By the spring of 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy was a shadow of its once-dominant self after sustaining horrific losses in aircraft and trained aviators at the Battle of the Philippine Sea and in surface ships at the Battle of Leyte Gulf. But the sea service and Japanese Army forces still were able to earn what historian Vincent O’Hara terms “a kind of victory” against overwhelming Allied forces at the Battle of Okinawa.
The U.S. capture of the island was a foregone conclusion. But in “Operation Iceberg’s Mixed Legacy,” O’Hara explains that Japan attained its goal of holding out as long as possible while inflicting grievous casualties by taking up strong defensive positions on the southern portion of the island and launching a kamikaze offensive against U.S. and British warships. The author presents a broad look at the campaign, pointing out its significance as a culminating event that provided a glimpse of future warfare.
The article’s opening photo on page 12 brought to mind Japanese historian and researcher Kan Sugahara’s revealing and poignant April 2008 article, “Who Knocked the Enterprise Out of the War?”. During the Okinawa campaign, the carrier returned to duty after being damaged by a kamikaze but was hit by a second suicide plane on 14 May, with the subsequent explosion blasting her forward elevator sky high.
For decades, the kamikaze pilot was identified as Chief Pilot Tomi Zai. Navy Commander Edward Stafford even titled a chapter in his book The Big E after Zai. But through diligent detective work, Sugahara identified the aviator as Lieutenant (junior grade) Shunsuke Tomiyasu, a college graduate who led the 6th Tsukuba Squadron on 14 May. Sugahara goes on to share the final letter Tomiyasu sent his family and recount how he was able to return a small piece of the pilot’s Zero, recovered from the Enterprise’s forward elevator pit, to Tomiyasu’s brother.
Look for a future article about how the U.S. Navy, caught off guard by Japan’s resort to kamikazes, tried to counter the suicide-plane threat.
Shortly after former Chief of Naval Operations Admiral James L. Holloway passed away on 26 November 2019, Edward Marolda, who served as senior historian for the Navy, contacted me and described a book manuscript he was finishing about U.S. admirals who had a major impact on the Vietnam War and its aftermath. One of those flag officers was Holloway, and Marolda offered to contribute a profile of him, which became “A Strong Hand on the Helm.”
The article details Holloway’s influence on the Navy during the Vietnam conflict and especially afterward, when he served as CNO. But before he rose to prominence in the Navy, on the night of 24–25 October 1944, Holloway was gunnery officer on board the USS Bennion (DD-662) “standing up through the hatch in the ship’s Mark 37 director, scanning the horizon with 7x50 binoculars.” Holloway’s own October 2010 article, “Second Salvo at Surigao Strait,” gives a detailed description of what happened next during history’s last battleship-versus-battleship clash.
In the Mediterranean 140 years earlier, the U.S. Navy also was at war, against Tripoli. In “Barbary War Interlude in Messina,” first-time contributor William Prom, a 2009 U.S. Naval Academy graduate and former Marine Corps officer, provides a different perspective on the United States’ first Barbary conflict. He focuses on the officers on board one ship, the schooner Nautilus, and their newfound friend, future celebrated writer Washington Irving.
A last item on our scope is that readers soon will have an alternate way to receive Naval History—purchasing a digital subscription to the magazine, which also will allow access to our archived articles. Check usni.org for updates.
Richard G. Latture
Editor-in-Chief
