by Toland, John
At final inspection a captain stopped in front of Aoki and wondered why his face was crimson. “Don’t you feel well?” It was merely the sake, explained Aoki. “If you don’t feel well,” said the captain solicitously, “you can stay behind and join a later group.”
“I’m all right, sir.”
The fifteen crews piled into a truck and were followed by well-wishers. At the field they incongruously slipped into life jackets emblazoned with large Rising Suns. Aoki’s pockets were empty except for a picture of his family and two small wooden omamori, Buddhist good luck charms, which he hoped would help him achieve his mission.
Just before dusk there was a farewell ceremony conducted by a rear admiral. During his speech Aoki heard a group of staff officers at the side chatting and laughing. He bitterly resented their treating such an occasion so casually. Their chief instructor solemnly wished them success. “There is an observation post on Okinawa that will confirm the results of your mission,” he said. “Tonight there is a full moon. It will be watching you, so you won’t be alone. I will join you later; please wait for me.” The thirty men shed tears unashamedly. They knew he wished he were going with them, and were grateful that a fellow airman had prevented their last moments on earth from being commonplace.
As the fifteen planes taxied into position, there was a flutter of handkerchiefs, caps and flags from the little crowd along the runway. Over the roar of the engines Aoki heard someone shouting, “Aoki! Aoki!” He turned in his seat. There behind the plane, chasing after him, gesticulating and weeping, was one of the pilots who had refused to take off on the previous flight. Aoki felt embarrassed and resentful; it was like being pursued by a woman. But he smiled and called out, “Follow us!” as the old trainer gathered speed and lifted off the field. Its climb prolonged the fading sunset. How beautiful! Aoki thought.
At 3,000 feet the young pilot took a course almost directly south for Tori Shima (Bird Island), which lay sixty miles west of Okinawa. Here they would turn left straight for the transport area. Ahead a single plane was veering off on its indirect course. Below was a green light marking Sada Point. This was the last light in the homeland and Aoki watched it intently until it vanished. He peered down at a small island. Streaks of white smoke curled up. Some housewife was cooking dinner for her family. He couldn’t help thinking, You’re living and I am going to die.
A layer of clouds forced Yokoyama to descend to 2,200 feet, but the air was so turbulent underneath that he lowered to 1,000 feet. They droned on monotonously hour after hour. The estimated time of arrival at Bird Island passed. Aoki motioned Yokoyama to continue and rechecked his watch. It was eleven-thirty. The attack was scheduled to start at midnight; they would never make it on time. After five minutes he ordered Yokoyama to turn east and start his descent. Aoki scattered tinfoil to jam enemy radar, then pulled a toggle which set the propellers on the two bombs spinning. The bombs were now armed and would explode on contact. The cloud cover above had become scattered and Aoki saw the reflection of the moon in the water. There was a flash of lightning. Another. No, some enemy ship was shooting at them. Yokoyama pulled the trainer up to 300 feet; Aoki strained to see the ship but was blinded by the angry flash of antiaircraft fire perhaps no more than a mile away. It would take a minute to reach the ship, and the ack-ack fire was becoming more accurate.
“Break right!” he ordered.
Bright streaks of fire stitched toward them. Tracers! There was a roar, and what looked like a Grumman flashed by. Shimatta, he thought—damn it! There was not so much as a pistol to fight it off, and if Yokoyama tried to turn away he would present an easier target. Aoki pulled open his canopy, raised himself and looked around. The Grumman was gone. He told the pilot to head back toward Okinawa. Almost immediately they came upon a destroyer cruising unconcerned in front of them in a southerly direction. “Dive!” Aoki shouted. Yokoyama had been trained to dive counterclockwise to avoid crashing into any friendly plane but now he would have to go in clockwise, something he had never done before.
Not a shot came up from the destroyer as they approached from the stern. Aoki was still out of his seat, arms crossed on the canopy, chin on arms, staring fixedly at the destroyer. He was serene as he waited for the explosion of oblivion. They were now so close that even if the American fired it would be too late. He was content; his death would be meaningful.
Neither he nor Yokoyama said a word as the lumbering old trainer roared toward the destroyer. There was a crash as they hit the water. Aoki found himself still in the plane—by a double coincidence still alive. Since Yokoyama had never before stalked a moving target, it had managed to pull out from under him. But why hadn’t the bombs exploded on contact?
“Buntaicho [Commander], come over here!” Yokoyama was standing on top of the settling plane. Aoki heaved himself out of the cockpit just before the aircraft plunged nose first beneath the waves, and inflated the life jacket that had seemed so pointless. They were alone in the darkness—no ships, no planes.
“What shall we do?” asked Yokoyama.
Having already forsaken life, Aoki found it difficult to answer. He felt no joy whatsoever at being alive. At dawn they could distinguish a strip of land in the distance. It must be Okinawa. Aoki suggested that they swim for it, but they were cut off by an enemy destroyer. They lay motionless in the water as if dead, their arms locked together. As the destroyer pulled alongside they closed their eyes and opened their mouths. A grappling hook caught Yokoyama’s trouser leg. “Kick it off!” Aoki shouted but the pilot couldn’t shake loose and was hauled in like a fish, with Aoki still clutching his arm. Aoki started up the rope dangling over the side of the ship; he was caught now but would escape or commit suicide later.
“You’re climbing up!” Yokoyama exclaimed, incredulous.
On deck they refused cigarettes and bread. Yokoyama glared at Aoki with resentment. They were transferred to a larger ship, and once it became obvious that escape was impossible, Aoki demonstrated to his pilot how to commit suicide by biting the tongue and choking on the blood. With tongue extended, Aoki punched his chin again and again. For all the pain, there was very little blood. Then he tried to strangle himself with a thick strand of twisted string. A guard rushed in as he was blacking out. He concluded that it was his fate to live and became a model prisoner.†
3.
On the eve of Aoki’s suicidal mission, General Ushijima began withdrawing his headquarters from Shuri, along with what was left of the 62nd Division and the 27th Tank Regiment, leaving a defense shell out front. The heavy rain covered the retreat but made it a trial, particularly for the walking wounded. They had had no medicine and almost no food or water since evacuation from the front. In small groups those who could stand moved off into the drenching rain, shepherded by young Okinawan nurses who had recently attended the Normal School, and hanging onto ropes for guidance in the darkness.
The movement in the enemy rear area was not discovered by the Americans for another twenty-four hours. Then artillery and naval support ships began interdicting roads and junctions. The following day, May 27, General Buckner dispatched new instructions to III and XXIV Corps:
Indications point to possible enemy retirement to new defensive positions with possible counteroffensive against our forces threatening his flank. Initiate without delay strong and unrelenting pressure to ascertain probable intentions and keep him off balance. Enemy must not repeat not be permitted to establish himself securely on new position with only nominal interference.
Aggressive combat patrols probed along the entire Shuri front, but the shell protecting the retreat held and patrols reported there was no indication of Japanese withdrawal. Tenth Army intelligence concurred: “It now looks as though the Japanese thinks holding the line around north of Shuri is his best bet.… It is probable that we will gradually surround the Shuri position.”
The Army predicted a siege, but the Marines would not wait. The 1st Division stormed Shuri Ridge on May 29 and found it lightly defe
nded. They swept on to the ruins of the castle. Here the defense stiffened, but that evening the Tenth Army intelligence officer re-evaluated the situation: he was now certain that the “enemy was holding the Shuri lines with a shell, and that the bulk of the troops were elsewhere.”
Behind a curtain of almost constant rain, Ushijima had escaped with most of his forces and had established new headquarters nine miles due south of Shuri Castle in a cliffside cave overlooking the rugged coast of the island. But the withdrawal had been costly to the Okinawans. In panic, hordes of civilians had fled south behind the troops and had been slaughtered by shells and bombs. Thousands were left dead along the quagmire roads.
On the last day of May, Marines and GI’s cautiously entered the former capital from two sides. Shuri lay in ruins, ravaged by mortars, 1,000-lb. bombs and almost two hundred rounds of artillery and naval gunfire. Only two structures—the concrete Normal School and the Methodist church—remained. Buried in the smoldering rubble were hundreds of civilians and their scattered possessions. The stench of rotting flesh penetrated the sharp odor of smoke.
Shuri Castle itself, which it had taken ten thousand laborers eight years to construct, was almost completely demolished by naval shells. Its massive ramparts were toppled like a child’s play blocks. Two large bronze bells, battered by shell fire, were at least recognizable. On them was inscribed:
… Behold! What is a bell? A bell is that which sounds far, wide and high. It is a precious Buddhist instrument, bringing order to the daily routine of the monk.…
It will always toll on time, to herald the approaching darkness or the hour of dawn. It will startle the indolent into activity that will restore honor to his name. And how will the bell sound? It will echo far and wide like a peal of thunder, but with utmost purity. And sinful men, hearing the bell, will be saved.
General Buckner was jubilant that the enemy had abandoned the formidable defense system. “Ushijima missed the boat on his withdrawal from the Shuri line,” he told his staff that evening. “It’s all over now but cleaning up pockets of resistance. This doesn’t mean there won’t be stiff fighting but the Japanese won’t be able to organize another line.”
However, Ushijima had found another natural barrier six miles below Shuri. It was a coral escarpment—dominated by two adjoining hills, Yuzadake and Yaeju-dake—which transversed most of the southern tip of Okinawa like a huge wall. It was loftier and more rugged than Maeda Ridge. Here, backs to the sea, the Japanese would make their last stand.
On June 1 the Americans began to close in. Progress was slow as they slogged forward through ankle-deep mud. Thick cloud formations blanketed the lowlands stretching below the formidable barrier as the flanks fanned out to seize the peninsula on either side. The one to the east, Chinen, was lightly defended, but Oroku Peninsula, which jutted out just below Naha, was held by two thousand Navy troops. Under orders from Ushijima, they had abandoned their installations on the peninsula, after destroying most of their equipment and heavy weapons, and moved south; but there, below the new natural defense line, they found civilians occupying most of the caves they were supposed to fortify. Rather than force out the Okinawans, as the Army was doing, they returned to the peninsula, where, with small arms, they held off aggressive Marine amphibious and land attacks.
At long last, on June 5, the rain ended but it had left its mark. The approaches to the Yuza-Yaeju wall were a morass of soft clay through which American tanks could not negotiate. It was not until June 10 that the 96th Division launched an assault on Yaeju, renamed “the Big Apple” by the GI’s. It took two days of concentrated artillery fire and intense close combat for one regiment to establish firm positions on the northern slope of the Big Apple.
Ushijima had almost no artillery to keep the foe at bay; nor did his infantry reinforcements, slowed by poor communications, arrive in time. The Americans consolidated each gain before the Japanese could counterattack effectively, and by midnight on June 13 the entire eastern half of the ridge line had begun to collapse.
The stubborn sailors on Oroku Peninsula had also succumbed at last to Marines of the 6th Division, but the savage struggle had cost the Americans 1,608 casualties. On June 15 the bodies of Rear Admiral Minoru Ota, the Japanese commander, and five of his staff were found in his subterranean headquarters. They were sprawled, throats cut, on an elevated platform covered with blood-soaked mattresses.
Almost a thousand Japanese were being killed every day as the battle fragmented into a series of fierce contests for caves. That same evening Colonel Hitoshi Kanayama, commander of the 27th Regiment of the 7th Division, gathered his officers and noncoms in his command cave. From a small dais he announced that Division was to launch a general attack at dawn. But he could not obey the order. There were fewer than a hundred men left in his regiment and he imagined other units were just as depleted. It was impossible to carry on organized warfare any longer.
Kanayama poured gasoline on the regimental flag and touched a match to it. As the standard flared up, he said, “During the past three months you men have gone through unspeakable hardships. I thank you all for having fought so well. I am now dissolving the regiment. You will act on your own. Those who wish to return to the homeland are free to make the attempt. I am going to die here, but you are not to share my responsibility.”
These words left his subordinates bewildered; they resented being left on their own. Drawing a dagger, Kanayama gazed at his men and again admonished them not to “follow” him. Purposefully and without sound he slashed his abdomen in the ritual pattern. As the blood pumped out, his head fell forward. His adjutant, Captain Sato, brought his raised sword down sharply, severing Kanayama’s head. Then Sato shot himself. Another officer, a first lieutenant named Adachi, drew his pistol. “Tenno Heika banzai!” he cried out before he pulled the trigger.
4.
The fighting had degenerated into a cruel hunt as the Americans went after their entombed prey with grenades, satchel charges and flamethrowers. By June 17, Ushijima’s 32nd Army was dazed and shattered. Discipline had evaporated. Survivors committed acts that would have been unthinkable a few days before: they challenged their officers; fought like savages in their caves for food and water; murdered and raped civilians.
In Headquarters cave, deep within a craggy, precipitous cliff near the tip of the island, General Ushijima stoically waited for the end. It was a long cave, near the top of the cliff, with one end facing the sea more than two hundred feet below, and the other overlooking the village of Mabuni—and the approaching enemy. Ushijima had just finished reading a surrender appeal from Buckner which had been dropped behind the lines:
The forces under your command have fought bravely and well, and your infantry tactics have merited the respect of your opponents.… Like myself, you are an infantry general long schooled and practiced in infantry warfare.… I believe, therefore, that you understand as clearly as I, that the destruction of all Japanese resistance on the island is merely a matter of days.…
While this bid for surrender brought a faint smile to Ushijima’s face, Cho broke into derisive, almost uncontrollable laughter—how could a samurai even consider such a proposal? The rapidly deteriorating situation had wrought a disturbing transformation in Cho. Ushijima would lie thoughtfully on his cot, reading or writing poetry, but Cho paced the cave like a caged animal, often grabbing his sword as if he had just seen an enemy.
Ushijima remained himself. He was particularly considerate to the young Okinawan students who served as his personal aides; he patted them paternally on the head and questioned them about their families. His sense of humor was sharpened by adversity. Once when Cho strode up to the end of the cave facing Mabuni and urinated into the wind, Ushijima said with a laugh, “You’d better hurry. Your thing is too big a target for the enemy.”
At noon on June 18 his opponent, Simon Bolivar Buckner, roamed far forward to observe a fresh unit of Marines moving into battle. He watched for an hour; then as he started down from his ob
servation post, a Japanese shell exploded directly overhead. A fragment shattered a mound of coral, and freakishly, one jagged piece of coral flew up and embedded itself in the general’s chest. Ten minutes later he died.
Ushijima’s last order written from the cave urged his men “to fight to the last and die for the eternal cause of loyalty to the Emperor,” but not in a suicide charge. He instructed survivors of the 32nd Army to filter through enemy lines in civilian clothes and join the small band of guerrillas in the north of the island. With darkness the first groups tried to get through but were detected. The area was illuminated by flares and star shells, and those who weren’t killed immediately were forced to go to ground again.
At noon the following day an explosion rocked the north entrance of Ushijima’s cave. American tanks had approached Mabuni and were firing directly on cave openings in the hill rising below the village. Jinsai Higa, an Okinawan who had served in New Guinea before illness forced him to return to Naha, was giving Ushijima a haircut. Cho approached the general as the barber was putting away his utensils, and said, “Thank you very much.” What for? asked Ushijima. “You took my advice when I didn’t think you would. You let me have my way on the counterattack.”
“I thought it would be easier that way,” Ushijima replied. “It was always my policy to leave decisions up to my subordinates.”
“At one time I thought of committing hara-kiri if you didn’t approve of my plan,” Cho said gruffly. “But you let me do it—and with a smile. You made it so easy for me and I want to thank you before we part in this world.”