World War II Pacific: Battles and Campaigns from Guadalcanal to Okinawa 1942-1945 (WW2 Pacific Military History Series)

by Daniel Wrinn

  Furious Japanese swarmed out of their bunkers in a massive counterattack. Losses mounted quickly in Colonel Magee’s ranks. One company lost six of seven officers that morning, before the 1st Tank Battalion came to the rescue delivering reinforcements and evacuating 110 wounded Marines by nightfall.

  General del Valle wrote: “The Japs were so damn surprised. They used to counterattack us at night all the time. I bet they never felt we’d have the audacity to go out and do it to them.”

  During Colonel Yahara’s interrogation, he admitted the Marine night attacks effectively caught his troops off-guard—psychologically and physically.

  By June 15, the 1st Marines had been fighting for twelve straight days: sustaining 500 casualties. The 5th Marines replaced them with an elaborate nighttime relief on June 15. The 1st Marines, back in the safety of division reserve, received their newest orders: If not otherwise occupied, you will bury Japs in your area.

  The battle for Kunishi Ridge raged. PFC Sledge approached the embattled escarpment with dread. He later wrote: “That crest looked so much like Bloody Nose that my knees nearly buckled. I felt like I was back on Peleliu and had to go through that hell all over again.” The fighting along that crest and its slopes took place at point-blank range—even for Sledge’s 60mm mortars. His crew then became stretcher-bearers in this highly hazardous duty. Half of his company was wounded within the next twenty-two hours.

  Getting wounded Marines off Kunishi Ridge was no easy task. The seriously wounded needed to endure another half day of evacuation by field ambulance over bad roads and enemy fire. Then, pilots stepped in with a great idea. Engineers cleared a rough landing strip suitable for “Grasshopper” observation aircraft. Corpsmen hustled to deliver casualties from Kunishi and Hill 69 to the crude airfield. They were gently loaded into waiting “Piper Cubs” and flown back to the field hospitals in the rear—an eight-minute flight. This was the dawn of tactical medevacs, which saved so many lives in the subsequent Asian wars. Marine pilots flew out 640 casualties in eleven days: saving countless lives.

  The 6th Marine Division joined the southern battlefield after securing the Oroku Peninsula. The 32nd Infantry Regiment died a hard death after the combined forces of III Amphibious Corps swept north and overlapped Mezado Ridge and could smell the sea along the south coast. In Ira Saki, Marines from Company G (2/22) raised the 6th Division’s colors on the island’s southernmost point.

  The long-neglected 2nd Marine Division finally got into the fight in the closing week of the campaign. Colonel Clarence Wallace and his 8th Marines arrived from Saipan to capture the two outlying islands—Aguni Shima and Iheya Shima—this would give the fleet more early warning radar sites against kamikaze raids. Colonel Wallace commanded a considerable force (essentially a brigade), including the 2/10 Marines and the 2nd Amphibian Tractor Battalion. General Geiger assigned the 8th Marines to the 1st Division, and on June 18, they relieved the 7th Marines and swept southeast with ferocity.

  PFC Sledge recalled the arrival of the 8th Marines: “We scrutinized these Marines with the hard professional stare of old salts sizing up another outfit. Everything we saw brought forth remarks of approval.”

  General Buckner was interested in observing the 8th Marines’ first combat deployment. Earlier, he’d been impressed with Colonel Wallace’s outfit during an inspection visit to Saipan. Buckner went to a forward observation post on June 18 to watch the 8th Marines advance along the valley floor. Enemy gunners on the opposite ridge saw the official party and opened up. A shell struck a close coral outcrop and drove a lethal splinter into the general’s chest. Buckner died in ten minutes. One of the few senior American officers killed in action in World War II.

  General Geiger assumed command. His third star became effective immediately. The Tenth Army was in capable hands. Geiger became the only Marine—and the only pilot of any service—to command a field army. The Okinawan soldiers had no qualms about this. Senior Army echelons elsewhere did. Army General Joseph Stillwell received urgent orders to Okinawa. Five days later, he relieved Geiger. But by then, the battle was over.

  When news of General Buckner’s death reached the Thirty-second Army headquarters in its cliff-side cave near Mabuni—the enemy officers cheered—but General Ushijima remained silent. He respected Buckner’s military ancestry and appreciated that they’d both once commanded their respective service academies: Buckner at West Point and Ushijima at Zama.

  Ushijima knew his end was approaching fast. The 7th and 96th Divisions were nearly on top of Japanese command. On June 21, General Ushijima ordered his men to “save themselves so they could tell the story to Army headquarters.” Then he committed Seppuku. Ushijima plunged his Tantō (short knife) into his belly, drawing the blade from left to right before Colonel Yahara shot him in the back of the head—Ushijima collapsed into a pool of his own blood.

  General Geiger declared the end of organized resistance on Okinawa the same day. True to form, a final kamikaze attack struck the fleet that night, and sharp fighting broke out on the 22nd. Undeterred, General Geiger ordered the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing in action and ran up the American flag at Tenth Army headquarters.

  The long battle was finally over.

  General Roy Geiger

  Marine commanders on Okinawa were well-versed and seasoned combat veterans of joint service operations. These qualities contributed to the ultimate victory of the US Tenth Army.

  General Roy Geiger was a 60-year-old native of Middleburg, Florida. He graduated from Florida State and Stetson University law schools before commanding III Amphibious Corps. He enlisted in the Marines in 1907 and became a naval aviator (the fifth Marine ever) in 1917.

  Geiger flew combat missions in World War I France and commanded a squadron of the Northern Bombing Group. In 1942 on Guadalcanal, he commanded the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing. The following year, he took command of the 1st Marine Amphibious Corps on Bougainville for the invasion of Guam and the Palaus.

  Geiger knew combat. Even on Okinawa, he made frequent visits to the front lines of combat outposts. On two separate occasions, he “appropriated” an observation plane to fly over the battlefield for his own personal reconnaissance.

  After the death of General Buckner, Geiger took command of the Tenth Army and was immediately promoted to lieutenant general. Geiger also relieved General Holland Smith as commanding general of the Fleet Marine Force Pacific. Geiger was one of the few Marines invited to attend the Tokyo Bay Japanese surrender ceremony on the USS Missouri, September 2, 1945.

  Geiger was an observer at the 1946 atomic bomb tests at Bikini Lagoon. His solemn evaluation of the vulnerability of future surface ship-to-shore assaults of atomic munitions spurred the Marine Corps to develop the transport helicopter. General Geiger died from lung cancer in 1947.

  General Pedro del Valle

  General Pedro del Valle commanded the 1st Marine Division. He was a 51-year-old native of San Juan, Puerto Rico. In 1915 he graduated from the Naval Academy. He commanded a Marine detachment on board the battleship Texas in the North Atlantic during World War I.

  Years of expeditionary campaigns and sea duty in the Caribbean and Central America gave del Valle a vision of how Marines could better serve the Navy and their country at war. In 1931, General Randolph Berkeley appointed del Valle (then a major) to the “Landing Operations Board” in Quantico. This was the first organizational step taken by the Marine Corps to develop a working doctrine for amphibious assaults.

  In February 1932, he published a provocative essay about ship to shore amphibious operations in the Marine Corps Gazette. He challenged his fellow officers to think seriously of executing an opposed landing.

  A decade later, del Valle (now a veteran artilleryman) commanded the 11th Marines with distinction during the Guadalcanal campaign. Many surviving Japanese admired the superb artillery of the Marines. Following that, del Valle commanded corps artillery for III Amphibious Corps long before assuming command of the “Old Breed” on Okinawa. General del Val
le died in 1978 at the age of 84.

  General Lemuel Shepherd Jr.

  General Lemuel Shepherd Jr. was a 49-year-old native of Norfolk, Virginia. He graduated from the Virginia Military Institute in 1917 and served with distinction with the 5th Marines in France. He was wounded three times and received the Navy Cross. Shepherd became one of those rare infantry officers who’d commanded every possible echelon from division all the way down to rifle platoon. Early in the Pacific, he commanded the 9th Marines and served as assistant commander of the 1st Marine Division at Cape Gloucester before taking command of the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade on Guam.

  In September 1944, Shepherd became the first commanding general of the newly formed 6th Marine Division and served with honor on Okinawa. After the war, he commanded the Fleet Marine Force Pacific for the first two years of the Korean War. In 1952, he became the 20th Commandant of the Marine Corps. General Shepherd died at age 94 from bone cancer in La Jolla, California.

  General Francis Mulcahy

  General Francis Mulcahy commanded the Tenth Army Tactical Air Force. He was a 51-year-old native of Rochester, New York, and graduated from Notre Dame before his commission in 1917. He attended naval flight school the same year, and like Roy Geiger, Mulcahy flew bombing missions in World War I France. He pioneered the Marine Corps’ close air support and ground operations in the interwar years of expeditionary campaigns in Central America and the Caribbean.

  After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Mulcahy served as an observer with the British Western Desert Air Force in North Africa. When he deployed to the Pacific, he took command of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing. In the final months of the Guadalcanal campaign, Mulcahy served with distinction in command of all Allied Air Forces in the Solomons. Mulcahy worked meticulously at the airfields on Yontan and Kadena to coordinate combat deployments against the kamikaze threats to the fleet.

  General Mulcahy received three Distinguished Service Medals for his heroic accomplishments in France, the Solomons, and Okinawa before his death in 1973.

  Blood and Iron

  Army infantry and Marines faced fierce opposition from over 100,000 enemy troops under the command of General Ushijima. Allied intelligence originally estimated Ushijima’s Thirty-second Army strength at 65,000. But many other reinforcing organizations traveled to Okinawa from previous posts on Manchuria, China, and Japan.

  The 9th Infantry Division was the first to arrive. They were an elite veteran unit—the backbone of Ushijima’s defense forces. Following them was the 44th Independent Mixed Brigade (which lost part of their strength when one of their ships was torpedoed). The 15th Independent Mixed Regiment was flown to Okinawa and added to the remains of the 44th. The next large unit was the 24th Infantry Division, coming from Manchuria. They were well-trained and equipped, but had not yet been bloodied in battle. The final major infantry unit to arrive was General Fujioka’s 62nd Infantry Division comprising two brigades of four independent infantry battalions.

  Imperial Japanese headquarters saw the battle of Okinawa as a fixed defensive fight. Other than the 27th Tank Regiment, Ushijima was not given any strong armored force. Japanese headquarters diverted large weapon shipments and troops to Okinawa because of the hopeless situation in the Philippines and their inability to deliver reinforcements and supplies. The Thirty-second Army possessed a heavier concentration of artillery under a single command than had been available to other Japanese commanders anywhere else in the Pacific War.

  Total Japanese artillery strength was grouped into the 5th Artillery Command. General Wada’s command comprised two independent artillery regiments and artillery elements of the 44th Brigade and the 27th Tank Regiment. He also had thirty-six howitzers and eight 150mm guns with the 1st and 2nd Medium Artillery Regiment.

  Wada also had the 1st Independent Heavy Mortar Regiment firing the 320mm spigot mortars first encountered by Marines on Iwo Jima. Their ninety-six 81mm mortars were assigned for close infantry support and controlled by sector defense commanders.

  Potential infantry replacements varied from excellent with the 26th Shipping Engineer Regiment to meager at best with the various rear area service units. The 10th Air Sector Command provided 7,000 replacements composed of airfield maintenance and construction units at the Kadena and Yontan Airfields. Seven sea-raiding squadrons based at Kerama Retto had one-hundred handpicked men whose only assignment was to smash explosive-loaded suicide craft into the sides of cargo vessels and assault transports.

  A native Okinawan home guard (called Boeitai) rounded out the Thirty-second Army. These men were trained and integrated into Army units. The Boeitai gave Ushijima another 20,000 extra men to use as he pleased. Add to this 1,700 Okinawan children (thirteen years old and up) organized into volunteer youth groups called “Blood and Iron” for the Emperor’s duty units.

  US Army Troops

  The US Army played a significant role in the victory on Okinawa. The Army deployed as many combat troops, suffered comparable casualties, and fought with an equal heroism and bravery as the Marines.

  Army battles for Conical Hill, Kakazu Ridge, and the escarpment at Yuza Dake were just as bloody and memorable as Nishi Ridge and Sugar Loaf for the Marines. The Okinawa campaign still serves today as a model of joint service cooperation despite its isolated cases of sibling rivalry.

  In mid-1943, the Joint Chiefs identified three divisions in the Pacific with amphibious “proficiency.” The 1st and 2nd Marine Divisions were veterans of Tulagi and Guadalcanal, while the 7th Infantry was fresh from fighting in the Aleutians. These three units joined with four other divisions and constituted the Tenth Army bound for Okinawa. The number of divisions with experience in amphibious operations in the Pacific had now expanded sevenfold.

  Three assault units in General John Hodge’s XXIV Corps had recent experience with amphibious landings in the Battle for Leyte Gulf. It was the 96th Division’s first campaign and the third amphibious operation for the 7th Division after Kwajalein and Attu. The veteran 77th Division executed a daring landing at Ormoc, which surprised and slaughtered the enemy defenders.

  The 27th was a National Guard unit still bitterly regarded by Marines after their flail on Saipan, but still a proud unit with amphibious experience in the Marianas and Gilbert Islands. No other army divisions had the luxury of extended preparations for Okinawa. General MacArthur didn’t release the underfed and under-strength XXIV Corps (after 112 days of combat on Leyte) to the Tenth Army until seven weeks before L-Day on Okinawa. The 27th Division had more time but endured inadequate training in the jungles of Espiritu Santo.

  There were many examples of Marines and Army units cooperating in the Okinawan campaign. Army Air Force P-47 Thunderbolts flew long-range bombing and fighter missions for General Mulcahy’s Tactical Air Force. Army and Marine Corps units supported opposite services regularly during the long drive to the Shuri line. Marines gained a healthy respect for the Army’s 8-inch howitzers. These heavy weapons were often the only way to breach a well-fortified enemy strong point.

  General Buckner attached deadly “Zippo tanks” from the 713th Armored Flame Thrower Battalion along with 4.2-inch mortar batteries to both Marine divisions. The 6th Marine Division also had the 708th Amphibian Tank Battalion attached for the entire battle. Each of these units received a Presidential Unit Citation for service with their parent Marine units.

  The Army often gave logistical support to the Marines as the campaign slogged south during the endless rains. The Marines’ fourth revision of their table of organization still did not provide enough transfer assets to support such a lengthy campaign conducted far from the forces’ beachhead. A shortage of amphibious cargo ships assigned to the Marines also reduced the number of LVTs and wheeled logistics vehicles available. Often, the generosity of the supporting Army units determined if the Marines would eat that day.

  An example of this cooperative spirit happened on June 4, when soldiers from the 96th Division gave rations to Colonel Richard Ross’s starving and exhausted M
arines. This brightened the battalion on a day otherwise known as “the most miserable day spent on Okinawa.”

  In short, Okinawa was too difficult and too large for one service to undertake. In this eighty-two-day campaign against a well-armed, resolute enemy, victory required teamwork and cooperation from several services.

  Marines Aviation Units

  According to Colonel Vernon McGee, landing force air support commander during the battle: “Okinawa was the culmination of the development of air support doctrine in the Pacific. The procedures we used there were results of all lessons learned in preceding campaigns—including the Philippines.”

  Marine aviation units on Okinawa operated across a range of missions: from bombing enemy battleships to supply drops. Over 700 Marine planes took part in the Okinawa campaign. An estimated 450 of these were engaged in combat for half the battle. Most Marine air units served under the Tenth Army’s TAF (Tactical Air Force) commanded by General Mulcahy. Outside of the TAF, Marine fighter squadrons were assigned to fleet carriers or escort carriers and long-range transports.

  Admiral Spruance commanded all Allied forces for Operation Iceberg. He believed the enemy’s air arm was the biggest threat to the mission’s success. Spruance made the Tenth Army’s first objective to secure the Kadena and Yontan Airfields and support land-based fighter squadrons.

  Assault forces achieve this on L-Day. The next day, General Mulcahy moved his command post ashore and began TAF operations. His top priority was to maintain air superiority over Okinawa and the Fifth Fleet. Because of the massed kamikaze attacks unleashed by the Japanese, this mission kept Mulcahy preoccupied for many weeks.