The Giretsu Attack
By Claude R. "Red" Canup and Linda Canup Keaton-Lima
Okinawa Dispatches
Marines in an airfield control tower got a shock when a plane loaded with Japanese commandos made a belly landing and the raiders began blowing up U.S. aircraft.
The deadly attacks Japanese suicide planes made against U.S. Navy ships are a prominent aspect of the Battle of Okinawa. Less well-known is a different sort of kamikaze attack that U.S. Marines guarding the island's Yontan Airfield contended with on the night of 24-25 May 1945. The Giretsu Airborne Raiding Force had been assigned the task of destroying as many U.S. planes as possible on the ground at Yontan and Ie Shima airfields, to increase the chances of suicide aircraft penetrating American air cover. Twelve twin-engine planes transporting the force's 120 commandos were to land at the airfields under cover of darkness, but in the end, only one touched down.
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