Battle of Okinawa
Battle
Background
The
Battle of Okinawa started in April 1945. The capture of Okinawa was part of a
three-point plan the Americans had for winning the war in the Far East. Okinawa
was to prove a bloody battle even by the standards of the war in the Far East
but it was to be one of the major battles of World War Two. Alongside, the
territorial re-conquest of land in the Far East, the Americans wished to
destroy what was left of Japan’s merchant fleet and use airstrips in the region
to launch bombing raids on Japan’s industrial heartland. Okinawa is the largest
of the Ryukyus islands at the southern tip of Japan. Okinawa is about 60 miles
long and between 2 and 18 miles wide. Its strategic importance could not be
underestimated – there were four airfields on the island that America needed to
control. America also faced the problem that they had not been able to get much
intelligence information about Okinawa.
Military
Leadership
The
Americans land commander was Lieutenant-General Simon Bolivar Buckner. He had
180,000 men under his command. The bay selected for the American landing was
Hagushi Bay on the western side of the island. As with Iwo Jima, the landings were preceded by a period of
intense bombardment but America’s forces were also open to attack from Japanese
fighters flying out of Taiwan or Japan itself. Unfortunately for the Americans,
their intelligence was patchy at best, and in fact they had greatly
underestimated the size of the defensive forces on Okinawa. There were in fact
more than 130,000 troops stationed there, under the command of Lt. General
Ushijima.
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Plans and Objectives
The
American plan for final victory in the Pacific had several aspects, but the
capturing of Okinawa was at the plan’s core. The main strategic objective,
apart from gaining territory from the Japanese, was twofold. First, the capture
of the island’s airfields would allow U.S. planes to use them as bases from
which they could bomb the industrial centers of Japan. Second, the remnants of
Japan’s merchant shipping fleet were to be destroyed in order to cut off
supplies to the enemy.
Execution
The
use of the Kamikaze added the fatal blow to both Americans and Japanese. Although the large majority of the
kamikaze attacks – nearly 200 of them in all – were destroyed by American fire,
around two dozen succeeded in hitting their targets. The United States force
for the invasion itself consisted of almost 1,500 ships, of which only a fifth
were warships, the rest being used for transport, supplies, etc. On April 1,
U.S. Marines made their first landing on Okinawa, and were surprised to
encounter only light resistance from the Japanese. By nightfall, Hagushi bay
had seen 60,000 military personnel come ashore. Many of these pushed north,
where the lightly defended countryside was easily taken; by April 20, the
northern half of Okinawa was effectively secured. The southern portion of the
island, where the bulk of the Japanese defensive forces had been stationed,
proved to be a much harder nut to crack. It took almost three weeks to breach
the line, after which the secondary Shuri Line also caused severe delays. The
time that it took the Americans to break through these lines resulted in heavy
casualties.
Results
Ushijima,
seeing that things were going badly for his men, ordered them to counter-attack
on May 3, but the assault was repulsed by U.S. soldiers. On May 21, he was
forced to order a retreat from the Shuri Line, although at this point morale
remained reasonably high and resistance continued. As the battle wore on,
however, and further losses followed, the Japanese lost heart and in late June,
Ushijima committed suicide. On July 2, the Americans declared Okinawa secure.
The Battle of Okinawa proved to be a colossal military defeat for Japan, one of
its worst of the entirety of World War Two. Well over 100,000 Japanese troops
were killed, with another 7,000 taken as prisoners of war. Japanese aircraft
losses totaled over 4,000. Despite its victory, the U.S. had also suffered
substantial losses: on land and at sea together, over 12,000 Americans were
killed and over 36,000 wounded. 36 American ships and nearly 800 aircraft were
also destroyed. Despite the humiliation of having been crushed in battle at
Okinawa, Japan resolved to fight on. At one point, it seemed as though a
full-scale land invasion of the Japanese mainland might be necessary, an
operation which would undoubtedly have cost enormous numbers of lives. In the
event, Japan was forced to announce its surrender in early August, after the
U.S. had dropped atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
