Battle of Okinawa

Battle of Okinawa, (April 1–June 21, 1945), World War II battle fought between U.S. and Japanese forces on Okinawa, the largest of the Ryukyu Islands. Okinawa is located just 350 miles (563 km) south of Kyushu, and its capture was regarded as a vital precursor to a ground invasion of the Japanese home islands. Dubbed “the Typhoon of Steel” for its ferocity, the battle was one of the bloodiest in the Pacific War, claiming the lives of more than 12,000 Americans and 100,000 Japanese, including the commanding generals on both sides. In addition, at least 100,000 civilians were either killed in combat or were ordered to commit suicide by the Japanese military.

Planning and preliminary operations

As the campaign on Iwo Jima was drawing to a close in March 1945, U.S. commanders marshalled strong army, air, and naval forces in preparation for Operation Iceberg, the invasion of Okinawa. The island, which is about 60 miles (roughly 100 km) long and no more than 20 miles (32 km) across at its widest point, had been thoroughly fortified by a Japanese garrison of some 100,000 men under the command of Lieut. Gen. Ushijima Mitsuru. Acknowledging that the battle for Okinawa would very likely replicate the brutal losses of Iwo Jima on a much greater scale, American planners hoped to overwhelm the Japanese with a massive preliminary bombardment and the largest amphibious landing conducted by the U.S. during the Pacific War.

The air and sea attacks that preceded the invasion had begun as early as October 1944, and Allied air operations carried out in March 1945 by carrier Task Force 58 under Rear Adm. Marc Mitscher destroyed hundreds of Japanese planes. While these losses reduced the Japanese defenders’ ability to challenge the Americans in the skies over Okinawa, the Japanese retained sufficient air power to stage devastating suicide attacks on Allied naval units. On March 26 a preliminary landing was made on the Kerama Islands, about 15 miles (24 km) to the west, where some 350 small boats had been assembled for suicide attacks on the landing force. Another preparatory landing was made on Keise, a collection of coral islets just 11 miles (18 km) southwest of the main invasion beaches. From Keise, American 155-mm Long Tom artillery batteries could provide fire support across most of southern Okinawa.

Invasion

Over the final days of March, American underwater demolition teams and minesweepers cleared obstacles from the landing beaches. Under the overall leadership of theatre commander Adm. Chester Nimitz, Fifth Fleet commander Adm. Raymond Spruance would oversee the landings and U.S. ground troops would be commanded by Lieut. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr. The invasion was launched on April 1, 1945, when a contingent of U.S. ground troops landed at Hagushi, on the west coast of central Okinawa. Before nightfall, some 50,000 men of the U.S. 10th Army, under the command of Buckner, had gone ashore and established a beachhead about 5 miles (8 km) long.

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The Japanese response to the beach landings was deceptively muted, and by April 4, U.S. Army troops and Marines had cut the island in two. The first major Japanese counterattack came on April 6–7 in the form of suicidal raids by more than 350 kamikaze planes and the battleship Yamato. The Japanese had hoped that Yamato might finish off the Allied fleet after it had been weakened by the wave of kamikazes, but, with no air cover, the largest battleship ever constructed was easy prey for Mitscher’s carrier-based planes. The sinking of the Yamato on April 7 conclusively signaled the end of the “all-big-gun” battleship era of naval warfare. Altogether more effective were Japan’s aerial suicide weapons. Baka, essentially a piloted cruise missile, made its debut at Okinawa. Baka claimed its first victim, the destroyer USS Abele, in the seas off Okinawa on April 12.

Elements of the 10th Army drove cautiously to the north and had pacified the entire northern two-thirds of the island by April 22. During this period, U.S. forces suffered perhaps their highest profile casualty of the battle when journalist Ernie Pyle was killed in combat. Pyle, whose coverage of the European conflict had made him one of the most beloved war correspondents of World War II, had accompanied the 77th Infantry Division in an assault on Ie, an island just west of Okinawa. On April 18, while traveling to a forward command post, Pyle was mortally wounded by Japanese machine-gun fire.