle of March, Admiral Mitscher’s Task Force 58, with sixteen fleet carriers, sailed back into Japanese waters to attack airfields on Kyushu and the main island of Honshu. This was a pre-emptive strike before the invasion of Okinawa. As well as destroying Japanese aircraft on the ground, his flyers also managed to damage the great battleship Yamato and four carriers. But a surprise attack by a single bomber, which was not a kamikaze, caused devastating damage to the carrier USS Franklin. Although given permission to abandon ship, the captain and the survivors eventually managed to bring the fires below decks under control. Mitscher’s task force was about to experience far worse attacks when it took up station off Okinawa to protect the landings. There its ships would become targets for wave after wave of kamikaze aircraft.

  During the last few days of March, American forces seized two groups of small islands to the west of southern Okinawa, which turned out to be more useful than they had imagined. They discovered and destroyed a base for suicide boats, prepared with charges to ram US warships. The closest islands also provided good positions for batteries of 155mm Long Toms to support the troops once ashore.

  Okinawa, with a civilian population of 450,000, was the main island in the Ryuku chain. The Japanese had annex
ed it in 1879 and incorporated it into the home islands. The Okinawans, who had very different traditions and culture from the Japanese, did not embrace the militaristic ethos of the master race. Their conscripts were more bullied than any others in the Imperial Japanese Army.

  One hundred kilometres long, Okinawa lay some 550 kilometres to the south-west of Japan and included several large towns, including the fifteenth-century citadel of Shuri in the south. As well as rocky ridges forming a spine across the centre of the island, much of the land was intensively cultivated with canefields and rice paddies. General Ushijima Mitsuru’s 32nd Army at more than 100,000 men was stronger than US intelligence had estimated, although 20,000 of them were locally raised militia, despised by Japanese soldiers who made fun of the Okinawan dialect. Ushijima had lost his best division, the 9th, which had been transferred to the Philippines on the orders of Imperial General Headquarters. However, he was unusually strong in artillery and heavy mortars.

  Ushijima, from his headquarters in the citadel of Shuri, planned to defend the southern, most populated quarter of the island to the end. In the northern, hilly areas, which the Americans expected to be the main centre of resistance, he had positioned only a small force commanded by Colonel Udo Takehido. Ushijima had no intention of defending the shoreline. Like Kuribayashi on Iwo Jima, he would wait until the Americans came to him.

  On 1 April, Easter Sunday, after six days of bombardment by battleships and cruisers, Admiral Turner’s invasion fleet was ready to launch its amtracs and landing craft. After all the horrors of Iwo Jima, the landings proved a mixture of anticlimax and euphoric relief. The 2nd Marine Division made a feint assault on the south-eastern tip, then returned to Saipan. Only twenty-eight men were killed on the first day out of the 60,000 men from two Marine and two army divisions landed on the west coast. Facing negligible opposition, they advanced inland to secure two airfields.

  The 1st and the 6th Marine Divisions advanced north-eastwards across the Ishikawa Isthmus into the main part of the island, which Ushijima had defended so lightly. After the relief of landing unopposed, they began to feel tense. ‘Where the hell are the Nips?’ marines kept wondering. They passed large numbers of terrified and bewildered Okinawans and directed them back to internment camps set up in the rear. The marines gave their candy and some rations to the children, who did not show fear like their parents and grandparents. The army’s 7th and 96th Divisions swung south, not knowing that they were headed for Ushijima’s main defence lines across the island in front of Shuri.

  Only on 5 April, when the two army divisions reached the limestone hills with their natural and man-made caves did they understand what a battle awaited them. The caves had once again been linked up with tunnel systems, and the hills were dotted with traditional Okinawan funeral vaults in stone which made excellent machine-gun nests. Ushijima’s artillery batteries were positioned to the rear, with forward observation officers on the hills ready to direct their fire. His main tactic was to separate the American infantry from their tanks, which were attacked by concealed teams who jumped out and ran up to the Shermans with Molotov cocktails and satchel-charges. Tank crews who abandoned their blazing vehicles were shot down.

  While the two army divisions were shaken to find what they were up against, Admiral Turner’s fleet offshore began to receive the full brunt of Japanese kamikaze attacks launched from Kyushu and Formosa. On 6 and 7 April, 355 kamikaze pilots took off. Each was accompanied by another plane flown by a more experienced pilot to escort them. Most of the kamikaze had barely completed flying training, which is why they were encouraged to volunteer. The veterans would then return to escort another wave. Although they had been ordered to target carriers, most went for the first ship they saw. As a result the destroyers spread in a semi-circle as radar-pickets suffered the worst attacks at first. With their thin armour and only a few anti-aircraft guns, they stood little chance.

  Combined with the air attacks, the most conspicuous suicide mission came in the form of the giant battleship Yamato accompanied by a light cruiser and eight destroyers. On the orders of the commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet, they had sailed from the Inland Sea through the straits between Kyushu and Honshu. They were to attack the American fleet off Okinawa, beach their ships and use them as fixed batteries to support General Ushijima’s forces. Many senior naval officers were horrified at this waste of the Yamato, which had received just enough fuel for the one-way trip.

  On 7 April Admiral Mitscher was warned of the Yamato’s approach by US submarines. He flew off his aircraft, although he knew that Admiral Spruance wanted his battleships to have the honour of sinking her. Spruance conceded the attack to the navy flyers. The Japanese suicide squadron was tailed by American reconnaissance aircraft, and they guided the Hell-divers and Avenger torpedo-bombers towards it.

  The first wave scored two hits with bombs and one torpedo strike. The second wave less than an hour later hit the Yamato with five torpedoes. Another ten bombs struck home as the great battleship slowed and began to settle in the water. The cruiser Yahagi was also stricken. Then the Yamato rolled slowly over and blew up. The Yahagi went down too, along with four destroyers. The great sortie was one of most futile gestures in modern warfare, costing the lives of several thousand sailors.

  The second series of kamikaze attacks on the invasion fleet began on 11 April, and this time they did aim for the carriers. The USS Enterprise was hit by two of them, but survived with heavy damage. The Essex was also hit, but was not put out of action. Next day the battleship USS Tennessee was hit and a destroyer sunk. The destroyer’s crew were machine-gunned by other fighters as they struggled in the sea. A third series of attacks began on 15 April, by which time the stress on naval crews was beginning to tell. Further attacks included one on a clearly identified hospital ship, and others on carriers including the Bunker Hill and the Enterprise.

  Kamikaze attacks were also made against the Royal Navy’s Pacific Fleet, which Admiral King had been so reluctant to accept in what he regarded as his theatre of war. Task Force 57, as Spruance had designated it, was bombing and bombarding airfields on the island of Sakishimagunto towards Formosa. The flight decks of British aircraft carriers consisted of three inches of armour plate. When a Zeke kamikaze smashed into the flight deck of HMS Indefatigable and exploded, it simply left a dent. The US Navy liaison officer aboard remarked: ‘When a kamikaze hits a US carrier, it’s six months’ repair at Pearl. In a Limey carrier it’s a case of “Sweepers, man your brooms.”’

  The US Navy paid a heavy toll. By the end of the Okinawa campaign, the suicides of 1,465 pilots sank twenty-nine ships, damaged 120, killed 3,048 sailors and wounded another 6,035.

  North of Suri, the 7th Infantry Division took seven days to advance about six kilometres. The 96th needed three days to take Cactus Ridge. Afterwards, it managed to seize Kakazu Ridge beyond in a surprise attack before dawn, but it was forced back when the Japanese artillery, which had registered the ridgeline, concentrated all its fire upon it. After nine days of fighting, both divisions were blocked and had lost 2,500 men altogether.

  General Simon Bolivar Buckner, the commander of the Tenth Army, at least had encouraging news from the marines advancing north. They had almost reached the northern tip of the island through the pine forests, which smelled so good after the rotting stench of jungle-fighting. Colonel Udo’s force had gone to ground. The 29th Marine Regiment, encountering some well-disposed Okinawans who spoke English, discovered where Udo’s base was. He had selected a peak called Yae-dake deep in the forest overlooking a river. On 14 April, the 29th and the 4th Marine Regiment attacked from opposite sides. After a two-day battle and having suffered heavy casualties, they took Yae-dake. Colonel Udo, they found, had slipped through them with some of his men to pursue the fight from elsewhere in the forest.

  On 19 April, an impatient General Buckner ordered an intense bombardment of the Japanese lines and Shuri citadel, using all the artillery, navy aircraft and big guns of the fleet, i
n preparation for a three-division attack. The assault on the ridges right across the island failed. On 23 April, Admiral Nimitz flew to Okinawa. He was deeply worried by the losses inflicted on his ships offshore and wanted the seizure of Okinawa completed rapidly. It was suggested to Buckner that another amphibious landing should be made on the south coast by the 2nd Marine Division. Buckner firmly rejected the idea. He feared that the marines would be trapped in a beachhead and it would be difficult to supply them. Nimitz did not argue, but made it clear that the conquest of the island must be completed quickly, otherwise Buckner would be replaced.

  That night the Japanese pulled back from their first line of defence, covered by a thick mist and a bombardment by their own artillery. But the next defence line on the Urasoe-Mura Escarpment, with its cliffs, was not an easy prospect. Replacements being blooded in battle often froze when they saw a Japanese soldier for the first time. Some even shouted for someone else to shoot him, forgetting to use their own weapon. The 307th Regiment of the 77th Division held off a Japanese counter-attack almost entirely with grenades. Men were ‘tossing grenades as fast as they could pull the pins’, a platoon leader said. To keep them supplied, a human chain behind was passing fresh crates of them forward.

  At the end of the month, Buckner brought the two Marine divisions down from the north of the island. Then, on 3 May, Ushijima made his one great mistake. Persuaded by the passionate advice of his chief of staff, Lieutenant General Cho Isamu, he launched a counter-attack. Cho, an extreme militarist, responsible for the orders which led to the massacres and rapes at Nanking in 1937, advocated an attack combined with amphibious landings behind the American lines. The boatloads of soldiers were spotted by US Navy patrol boats, and a massacre ensued at sea and on the beaches. The attack by land was also a disaster. Ushijima was mortified and apologized to the one staff officer who had opposed the whole mad plan.