The Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg,
was fought on the Ryukyu Islands of Okinawa and was
the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific War of
World War II. The 82-day-long battle lasted from
early April until mid-June 1945. After a long
campaign of island hopping, the Allies were
approaching Japan, and planned to use Okinawa, a
large island only 340 mi (550 km) away from mainland
Japan, as a base for air operations on the planned
invasion of Japanese mainland (coded Operation
Downfall). Four divisions of the U.S. 10th Army (the
7th, 27th, 77th, and 96th) and two Marine Divisions
(the 1st and 6th) fought on the island. Their
invasion was supported by naval, amphibious, and
tactical air forces.
The battle has been referred to as the "typhoon of
steel" in English, and tetsu no ame ("rain of
steel") or tetsu no bōfū ("violent wind of steel")
in Japanese. The nicknames refer to the ferocity of
the fighting, the intensity of kamikaze attacks from
the Japanese defenders, and to the sheer numbers of
Allied ships and armored vehicles that assaulted the
island. The battle resulted in the highest number of
casualties in the Pacific Theater during World War
II. Based on Okinawan government sources,[10]
mainland Japan lost 77,166 soldiers, who were either
killed or committed suicide, and the Allies suffered
14,009 deaths (with an estimated total of more than
65,000 casualties of all kinds). Simultaneously,
42,000–150,000 local civilians were killed or
committed suicide, a significant proportion of the
local population. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki together with the Soviet invasion of
Manchuria caused Japan to surrender less than two
months after the end of the fighting on Okinawa.
ORDER OF BATTLE
ALLIED
Central Pacific Task Forces (Fifth Fleet) under
Admiral Raymond Spruance:
Covering Forces and Special Groups (Task Force 50)
directly under Spruance:
Fast Carrier Force (TF 58) under Vice Admiral Marc
A. Mitscher with 88 ships (including 11 fleet
carriers, 6 light carriers, 7 battleships and 18
cruisers);
British Carrier Force (TF 57) under Vice Admiral Sir
Bernard Rawlings with 4 carriers, 2 battleships, 5
cruisers, 14 destroyers and fleet train;
Joint Expeditionary Force (TF 51) under Vice Admiral
Richmond K. Turner (who was holding position of
Commander, Amphibious Forces, Pacific):
Amphibious Support Force (TF 52) under Rear Admiral
William H. P. Blandy:
TG 52.1: 18 escort carriers with 450 aircraft;
Sl Escort Carrier Group: 4 escort carriers with
Marine Aircraft Group 31 and 33;
Mine Flotilla (TG 52.2)
Underwater Demolition Flotilla (TG 52.11): ten
100-men UDT aboard destroyer escorts
170 fire support landing craft
Western Islands Attack Group (TG 51.1) under Rear
Admiral Ingolf N. Kiland with 77th Infantry
Division, 17 attack and attack cargo transporters,
56 LSTs and support vessels;
Northern Attack Force (TF 53) under Rear Admiral
Lawrence F. Reifsnider, Commander Amphibious Group
4, aboard USS Panamint (AGC-13) with III Amphibious
Corps (Major General Roy Geiger) on 40+ attack and
attack cargo transporters, 67 LSTs and support
vessels;
Southern Attack Force (TF 55) under Rear Admiral
John L. Hall with XXIV Corps (Major General John R.
Hodge);
Demonstration Group (TG 51.2) with 2nd Marine
Division;
Gunfire and Covering Support Group (TF 54) under
Rear Admiral Morton L. Deyo with 10 old battleships,
11 cruisers and 30 destroyers.
Expeditionary Troops (TF 56) under Lieutenant
General Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr. with Tenth Army.
TF 56 was the largest force within TF 50 and was
built around the 10th Army. The army had two corps
under its command, III Amphibious Corps, consisting
of 1st and 6th Marine Divisions, and XXIV Corps,
consisting of the 7th and 96th Infantry Divisions.
The 2nd Marine Division was an afloat reserve, and
Tenth Army also controlled the 27th Infantry
Division, earmarked as a garrison, and 77th Infantry
Divisions. In all, the Army had over 102,000 Army
(of these 38,000+ were non-divisional artillery,
combat support and HQ troops, with another 9,000
service troops), over 88,000 Marines and 18,000 Navy
personnel (mostly Seabees and medical personnel). At
the start of Battle of Okinawa 10th Army had 182,821
men under its command. It was planned that General
Buckner would report to Turner until the amphibious
phase was completed, after which he would report
directly to Spruance.
Although Allied land forces were entirely composed
of U.S. units, the British Pacific Fleet (BPF; known
to the U.S. Navy as Task Force 57) provided about ¼
of Allied naval air power (450 planes). It comprised
a force which included 50 warships of which 17 were
aircraft carriers, but while the British armored
flight decks meant that fewer planes could be
carried in a single aircraft carrier, they were more
resistant to kamikaze strikes. Although all the
aircraft carriers were provided by Britain, the
carrier group was a combined British Commonwealth
fleet with British, Canadian, New Zealand and
Australian ships and personnel. Their mission was to
neutralize Japanese airfields in the Sakishima
Islands and provide air cover against Japanese
kamikaze attacks. Most of the air-to-air fighters
and the small dive bombers and strike aircraft were
U.S. Navy carrier-based airplanes. The U.S. Navy
sustained greater casualties in this operation than
in any other battle of the war.
JAPANESE
The Japanese land campaign (mainly defensive) was
conducted by the 67,000-strong (77,000 according to
some sources) regular 32nd Army and some 9,000
Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) troops at Oroku naval
base (only a few hundred of whom had been trained
and equipped for ground combat), supported by 39,000
drafted local Ryukyuan people (including 24,000
hastily drafted rear militia called Boeitai and
15,000 non-uniformed laborers). In addition, 1,500
middle school senior boys organized into
front-line-service "Iron and Blood Volunteer Units",
while 600 Himeyuri Students were organized into a
nursing unit. The Japanese had used kamikaze tactics
since the Battle of Leyte Gulf, but for the first
time, they became a major part of the defense.
Between the American landing on 1 April and 25 May,
seven major kamikaze attacks were attempted,
involving more than 1,500 planes.
The 32nd Army initially consisted of the 9th, 24th,
and 62nd Divisions, and the 44th Independent Mixed
Brigade. The 9th Division was moved to Taiwan prior
to the invasion, resulting in shuffling of Japanese
defensive plans. Primary resistance was to be led in
the south by Lt. General Mitsuru Ushijima, his chief
of staff, Lieutenant General Isamu Chō and his chief
of operations, Colonel Hiromichi Yahara. Yahara
advocated a defensive strategy, whilst Chō advocated
an offensive one. In the north, Colonel Takehido Udo
was in command. The IJN troops were led by Rear
Admiral Minoru Ōta. They expected the Americans to
land 6–10 divisions against the Japanese garrison of
two and a half divisions; the staff calculated that
superior quality and numbers of weapons gave each
U.S. division five or six times the firepower of a
Japanese division; to this would be added the
Americans' abundant naval and air firepower.
NAVAL BATTLE
he United States Navy's Task Force 58, deployed to
the east of Okinawa with a picket group of from 6 to
8 destroyers, kept 13 carriers (7 CV and 6 CVL) on
duty from 23 March to 27 April and a smaller number
thereafter. Until 27 April, from 14 to 18 escort
carriers (CVE's) were in the area at all times, and
until 20 April British Task Force 57, with 4 large
and 6 escort carriers, remained off the Sakishima
Islands to protect the southern flank. The
protracted length of the campaign under stressful
conditions forced Admiral Chester W. Nimitz to take
the unprecedented step of relieving the principal
naval commanders to rest and recuperate. Following
the practice of changing the fleet designation with
the change of commanders, U.S. naval forces began
the campaign as the U.S. 5th Fleet under Adm.
Raymond Spruance, but ended it as the 3rd Fleet
under Adm. William Halsey.
Japanese air opposition had been relatively light
during the first few days after the landings.
However, on 6 April the expected air reaction began
with an attack by 400 planes from Kyushu. Periodic
heavy air attacks continued through April. During
the period 26 March-30 April, 20 American ships were
sunk and 157 damaged by enemy action. For their
part, the Japanese had lost up to 30 April more than
1,100 planes in the battle to Allied naval forces
alone. Between 6 April and 22 June, the Japanese
flew 1,465 kamikaze aircraft in large-scale attacks
from Kyushu, 185 individual kamikaze sorties from
Kyushu, and 250 individual kamikaze sorties from
Formosa. When U.S. intelligence estimated 89 planes
on Formosa, the Japanese had approximately 700,
dismantled or well camouflaged and dispersed into
scattered villages and towns; the U.S. Fifth Air
Force disputed Navy claims of kamikaze coming from
Formosa. The ships lost were smaller vessels,
particularly the destroyers of the radar pickets, as
well as destroyer escorts and landing ships. While
no major Allied warships were lost, several fleet
carriers were severely damaged. Land-based
motorboats were also used in the Japanese suicide
attacks.
OPERATION TEN-GO
Operation Ten-Go (Ten-gō sakusen) was the attempted
attack by a strike force of ten Japanese surface
vessels, led by the super battleship Yamato and
commanded by Admiral Seiichi Itō. This small task
force had been ordered to fight through enemy naval
forces, then beach themselves and fight from shore
using their guns as coastal artillery and crewmen as
naval infantry. The Ten-Go force was spotted by
submarines shortly after it left the Japanese home
waters, and was intercepted by U.S. carrier
aircraft. Under attack from more than 300 aircraft
over a two-hour span, the world's largest battleship
sank on 7 April 1945 after a one-sided battle, long
before she could reach Okinawa. U.S. torpedo bombers
were instructed to aim for only one side to prevent
effective counter flooding by the battleship's crew,
and hitting preferably the bow or stern, where armor
was believed to be the thinnest. Of Yamato 's
screening force, the light cruiser Yahagi and four
of the eight destroyers were also sunk. In all, the
Imperial Japanese Navy lost some 3,700 sailors,
including Admiral Itō, at the relatively low cost of
just 10 U.S. aircraft and 12 airmen.
BRITISH PACIFIC FLEET
The British Pacific Fleet, taking part as Task Force
57, was assigned the task of neutralizing the
Japanese airfields in the Sakishima Islands, which
it did successfully from 26 March-10 April. On 10
April, its attention was shifted to airfields on
northern Formosa. The force withdrew to San Pedro
Bay on 23 April. On 1 May, the British Pacific Fleet
returned to action, subduing the airfields as
before, this time with naval bombardment as well as
aircraft. Several kamikaze attacks caused
significant damage, but since the British used
armored flight decks on their aircraft carriers,
they only experienced a brief interruption to their
force's objective.
LAND BATTLE
The land battle took place over about 81 days
beginning on 1 April 1945. The first Americans
ashore were soldiers of the 77th Infantry Division,
who landed in the Kerama Islands (Kerama Retto), 15
mi (24 km) west of Okinawa on 26 March. Subsidiary
landings followed, and the Kerama group was secured
over the next five days. In these preliminary
operations, the 77th Infantry Division suffered 27
dead and 81 wounded, while Japanese dead and
captured numbered over 650. The operation provided a
protected anchorage for the fleet and eliminated the
threat from suicide boats.
On 31 March, Marines of the Fleet Marine Force
Amphibious Reconnaissance Battalion landed without
opposition on Keise Shima, four islets just 8 mi (13
km) west of the Okinawan capital of Naha. 155 mm
(6.1 in) "Long Tom"s went ashore on the islets to
cover operations on Okinawa.
NORTHERN OKINAWA
The main landing was made by XXIV Corps and III
Amphibious Corps on the Hagushi beaches on the
western coast of Okinawa on L-Day, 1 April, which
was both Easter Sunday and April Fools' Day in 1945.
The 2nd Marine Division conducted a demonstration
off the Minatoga beaches on the southeastern coast
to confuse the Japanese about American intentions
and delay movement of reserves from there.
The 10th Army swept across the south-central part of
the island with relative ease by World War II
standards, capturing the Kadena and the Yomitan
airbases within hours of the landing. In light of
the weak opposition, General Buckner decided to
proceed immediately with Phase II of his plan—the
seizure of northern Okinawa. The 6th Marine Division
headed up the Ishikawa Isthmus and by 7 April, had
sealed off the Motobu Peninsula.
Six days later on 13 April, the 2nd Battalion, 22nd
Marine Regiment reached Hedo Point (Hedo-misaki) at
the northernmost tip of the island. By this point,
the bulk of the Japanese forces in the north
(codenamed Udo Force) was cornered on the Motobu
Peninsula. Here, the terrain was mountainous and
wooded, with the Japanese defenses concentrated on
Yae-Dake; a twisted mass of rocky ridges and ravines
on the center of the peninsula. There was heavy
fighting before the Marines finally cleared Yae-Dake
on 18 April.
Meanwhile, the 77th Infantry Division assaulted Ie
Island (Ie Shima)—a small island off the western end
of the peninsula—on 16 April. In addition to
conventional hazards, the 77th Infantry Division
encountered kamikaze attacks, and even local women
armed with spears. There was heavy fighting before
Ie was declared secured on 21 April and became
another air base for operations against Japan. Ernie
Pyle, a war correspondent, was killed during the
fighting on Ie Island.
SOUTHERN OKINAWA
While the 6th Marine Division cleared northern
Okinawa, the U.S. Army 96th Infantry division and
7th Infantry Division wheeled south across the
narrow waist of Okinawa. The 96th Infantry Division
began to encounter fierce resistance in west-central
Okinawa from Japanese troops holding fortified
positions east of Highway No. 1 and about 5 mi (8.0
km) northwest of Shuri, from what came to be known
as Cactus Ridge. The 7th Infantry Division
encountered similarly fierce Japanese opposition
from a rocky pinnacle located about 1,000 yd (910 m)
southwest of Arakachi (later dubbed "The Pinnacle").
By the night of 8 April, U.S. troops had cleared
these and several other strongly fortified
positions. They suffered over 1,500 battle
casualties in the process, while killing or
capturing about 4,500 Japanese, yet the battle had
only just begun, for it was now realized they were
merely outposts guarding the Shuri Line.
The next American objective was Kakazu Ridge, two
hills with a connecting saddle that formed part of
Shuri's outer defenses. The Japanese had prepared
their positions well and fought tenaciously. The
Japanese soldiers hid in fortified caves. The U.S.
forces often lost men before clearing the Japanese
out from each cave or other hiding place. The
Japanese sent Okinawans at gunpoint out to acquire
water and supplies for them, which led to civilian
casualties. The American advance was inexorable but
resulted in a high number of casualties on both
sides.
As the American assault against Kakazu Ridge
stalled, Gen. Ushijima — influenced by Gen. Chō —
decided to take the offensive. On the evening of 12
April, the 32nd Army attacked U.S. positions across
the entire front. The Japanese attack was heavy,
sustained, and well organized. After fierce close
combat the attackers retreated, only to repeat their
offensive the following night. A final assault on 14
April was again repulsed. The effort led 32nd Army's
staff to conclude that the Americans were vulnerable
to night infiltration tactics, but that their
superior firepower made any offensive Japanese troop
concentrations extremely dangerous, and they
reverted to their defensive strategy.
The 27th Infantry Division—which had landed on 9
April—took over on the right, along the west coast
of Okinawa. General John R. Hodge now had three
divisions in the line, with the 96th in the middle,
and the 7th on the east, with each division holding
a front of only about 1.5 mi (2.4 km). Hodge
launched a new offensive of 19 April with a barrage
of 324 guns, the largest ever in the Pacific Ocean
Theater. Battleships, cruisers, and destroyers
joined the bombardment, which was followed by 650
Navy and Marine planes attacking the enemy positions
with napalm, rockets, bombs, and machine guns. The
Japanese defenses were sited on reverse slopes,
where the defenders waited out the artillery barrage
and aerial attack in relative safety, emerging from
the caves to rain mortar rounds and grenades upon
the Americans advancing up the forward slope.
A tank assault to achieve breakthrough by
outflanking Kakazu Ridge, failed to link up with its
infantry support attempting to cross the ridge and
failed with the loss of 22 tanks. Although flame
tanks cleared many cave defenses, there was no
breakthrough, and the XXIV Corps lost 720 men KIA,
WIA and MIA. The losses might have been greater,
except for the fact that the Japanese had
practically all of their infantry reserves tied up
farther south, held there by another feint off the
Minatoga beaches by the 2nd Marine Division that
coincided with the attack.
At the end of April, after the Army forces had
pushed through the Machinato defensive line, the 1st
Marine Division relieved the 27th Infantry Division,
and the 77th Infantry Division relieved the 7th.
When the 6th Marine Division arrived, III Amphibious
Corps took over the right flank and 10th Army
assumed control of the battle.
On 4 May, the 32nd Army launched another
counteroffensive. This time, Ushijima attempted to
make amphibious assaults on the coasts behind
American lines. To support his offensive, the
Japanese artillery moved into the open. By doing so,
they were able to fire 13,000 rounds in support but
an effective U.S. counter-battery fire destroyed
dozens of Japanese artillery pieces. The attack
failed.
Buckner launched another American attack on 11 May.
Ten days of fierce fighting followed. On 13 May,
troops of the 96th Infantry Division and 763rd Tank
Battalion captured Conical Hill. Rising 476 ft (145
m) above the Yonabaru coastal plain, this feature
was the eastern anchor of the main Japanese defenses
and was defended by about 1,000 Japanese. Meanwhile,
on the opposite coast, the 1st and 6th Marine
Divisions fought for "Sugar Loaf Hill". The capture
of these two key positions exposed the Japanese
around Shuri on both sides. Buckner hoped to envelop
Shuri and trap the main Japanese defending force.
By the end of May, monsoon rains which turned
contested hills and roads into a morass exacerbated
both the tactical and medical situations. The ground
advance began to resemble a World War I battlefield
as troops became mired in mud and flooded roads
greatly inhibited evacuation of wounded to the rear.
Troops lived on a field sodden by rain, part garbage
dump and part graveyard. Unburied Japanese and
American bodies decayed, sank in the mud, and became
part of a noxious stew. Anyone sliding down the
greasy slopes could easily find their pockets full
of maggots at the end of the journey.
On 29 May, Maj. Gen. Pedro del Valle — commanding
the 1st Marine Division—ordered Company A, 1st
Battalion, 5th Marines to capture Shuri Castle.
Seizure of the castle represented both strategic and
psychological blows for the Japanese and was a
milestone in the campaign. Del Valle was awarded a
Distinguished Service Medal for his leadership in
the fight and the subsequent occupation and
reorganization of Okinawa. Shuri Castle had been
shelled by the battleship USS Mississippi for three
days before this advance. Due to this, the 32nd Army
withdrew to the south and thus the Marines had an
easy task of securing Shuri Castle. The castle,
however, was outside the 1st Marine Division's
assigned zone and only frantic efforts by the
commander and staff of the 77th Infantry Division
prevented an American air strike and artillery
bombardment which would have resulted in many
casualties due to friendly fire.
The Japanese retreat — although harassed by
artillery fire — was conducted with great skill at
night and aided by the monsoon storms. The 32nd Army
was able to move nearly 30,000 men into its last
defense line on the Kiyan Peninsula, which
ultimately led to the greatest slaughter on Okinawa
in the latter stages of the battle, including the
deaths of thousands of civilians. In addition, there
were 9,000 IJN troops supported by 1,100 militia,
with approximately 4,000 holed up at the underground
headquarters on the hillside overlooking the Okinawa
Naval Base in the Oroku Peninsula, east of the
airfield. On June 4, elements of the 6th Marine
Division launched an amphibious assault on the
peninsula. The 4,000 Japanese sailors — including
Admiral Minoru Ōta — all committed suicide within
the hand-built tunnels of the underground Naval
headquarters on 13 June. By 17 June, the remnants of
Ushijima's shattered 32nd Army were pushed into a
small pocket in the far south of the island to the
southeast of Itoman. On 18 June, Gen. Buckner was
killed by enemy artillery fire while monitoring the
forward progress of his troops. Buckner was replaced
by Roy Geiger. Upon assuming command, Geiger became
the only U.S. Marine to command a numbered army of
the U.S. Army in combat; he was relieved five days
later by Joseph Stilwell.
The last remnants of Japanese resistance fell on 21
June, although some Japanese continued hiding,
including the future governor of Okinawa Prefecture,
Masahide Ōta. Ushijima and Chō committed suicide by
seppuku in their command headquarters on Hill 89 in
the closing hours of the battle. Col. Yahara had
asked Ushijima for permission to commit suicide, but
the general refused his request, saying: "If you die
there will be no one left who knows the truth about
the battle of Okinawa. Bear the temporary shame but
endure it. This is an order from your army
Commander." Yahara was the most senior officer to
have survived the battle on the island, and he later
authored a book titled The Battle for Okinawa. The
official surrender ceremony was held on 7 September
near Kadena airfield.
CASUALTIES
Okinawa was the bloodiest battle of the Pacific War.
The most complete tally of deaths during the Battle
are at the Cornerstone of Peace monument at the
Okinawa Prefecture Peace Park identifies the names
of each individual who died at Okinawa due to World
War II. As of 2010, the monument lists 240,931
names, including 149,193 Okinawan civilians, 77,166
Imperial Japanese soldiers, 14,009 U.S. soldiers,
and smaller numbers of people from South Korea
(365), the UK (82), North Korea (82) and Taiwan
(34). The numbers correspond to recorded deaths
during the Battle of Okinawa from the time of the
U.S. landings in the Kerama Islands on 26 March 1945
to the signing of the Japanese surrender on 2
September 1945, in addition to all Okinawan
casualties in the Pacific War in the fifteen years
from the Manchurian Incident, along with those who
died in Okinawa from war-related events in the year
before the battle and the year after the surrender.
234,183 names were inscribed by the time of
unveiling and new names are added each year. Forty
thousand of the Okinawan civilians killed had been
drafted or impressed by the Japanese army and are
often counted as combat deaths.
MILITARY LOSSES
US LOSSES
U.S. manpower losses amounted to over 82,000
casualties, including non-battle casualties
(psychiatric, injuries, illnesses) of whom over
12,500 were killed or missing. Battle deaths were
4,907 Navy, 4,675 Army, and 2,938 Marine Corps
personnel. Several thousand servicemen who died
indirectly (from wounds and other causes) at a later
date are not included in the total. One of the most
famous U.S. casualties was the war correspondent
Ernie Pyle, who was killed by Japanese sniper fire
on Ie Island (Ie Shima, a small island just off of
northwestern Okinawa). Lt. Gen. Buckner's decision
to attack the Japanese defenses head-on, although
extremely costly in U.S. lives, was ultimately
successful. Just four days from the closing of the
campaign, Buckner was killed by Japanese artillery
fire, which blew lethal slivers of coral into his
body, while inspecting his troops at the front line.
He was the highest-ranking U.S. officer to be killed
by enemy fire during the war. The day after Buckner
was killed, Brig. Gen. Claudius Miller Easley was
killed by machine gun fire.
Aircraft losses over the three-month period were 768
U.S. planes, including those bombing the Kyushu
airfields launching kamikazes. Combat losses were
458, and the other 310 were operational accidents.
On land, the U.S. forces lost at least 225 tanks and
many LVTs. At sea, 368 Allied ships—including 120
amphibious craft—were damaged while another
28—including 15 amphibious ships and 12
destroyers—were sunk during the Okinawa campaign.
The U.S. Navy's dead exceeded its wounded with 4,907
killed and 4,874 wounded, primarily from kamikaze
attacks.
The U.S. personnel casualties included thousands of
cases of mental breakdown. According to the account
of the battle presented in Marine Corps Gazette,
More mental health issues arose from the Battle of
Okinawa than any other battle in the Pacific during
World War II. The constant bombardment from
artillery and mortars coupled with the high casualty
rates led to a great deal of men coming down with
combat fatigue. Additionally the rains caused mud
that prevented tanks from moving and tracks from
pulling out the dead, forcing Marines (who pride
themselves on burying their dead in a proper and
honorable manner) to leave their comrades where they
lay. This, coupled with thousands of bodies both
friend and foe littering the entire island, created
a scent you could nearly taste. Morale was
dangerously low by the month of May and the state of
discipline on a moral basis had a new low barometer
for acceptable behavior. The ruthless atrocities by
the Japanese throughout the war had already brought
on an altered behavior (deemed so by traditional
standards) by many Americans resulting in the
desecration of Japanese remains, but the Japanese
tactic of using the Okinawan people as human shields
brought about a new aspect of terror and torment to
the psychological capacity of the Americans.
JAPANESE LOSSES
The U.S. military estimates that 110,071 Japanese
soldiers were killed during the battle. This total
includes an unknown number of impressed Okinawan
civilians who were killed during the battle.
7,401 soldiers surrendered or were captured during
the battle. Additional Japanese were captured or
surrendered over the next few months raising the
total to 16,346. This was the first battle in the
Pacific War in which thousands of Japanese soldiers
surrendered or were captured. Many of the prisoners
were native Okinawans who had been pressed into
service shortly before the battle and were less
imbued with the Imperial Japanese Army's
no-surrender doctrine. When the American forces
occupied the island, many Japanese soldiers put on
Okinawan clothing to avoid capture and some
Okinawans would come to the Americans' aid by
offering to detect the mainland Japanese in hiding.
The Japanese lost 16 combat vessels, including the
super battleship Yamato. Japanese aircraft losses
were 7,830, including 2,655 to operational
accidents. Navy and Marine Corps fighters downed
3,047, while shipboard anti-aircraft fire felled
409, and the B-29s destroyed 558 on the ground. The
Allies destroyed 27 Japanese tanks and 743 artillery
pieces (including mortars, anti-tank and
anti-aircraft guns), some of them eliminated by the
naval and air bombardments but most of them
knocked-out by American counter-battery fire.
CIVILIAN LOSSES, SUICIDES AND ATROCITIES
Some islands that saw major battles, such as Iwo
Jima, were uninhabited or previously evacuated.
Okinawa, by contrast, had a large indigenous
civilian population; U.S. Army records from the
planning phase of the operation make the assumption
that Okinawa was home to about 300,000 civilians.
According to various estimates, between one tenth
and one third of them died during the battle, or
between 30,000 and 100,000 dead. Okinawa
Prefecture's estimate is over 100,000 losses, while
the official U.S. Army count for the 82-day campaign
is a total of 142,058 civilian casualties, including
those killed by artillery fire, air attacks and
those who had been pressed into service by the
Imperial Japanese Army. During the battle, U.S.
soldiers found it difficult to distinguish civilians
from soldiers. It became common for U.S. soldiers to
shoot at Okinawan houses, as one infantryman wrote,
"There was some return fire from a few of the
houses, but the others were probably occupied by
civilians – and we didn't care. It was a terrible
thing not to distinguish between the enemy and women
and children. Americans always had great compassion,
especially for children. Now we fired
indiscriminately." Since many Okinawan residents
fled to caves where they subsequently were entombed,
the precise number of civilian casualties will
probably never be known.
In its history of the war, the Okinawa Prefectural
Peace Memorial Museum presents Okinawa as being
caught between the United States and the Empire of
Japan in the fighting. During the 1945 battle, the
Japanese Army showed indifference to Okinawans'
safety, and its soldiers even used civilians as
human shields against the Americans, or just
outright murdered them. Japanese military
confiscated food from the Okinawans and executed
those who hid it, leading to a mass starvation among
the population, and forced civilians out of their
shelters. Japanese soldiers also killed about 1,000
people who spoke in the Okinawan language in order
to suppress spying. The museum writes that "some
were blown apart by [artillery] shells, some finding
themselves in a hopeless situation were driven to
suicide, some died of starvation, some succumbed to
malaria, while others fell victim to the retreating
Japanese troops."
With the impending victory of American troops,
civilians often committed mass suicide, urged on by
the Japanese soldiers who told locals that
victorious American soldiers would go on a rampage
of killing and raping. Ryūkyū Shimpō, one of the two
major Okinawan newspapers, wrote in 2007: "There are
many Okinawans who have testified that the Japanese
Army directed them to commit suicide. There are also
people who have testified that they were handed
grenades by Japanese soldiers" to blow themselves
up. Thousands of the civilians, having been induced
by Japanese propaganda to believe that U.S. soldiers
were barbarians committing horrible atrocities,
killed their families and themselves to avoid
capture. Some of them threw themselves and their
family members from the southern cliffs where the
Peace Museum now resides. However, having been told
by the Japanese military that they would suffer
terribly at the hands of the arriving Americans if
they allowed themselves to be taken alive, Okinawans
"were often surprised at the comparatively humane
treatment they received from the American enemy."
Islands of Discontent: Okinawan Responses to
Japanese and American Power by Mark Selden, notes
that the Americans "did not pursue a policy of
torture, rape, and murder of civilians as Japanese
military officials had warned." U.S. Military
Intelligence Corps combat translators such as Teruto
Tsubota managed to convince many civilians not to
kill themselves. Survivors of the mass suicides
blamed also the indoctrination of their education
system of the time, when the Okinawans were taught
to become "more Japanese than the Japanese," and
expected to prove it.
Witnesses and historians reported that soldiers on
both sides had raped Okinawan women during the
battle. Rape by Japanese troops "became common" in
June, after it became clear that the Japanese Army
had been defeated. Marine Corps officials in Okinawa
and Washington have said that they knew of no rapes
by American servicemen in Okinawa at the end of the
war. The New York Times, however, reported on the
1945 alleged incident in the village of Katsuyama,
where civilians said they had formed a vigilante
group to ambush and kill three black American
soldiers whom they claimed would frequently rape the
local girls there.
MEXT CONTROVERSY
There is ongoing major disagreement between
Okinawa's local government and Japan's national
government over the role of the Japanese military in
civilian mass suicides during the battle. In March
2007, the national Ministry of Education, Culture,
Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) advised
textbook publishers to reword descriptions that the
embattled Imperial Japanese Army forced civilians to
kill themselves in the war so they would not be
taken prisoner by the U.S. military. MEXT preferred
descriptions that just say that civilians received
hand grenades from the Japanese military. This move
sparked widespread protests among the Okinawans. In
June 2007, the Okinawa Prefectural Assembly adopted
a resolution stating, "We strongly call on the
(national) government to retract the instruction and
to immediately restore the description in the
textbooks so the truth of the Battle of Okinawa will
be handed down correctly and a tragic war will never
happen again." On September 29, 2007, about 110,000
people held the biggest political rally in the
history of Okinawa to demand that MEXT retract its
order to textbook publishers on revising the account
of the civilian suicides. The resolution stated: "It
is an undeniable fact that the 'multiple suicides'
would not have occurred without the involvement of
the Japanese military and any deletion of or
revision to (the descriptions) is a denial and
distortion of the many testimonies by those people
who survived the incidents." In December 2007, MEXT
partially admitted the role of the Japanese military
in civilian mass suicides. The ministry's Textbook
Authorization Council allowed the publishers to
reinstate the reference that civilians "were forced
into mass suicides by the Japanese military", on
condition it is placed in sufficient context. The
council report stated: "It can be said that from the
viewpoint of the Okinawa residents, they were forced
into the mass suicides."
That was, however, not enough for the survivors who
said it is important for children today to know what
really happened. The Nobel Prize winning author
Kenzaburō Ōe has written a booklet which states that
the mass suicide order was given by the military
during the battle. He was sued by the revisionists,
including a wartime commander during the battle, who
disputed this and wanted to stop publication of the
booklet. At a court hearing, Ōe testified: "Mass
suicides were forced on Okinawa islanders under
Japan's hierarchical social structure that ran
through the state of Japan, the Japanese armed
forces and local garrisons." In March 2008, the
Osaka Prefecture Court ruled in favor of Ōe,
stating, "It can be said the military was deeply
involved in the mass suicides." The court recognized
the military's involvement in the mass suicides and
murder–suicides, citing the testimony about the
distribution of grenades for suicide by soldiers and
the fact that mass suicides were not recorded on
islands where the military was not stationed. In
2012, Korean-Japanese director Pak Su-nam announced
her work on the documentary Nuchigafu (Okinawan for
"only if one is alive") collecting the still-living
survivors’ accounts in order to show "the truth of
history to many people," alleging that "there were
two types of orders for 'honorable deaths'--one for
residents to kill each other and the other for the
military to kill all residents." In March 2013,
Japanese textbook publisher Shimizu Shoin was
permitted by MEXT to publish the statements that,
"Orders from Japanese soldiers led to Okinawans
committing group suicide," and, "The [Japanese] army
caused many tragedies in Okinawa, killing local
civilians and forcing them to commit mass suicide."
AFTERMATH
Ninety percent of the buildings on the island were
destroyed, along with countless historical
documents, artifacts, and cultural treasures, and
the tropical landscape was turned into "a vast field
of mud, lead, decay and maggots". The military value
of Okinawa "exceeded all hope." Okinawa provided a
fleet anchorage, troop staging areas, and airfields
in close proximity to Japan. The U.S. cleared the
surrounding waters of mines in Operation Zebra,
occupied Okinawa, and set up the United States Civil
Administration of the Ryukyu Islands, a form of
military government, after the battle.
Some military historians believe that the Okinawa
campaign led directly to the atomic bombings of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as a means of avoiding the
planned ground invasion of the Japanese mainland. An
alternate view is offered by Victor Davis Hanson in
his book Ripples of Battle:
...because the Japanese on Okinawa... were so fierce
in their defense (even when cut off, and without
supplies), and because casualties were so appalling,
many American strategists looked for an alternative
means to subdue mainland Japan, other than a direct
invasion. This means presented itself, with the
advent of atomic bombs, which worked admirably in
convincing the Japanese to sue for peace
[unconditionally], without American casualties.
Ironically, the American conventional firebombing of
major Japanese cities (which had been going on for
months before Okinawa) was far more effective at
killing civilians than the atomic bombs and, had the
Americans simply continued, or expanded this, the
Japanese would likely have surrendered anyway.
In 1995, the Okinawa government erected a memorial
monument named the Cornerstone of Peace in Mabuni,
the site of the last fighting in southeastern
Okinawa. The memorial lists all the known names of
those who died in the battle, civilian and military,
Japanese and foreign. As of June 2008, it contains
240,734 names. Controversially, significant U.S.
forces remain garrisoned there as the United States
Forces Japan, and Kadena remains the largest U.S.
air base in Asia. In 2011, one official of the
prefectural government told David Hearst of The
Guardian:
You have the Battle of Britain, in which your airmen
protected the British people. We had the Battle of
Okinawa, in which the exact opposite happened. The
Japanese army not only starved the Okinawans but
used them as human shields. That dark history is
still present today - and Japan and the US should
study it before they decide what to do with next.
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