by E. B. Sledge
We had intense pride in the identification with our units and drew considerable strength from the symbolism attached to them. As we drew closer to Okinawa, the knowledge that I was a member of Company K, 3d Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division helped me prepare myself for what I knew was coming.†
Okinawa is a large island, some sixty miles long and from two to eighteen miles wide. Like most islands in the Pacific, it is surrounded by a coral reef. But on the west coast that reef lies close to shore, particularly along the invasion beaches at Hagushi.
Through the center of the island runs a ridge rising some 1,500 feet in the wild, mountainous north. South of the Ishikawa Isthmus, the land levels out considerably but is cut by several prominent streams. In 1945, as it remains today, the southern portion of the island contained the bulk of the civilian population.
Of primary importance to the defense of the island were three east–west ridge systems crossing the southern part of the island. To the north and just below the invasion beaches lay the ridges of Kakazu and Nishibaru. In the middle, running west from Shuri Castle, was the most formidable of the ridges, cut by sheer cliffs and deep draws. Above the extreme southern tip of the island lay Kunishi, Yuza-Dake, and Yaeju-Dake. Together these ridges formed a series of natural defensive barriers to the American forces advancing from the north.
Into these natural barriers, Lt. Gen. Mitsuru Ushijima threw the bulk of his 110,000-man Thirty-second Japanese Army. Natural and man-made barriers were transformed into a network of mutually supporting positions linked by a system of protected tunnels. Each of the ridge lines was held in great strength until it became untenable; then the enemy withdrew to the next defense line. Thus the Japanese drew on their experiences at Peleliu, Saipan, and Iwo Jima to construct a highly sophisticated and powerful defense-in-depth. There they waited and fought to exhaust the will and the resources of the American Tenth Army.
Tension mounted on the eve of D day. We received final orders to move in off the beach as fast as possible. We were also reminded that although we were in regimental reserve, we would probably “get the hell kicked out of us” coming on the beach. We were advised to hit the sack early; we would need all the rest we could get.*
A predawn reveille ushered in Easter Sunday—April Fool's Day—1945. The ship seethed with activity. We had chow of steak and eggs, the usual feast before the slaughter. I returned to our troop compartment and squared away my ammunition, combat pack, and mortar ammunition bag. The ship's crew manned battle stations and stood by to repel kamikaze attacks.* Dawn was breaking, and the preassault bombardment of the beaches had begun. Above it I could hear the drone of enemy aircraft inbound to the attack.
I went into the head to relieve my distressed colon, cramped by fear and apprehension. On the big transport ships the toilet facilities consisted of a row of permanent wooden seats situated over a metal trough through which ran a constant flow of seawater. There were about twenty seats—no limited facilities here with Haney to delay us as at Peleliu.
Most of the men in my troop compartment had already been to the head and by then had donned their gear and moved out on deck, so I was about the last one in the head. I settled comfortably on a seat. Next to me I noticed a cagelike chute of iron mesh coming through the overhead [ceiling] near one of the 40mm antiaircraft gun tubs. It extended down, through the deck, and into the compartment below.
Startled out of my wits by an incredibly loud sound of clattering, clanking, scraping, and rasping metal, I sprang up with a reflex born of fear and tried to bolt out of the head into the troop compartment. I knew a kamikaze had crashed into our ship right above me. My trousers around my ankles hobbled me, and I nearly fell. As I reached to pull them up, the loud clanking and clattering—like a thousand cymbals falling down stone steps—continued. I looked over at the iron mesh chute and saw dozens of empty brass 40mm shell cases cascading down from the guns above. They clattered and clanked through the chute to some collecting bin below decks. My fright subsided into chagrin.
I got on my gear and joined the other men on deck to await orders. We milled around, each man sticking close to his buddy. Higgins boats would take us to rendezvous areas and transfer us to amtracs that previously had delivered the assault waves of infantry across the reef to the beach.
The bombardment of the beach by our warships had grown in intensity, and our planes had joined in with strafing, rockets, and bombing. Japanese planes flew over the fleet at some distance from us. Many of our ships were firing at them.
An order came for all troops to go below (this was to prevent casualties from strafing enemy planes). Loaded with our battle gear, we squeezed our way back through the doorlike hatches into our compartment. Packed like sardines in the aisles between the racks, we waited in the compartment for orders to move back on deck. Sailors on deck dogged our hatches [sealed the doors by turning U-shaped handles positioned all around them]. Like men locked in a closet, we waited and listened to the firing outside. The compartment wasn't large, and the air soon became foul. It was difficult to breathe. Although the weather was cool, we began to sweat.
“Hey, you guys, the blowers [electric ventilating fans] are off. By God, we'll smother in this damn place!” yelled one man. I was next to the hatch, and several of us started yelling at the sailors outside, telling them we needed air. They yelled back from the other side of the steel door that it couldn't be helped, because the electricity was needed to operate the gun mounts. “Then, by God, let us out on deck!”
“Sorry, we've got orders to keep this hatch dogged down.”
We all started cursing the sailors, but they were following orders, and I'm sure they didn't want to keep us locked in that stuffy compartment. “Let's get the hell outa here,” a buddy said. We all agreed it would be better to get strafed on deck than to suffocate in the compartment. Grasping the levers and moving them to the unlock position, we tried to open the hatch. As fast as we turned each lever, the sailors outside turned it back and kept it dogged down. Other desperate Marines joined us in trying to unclamp the hatch. There were only two sailors outside, so with our combined efforts, we finally got all the clamps open, shoved open the hatch, and burst out into the cool, fresh air.
About that time other Company K men poured out of a hatch on the other side of the compartment. One of the sailors got pushed over and rolled across the deck. In an instant we were all outside breathing in the fresh air.
“All right, you men, return to your quarters. No troops topside. That's an order!” came a voice from a platform slightly aft and above us. We looked up and saw a navy officer, an ensign, standing against the rail glaring at us. He wore khakis, an officer's cap, and insignia bars on his collar, in stark contrast to us dressed in green dungarees, tan canvas leggings, and camouflaged helmet covers, and loaded with battle equipment, weapons, and gear. He wore a web pistol belt with a .45 automatic in the holster.
None of our officers was in the area, so the navy ensign had it all to himself. He swaggered back and forth, ordering us into the foul air of the troop compartment. If he had been a Marine officer, we would have obeyed his order with mutterings and mumblings, but he was so unimposing that we just milled around. Finally, he began threatening us all with courts-martial if we didn't obey him.
A friend of mine spoke up, “Sir, we're goin’ to hit that beach in a little while and a lot of us might not be alive an hour from now. We'd rather take a chance on gettin’ hit by a Jap plane out here than go back in there and smother to death.”
The officer spun around and headed for the bridge—to get help, we assumed. Shortly some of our own officers came up and told us to stand by to go down the nets to the waiting boats. As far as I know, our breakout of the troop compartment for fresh air was never mentioned.
We picked up our gear and moved to assigned areas along the bulwarks of the ship. The weather was mostly clear and incredibly cool (about 75 degrees) after the heat of the South Pacific. The bombardment rumbled and thundered
toward the island. Everything from battleships down to rocket and mortar boats were plastering the beaches along with our dive bombers. Japanese planes, their engines droning and whining, came in over the huge convoy, and many ships’ antiaircraft fire began bursting in the air. I saw two enemy planes get hit some distance from our ship.
We were all tense, particularly with the intelligence estimate that we could expect 80-85 percent casualties on the beach. Although I was filled with dread about the landing, I wasn't nearly so apprehensive as I had been at Peleliu. Perhaps it was because I was already a combat veteran. I had survived the Peleliu landing and knew what to expect from the Japanese, as well as from myself. Climbing down the cargo net to the Higgins boat, I was still afraid; but it was different from Peleliu.
In addition to the invaluable experience of being a combat veteran, the immensity of our fleet gave me courage. Combat vessels and armed transports ranged as far as we could see. I have no idea how many of our planes were in the air, but it must have been hundreds.
We climbed down the net and settled into the Higgins boat. Someone said, “Shove off, coxswain, you're loaded,” as the last Marine climbed into our boat. The coxswain gunned the engine and pulled away from the ship. Other boats loaded with Marines from ⅗ were pulling out all along the side of the ship. I sure hated to leave it. Amphibious craft of every description floated on the water around us. The complexity of the huge invasion was evident everywhere we looked.
Our boat ran some distance from our ship, then began circling slowly in company with other boats loaded with men from our battalion. The bombardment of the Hagushi beaches roared on with awesome intensity. Sitting low in the water, we really couldn't see what was going on except in our immediate vicinity. We waited nervously for H hour, which was scheduled for 0830.
Some of the ships began releasing thick white smoke as a screen for the convoy's activity. The smoke drifted lazily and mingled in with that of the exploding shells. We continued to circle on the beautiful blue water made choppy by the other boats in our group.
“It's 0830 now,” someone said.
“The first wave's goin’ in now. Stand by for a ram,” Snafu said.
The man next to me sighed. “Yeah, the stuff's gonna hit the fan now.”
* Ulithi Atoll lies about 260 miles northeast of Peleliu on the western edge of the Caroline Islands. It was captured by an element of the 81st Infantry Division as a part of the Palau Islands operation. Ulithi consists of about thirty islets surrounding an enormous lagoon some nineteen miles long and five to ten miles wide. It became the major U.S. fleet anchorage in the Central Pacific.
†During carrier raids on Japan (18-21 March), Japanese suicide planes had crashed into the American carriers Wasp, Yorktown, and Franklin. The Franklin was the most heavily damaged of the three; her loss was 724 killed and 265 wounded. That the ship was saved at all and later towed some 12,000 miles to New York for repairs was a tribute to the bravery and the skill of her crew.
* By this time in the Pacific war, official unit designations recognized the prevailing system of task organization for combat where supporting elements reinforced the infantry. Such units became regimental combat teams (RCT) and battalion landing teams (BLT); hence official designations were 5th RCT or 3d BLT. But the rank and file infantryman never forgot who he was. Throughout the war I never heard a Marine infantryman refer to his unit by other than its base name. We were always “K/⅗,” “3d Battalion, 5th,” or “5th Marines.”
†Our planners still hadn't realized that this costly large-scale suicide charge tactic had been abandoned for good. The Japanese had shifted to the defense-in-depth tactic as the best means of defeating us. This tactical shift had prolonged our fight on Peleliu and had been repeated with the same murderous results against the Marines on Iwo Jima.
*Three/Five was scheduled to land after the 1st and 2d battalions of the 5th Marines on the extreme right of the regimental beach. It would form the right flank of the III Marine Amphibious Corps and link with the U.S. Army's XXIV Corps landing to the south.
* Manned suicide planes that dived into American ships. Faith in the kamikaze's (“divine wind”) ability to cut off the American fleet's support of the landing force ashore was an important element in the Japanese defensive scheme.
CHAPTER NINE
Stay of Execution
“The landing is unopposed!”
We looked with amazement at the Marine on the amtrac with which our Higgins boat had just hooked up.
“The hell you say,” one of my buddies shot back.
“It's straight dope. I ain't seen no casualties. Most of the Nips musta hauled ass. I just saw a couple of mortar shells fallin’ in the water; that's all. The guys went in standin’ up. It beats anything I ever saw.”
Images of the maelstrom at Peleliu had been flashing through my mind, but on Okinawa there was practically no opposition to the landing. When we overcame our astonishment, everybody started laughing and joking. The release of tension was unforgettable. We sat on the edge of the amtrac's troop compartment singing and commenting on the vast fleet surrounding us. No need to crouch low to avoid the deadly shrapnel and bullets. It was—and still is—the most pleasant surprise of the war.
It suddenly dawned on me, though, that it wasn't at all like the Japanese to let us walk ashore unopposed on an island only 350 miles from their homeland. They were obviously pulling some trick, and I began to wonder what they were up to.
“Hey, Sledgehammer, what's the matter? Why don't you sing like everybody else?”
I grinned and took up a chorus of the “Little Brown Jug.”
“That's more like it!”
As our wave moved closer to the island, we got a good view of the hundreds of landing boats and amtracs approaching the beach. Directly ahead of us, we could see the men of our regiment moving about in dispersed combat formations like tiny toy soldiers on the rising landscape. They appeared unhurried and nonchalant, as if on maneuvers. There were no enemy shells bursting among them. The island sloped up gently from the beach, and the many small garden and farm plots of the Okinawans gave it the appearance of a patchwork quilt. It was beautiful, except where the ground cover and vegetation had been blasted by shells. I was overcome with the contrast to D day on Peleliu.
When our wave was about fifty yards from the beach, I saw two enemy mortar shells explode a considerable distance to our left. They spewed up small geysers of water but caused no damage to the amtracs in that area. That was the only enemy fire I saw during the landing on Okinawa. It made the April Fool's Day aspect even more sinister, because all those thousands of first-rate Japanese troops on that island had to be somewhere spoiling for a fight.
We continued to look at the panorama around our amtrac with no thought of immediate danger as we came up out of the water. The tailgate banged down. We calmly picked up our gear and walked onto the beach.
A short distance down the beach on our right, the mouth of Bishi Gawa emptied into the sea. This small river formed the boundary between the army divisions of the XXIV Corps, to the south, and the III Amphibious Corps, to the north of the river. On our side of the mouth of the river, on a promontory jutting out into the sea, I saw the remains of the emplacement containing the big Japanese gun that had concerned us in our briefings. The seawall in our area had been blasted down into a terracelike rise a few feet high over which we moved with ease.
We advanced inland, and I neither heard nor saw any Japanese fire directed against us. As we moved across the small fields and gardens onto higher elevations, I could see troops of the 6th Marine Division heading toward the big Yontan Airfield on our left. Jubilation over the lack of opposition to the landing prevailed, particularly among the Peleliu veterans. Our new replacements began making remarks about amphibious landings being easy.
* * *
Lt. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr., USA, commanded the Tenth Army in the assault against Okinawa. Left (north) of the American landing was the III Marine A
mphibious Corps led by Maj. Gen. Roy S. Geiger, which consisted of the 1st and 6th Marine divisions with the latter on the left. To the right (south) landed the army's XXIV Corps commanded by Maj. Gen. John R. Hodge and made up of the 7th and 96th Infantry divisions with the latter on the far right. Backing up the XXIV Corps was the 77th Infantry Division with the 27th Infantry Division afloat in reserve. Across the island stood the 2d Marine Division, which had conducted an elaborate, full-scale feint at the southeastern beaches. Altogether, Lt. Gen. Buckner had 541,866 men at his disposal.
Of the 50,000 troops ashore on D day, the four assault divisions lost only 28 killed, 104 wounded, and 27 missing.
The plan of attack called for the four divisions to cross the island, cutting it in two. The Marines would then turn left and move north to secure the upper two-thirds of the island while the army forces wheeled right into line and proceeded south.
By late afternoon on D day we were ordered to dig in for the night. My squad set up in a small field of recently harvested grain. The clay/loam soil was just right for digging in, so we made a good gun pit. Our company's other two mortars were positioned nearby. We registered in on likely target areas to our front with a couple of rounds of HE, then squared away our ammo for the night. Everybody was expecting a big counterattack with tanks because of the open nature of the countryside.
Once set up, several of us went over to the edge of the field and cautiously explored a neat, clean Okinawan farmhouse. It was a likely hiding place for snipers, but we found it empty.
As we were leaving the house to return to our positions, Jim Dandridge, one of our replacements, stepped on what appeared to be a wooden cover over an underground rainwater cistern at the corner of the house. Jim was a big man, and the wooden planks were rotten. He fell through, sinking in above his waist. The hole wasn't a cistern but a cesspool for the sewage from the house. Jim scrambled out bellowing like a mad bull and smelling worse. We all knew it might be weeks before we could get a change of dungarees, so it was no laughing matter to Jim. But we started kidding him unmercifully about his odd taste in swimming holes. Jim was good-natured, but he quickly had enough and chased a couple of the men back across the field to our positions. They laughed but kept out of his reach.