|
THE BATTLE OF OKINAWA
Martin L. Allday
It was somewhat surprising to me to
be invited as a panelist to discuss one of the major battles of
the Pacific -- Okinawa. This for the reason that most, if not
all, of the other panelists describing the battles were or are
officers of some considerable rank and probably were somewhat
involved in the planning of the campaigns involved. On the other
hand, I was an 18-year-old Private First Class rifleman in
Company C, 382nd Battalion, 96th Infantry Division, who only
lasted 11 days on Okinawa as a First Scout before being wounded
by machine gunfire on Zebra hill on May 11, 1945. Zebra was part
of the so-called Naha, Shuri, Yonabaru defense line crossing the
southern part of Okinawa.
I was not in on the initial landing
on Okinawa (360 miles from Japan) which was April 1 -- Easter
morning. Many more troops were involved than for any other
operation in the Pacific war. There were 180,000 combat troops
involved and 368,000 American troops in support. There was very
little early resistance for several days. The Japanese had
pulled most of their troops, well over 100,000 in number, to the
south end of that 60-mile long narrow island which took 82 days
to capture. About 70 of those days were in the south 8 to 10
miles of the island. I was sent in as a replacement on May 1, 30
days after the first of the four Army infantry and three Marine
divisions had launched the landing, 17 days after President
Roosevelt died and one week before Germany surrendered.
When I joined my outfit there were
only two men left in my squad out of an initial12 members, and
the rest of the company had been similarly chewed up. The squads
were filled up over strength with green replacements fresh from
a 15-week basic training course and 2-week jungle training
periods on Oahu and Saipan preparatory to being sent in as
replacements. Our battalion was over strength with more than
2000 men when we went to the front. Ten days later, and after I
had been wounded and evacuated by air to a hospital on Guam, the
battalion was operating with only about 150 men. My company had
182% casualties, killed and wounded. It was sort of like a dice
game -- you knew you were going to crap out, you just hoped you
did not have a whole month's pay up.
The Japanese had been on Okinawa for
about 60 years. They knew the distance by yards between hills --
and positions, such as burial tombs built in the hillsides which
they used quite often as pill boxes. It wasn't a battle in the
jungle. Progress was measured by feet rather than miles, as was
the case in the European War. Japanese artillery, mortar and
cross-fire machine gun action was devastating in that they did
not have to bracket in -- they just turned to the right click
and the shells were on you without warning.
At least 107,500 Japanese and
150,000 Okinawan natives were killed -- not just wounded, but
killed -- in this operation. We lost 7613 killed on land, 4900
at sea and tens of thousands wounded. Far and away, the most in
any operation in the Pacific during the entire war. Infantry
combat on Okinawa and elsewhere was not clean, if it can be
called that. You don't have beds to sleep in nor roofs over your
head. You have to literally carry your water in five-gallon cans
up and down the terrain, as well as your ammunition, hand
grenades and mortar rounds. We ate C and K rations that had to
be transported to fox holes.
The Japanese took few, if any,
prisoners. Most of the U.S. Pacific Infantry returned the favor.
Those prisoners who were taken were generally captured by rear
echelon units toward the end of the operation. As organized
resistance by the Japanese began to deteriorate, individual and
mass suicides occurred by jumping from cliffs or the use of
grenades and, I assume, with respect to some of the officers,
the short samurai swords.
The 10 major Kamikaze attacks which
occurred at Okinawa between April 6 and June 22 of 1945 were
unreal. There were about 1900 sorties that were launched, with
34 American warships sunk. About 5900 other Japanese aircraft
were downed during the battle. While I was in a tent hospital
awaiting evacuation, a number of raids occurred. Those wounded
who were ambulatory would go to slit trenches dug just outside
the tents where they were housed near the beach, and you could
watch those attacks against Navy vessels. It was crazy and
almost unbelievable.
The U.S. had almost complete control
of the air. The Navy and Marine corsairs were what were in
support of the infantry. They would bomb and strafe a hill
heavily, but the Japanese were truly dug in with interlocking
tunnels. How they survived is beyond me, but they were always
there. Even the 16" shells from battleships, which sounded like
freight cars going over your head, didn't appear capable of
taking a position out of action. Naval gunfire was furnished in
greater quantity at Okinawa than at any other time in history.
About a month after Okinawa was
declared secure, our division was shipped out to go to the
Philippines for restaffing and training preparatory to hitting
Japan. While en route, the atom bomb was dropped. Most of the
young infantrymen had never heard of an atom at that time and
simply did not believe the reports.
Today it distresses me to read about
the Enola Gay B-29 bomber that dropped the atom bomb being
installed in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C. with a
sympathetic tone, indicating that the Japanese were perhaps
unwarranted victims of that event, deserving of our sympathy. I
am convinced that had we invaded Japan, the estimate that more
than a million or so American lives would be lost in such an
effort was underestimated. The Japanese men, women and children,
would have been defending their homeland and families. They were
a fanatical force, ready to die for their cause. It would have
been absolutely terrible. The bomb saved many millions,
Japanese and American alike.
Cost of the campaign:
34 Navy vessels lost, most by
Kamikaze
368 ships damaged
763 U. S. aircraft downed
4900+ sailors killed and 4824
wounded
7613 Tenth Army killed and 31,807
wounded, and more than
26,000 non-battle casualties
Winston Churchill to President Harry
Truman on June 22, 1945: “The strength of willpower, devotion
and technical resources applied by the United States to this
task, joined with the death struggle of the enemy . . . places
this battle among the most intense and famous of military
history . . . we make our salute to all your troops and their
commanders engaged."
Note: statistics derived from
two books, "The Second World War" by Martin Gilbert and "Victory
in the Pacific 1945" by Samuel Eliot Morison.
Martin L. Allday
PFC, Company C
382nd Battalion
96th Division
|