Okinawa and the Triumph of American Naval Power in the Pacific

On 1 April 1945, Allied forces moved ashore on the southwestern beaches of Okinawa, some 400 miles south of the Japanese Home Islands. Their landing signaled the start of the largest amphibious assault of the Pacific war, supported by some 1,600 naval vessels and 350,000 personnel of Admiral Raymond Spruance’s U.S. Fifth Fleet—the largest Allied armada of the Pacific war. As Lieutenant General Simon Buckner Jr. moved his Tenth Army to the beach, U.S. soldiers and Marines braced for yet another chapter in a tale that gave no quarter.

The calendar provided an irony all its own on that fateful day. 1 April 1945 marked both the lighthearted “April Fools’ Day” and the much more solemn holiday of Easter, when Christians worldwide commemorate the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. The Allied and Axis forces that met at Okinawa, however, were to find neither the amusement of trivial pranks nor the respite of sacred holidays.

For every troop involved, rather, this April 1st commenced a grueling and savage campaign—one that struggled to find an end. Over the next 82 days, U.S. and Japanese forces locked horns on the ground, in the air, and on the sea. For the island’s native civilians, Okinawa brought misery and death. For those engaged in battle—what the locals dubbed the “Typhoon of Steel”—the struggle promised nothing more than fierce combat, utter exhaustion, and a daily quest for survival.

Opening Blows

Okinawa had long been an attractive target for Allied forces. The island had plenty of real estate for airfields. In addition, it boasted sufficient anchorages from which the Allies could mass their naval power for a subsequent invasion and blockade of Japan’s Home Islands.¹ Okinawa’s proximity to Japan proper also ensured that medium-range American bombers and fighters could comfortably reach the enemy’s industrial center on Kyushu and strike with great efficiency.

In the first few days of battle, the Americans’ assault exceeded even their most optimistic projections. The prelanding bombardments and minesweeping efforts achieved their intent, clearing the path for the arrival of ground forces. Observing the ease of the initial landing, the second wave of troops moved across the beach “upright, not even bothering to crouch.”²

U.S. infantry units reached their initial objectives days—and in some cases weeks—ahead of schedule. The swift pace was welcome, but it presented challenges of its own. At such a rapid march, elements of the 6th Marine Division risked their own fire support as they outran their adjacent artillery. In many cases, the ground advance outpaced the Navy’s ability to land motorized equipment and necessary logistics. Rapid progress on the front lines came at the expense of command and control at the landing beaches. Shore parties struggled to receive, organize, and dispatch equipment and supplies according to the pace of events.

The relative ease was not to last. By mid-April, the U.S. Army’s 7th and 96th Divisions stumbled into increasing enemy resistance extending across the entire width of the island. Along these central highlands, Japanese General Mitsuru Ushijima and his 32nd Army intended to leverage the high terrain, entrenched fighting positions, and their network of artillery, mortars, barbed wire, and minefields to stall the American advance and inflict maximum casualties.

Along the “Shuri Line,” Ushijima’s masterful defensive scheme and tactical patience—supported by the fierce obedience of his troops—triggered some of the most vicious combat in modern history. The balance of April, and indeed much of the remaining battle, was defined by persistent U.S. offensives and dogged Japanese resistance. Here, the campaign came to represent a meeting of two martial virtuosos. On the battlefields of Okinawa, the seasoned forces of the United States and Japan played their best hands.

To solve his dilemma, General Buckner combined tactical initiative with near-cosmic firepower. On the morning of 19 April, Buckner initiated one of the campaign’s signature attacks. To the concentrated firepower of six battleships, six cruisers, nine destroyers, and 650 aircraft, Buckner added 27 battalions of field artillery. The resulting concoction of combined arms covered the Americans’ five-mile front with one weapon to every 30 yards, to say nothing of the soldiers’ individual rifles and small arms. It was a staggering display of firepower.³

Stunning as it was, even this deluge struggled to break the deadlock. U.S. troops were driven back from many of the day’s advances while taking dispiriting losses. On 19 April alone, U.S. forces suffered more than 700 casualties and lost 22 Sherman tanks. The failed offensive was a reminder—as if it were needed—that there were no shortcuts in the Pacific.

As if combat conditions were not harsh enough, the month of May added torrential rain to the misery of the troops ashore. In the final two weeks of the month, Ie Shima, just northwest of Okinawa’s Motobu Peninsula, averaged 1.3 inches of rain per day. The battlefield turned to mud. Troops remained soaked for days on end. The rain interrupted even the most basic chores, from opening and eating rations to reading and writing letters. Routine foot marches became Olympic feats of strength and endurance. Motorized operations practically ceased. Marine mortarman Corporal Albert Mikel described the “impossible assignment” of delivering mortar ammo through the mud to forward positions. “But somehow,” Mikel remembered, “the impossible was carried out.”⁴

Slowly but surely, U.S. forces ground their way forward on Okinawa. Learning from their failed assault on 19 April, they tightened coordination between their artillery barrages and the advance of their infantry elements. Two weeks later, Buckner ordered the 1st Marine Division into the line to relieve the Army’s 27th Infantry Division. The exchange came just in time for a renewed Japanese offensive on 4 May. Anywhere and everywhere, U.S. troops turned to flamethrowers, hand grenades, and coordinated tank-infantry attacks to clear determined Japanese soldiers from their bunkers. Six weeks into the engagement, somehow, the battle seemed only to intensify.

On 14 May, the Marines commenced their assault on “Sugarloaf Hill,” a steep, rectangular grade into which Ushijima’s forces had designed a nearly impenetrable defense. For the next two weeks, the Americans “pulverized Sugarloaf” with naval gunfire, field artillery, rockets, napalm, and hand grenades. The Japanese defenders returned the favor with artillery barrages and careful, coordinated infantry assaults. Ultimately, U.S. ground forces broke through, seized the high ground, and earned a clear path to Okinawa’s Shuri Castle, a commanding structure that promised as much psychological as it did tactical value.⁵

Though weeks of difficult fighting remained, the U.S. momentum could not be reversed. At 1000 on 22 June 1945, the United States declared the end of organized resistance on Okinawa. Moments later, Marine General Roy Geiger, who had taken command ashore following Buckner’s untimely combat death, ordered the American colors raised over the Tenth Army’s headquarters.

War Ashore, War Afloat

In the American psyche, Okinawa is often memorialized as a protracted struggle ashore, fought across treacherous terrain and against a resolute Japanese army. It was that, but it was also much, much more. Even if the form and tools differed, Okinawa’s naval engagements maintained a comparable if not superior intensity to the combat ashore. U.S. sailors endured a hellish nightmare for weeks on end, fighting against the dwindling resources but unyielding human efforts of a crumbling Japanese Empire.

In its bid for a compromised peace, Japan would leave no resource untapped. More to protect the honor of its fleet than to influence the battle, the Imperial Japanese Navy sortied its 72,000-ton super battleship Yamato to meet the Americans off Okinawa. And so, on 6 April, the heaviest battleship in the history of naval warfare, carrying only enough fuel for a one-way transit, weighed anchor from the Inland Sea and steamed for the enemy. In theory, the Yamato was to fire every available shell en route before grounding herself on an Okinawan beach, where the 3,500-man crew would debark, form an improvised landing party, and join the Japanese resistance ashore.

The plan never materialized. As the Yamato approached the battle, U.S. carrier aircraft pounced on the prized enemy vessel in five successive waves. With so many planes in the air, U.S. aviators literally “got in one another’s way,” swarming the enemy battleship “like gnats.” Japanese gunners furiously expended their 18-inch shells into the air, hoping to intercept an attacking plane. Within minutes, the Yamato had suffered five torpedo hits and absorbed an uncertain but significant number of bombs from above. The Imperial Japanese Navy’s crown jewel was dead in the water.

With his ship doomed and his honor disgraced, the Yamato’s captain, Admiral Seiichi Itō, departed the bridge, returned to his quarters, and committed suicide. And yet, still, the slaughter was not over. As the crew abandoned ship, U.S. pilots strafed their helpless Japanese counterparts in the water (later that month, Japanese airmen would return the act in-kind). The war in the Pacific had reached a dark and dehumanizing pitch: a monotonous and vicious routine that promised no comfort and no relief.⁶

As American units crawled their way forward ashore, Spruance’s Fifth Fleet remained in the nearby waters off Okinawa providing critical gunfire and logistical support. But that support came at great risk to U.S. ships and sailors. Aware that the aerial bombs of their inexperienced pilots posed only a marginal threat to the enemy’s fleet, Japanese naval leaders hedged their bets behind a nascent but promising tactic first unveiled off the Philippines the previous October: the kamikaze pilot. Formally commissioned in March, the Kamikaze Special Attack Unit—named for the “divine wind” that disrupted the invasion force of Kublai Khan, Genghis Khan’s grandson, in the 13th century—marshaled every available aircraft on the southernmost Japanese island of Kyushu. (See “A Green Dragon . . . Raised Its Head from the Waves,” pp. 10–11.)⁷

Against this novel and threatening capability, U.S. sailors proved their mettle, in many cases exercising extraordinary heroism to keep the U.S. fleet in action. After suffering six kamikaze attacks and four bomb hits on 16 April, the USS Laffey (DD-724) fought for survival through smoke and flame. In words that rivaled the maxims of John Paul Jones and David Glasgow Farragut, the Laffey’s commander, Frederick Becton, stirred his crew with the promise, “I’ll never abandon ship as long as a gun will fire.”⁸ Encouraged by his resolve, Becton’s sailors ensured that the ship would live to fight another day.

The crew of the Laffey was hardly alone. While providing combat air patrols northeast of Okinawa the following month, the USS Enterprise (CV-6) shot down three attacking kamikazes before a fourth Japanese Zero broke the aerial perimeter. Assuming a 30-degree dive and taking the plane into a late roll, the enemy pilot smashed his aluminum missile into the Enterprise. In a mere instant, the crash neutralized the flight deck, destroyed the ship’s elevator, and sparked a distressing fire.

It took the crew just 30 minutes to extinguish the flames, though they had to deal with 2,000 tons of firefighting water that incidentally flooded several frames of the ship, up to and including the hangar deck. All the while, the Enterprise “maintained her station,” shooting down four subsequent kamikaze flights. “The remainder of the day,” the ship coolly reported, “was relatively quiet.”⁹

Against the increasingly effective use of Japanese kamikazes at Okinawa, Spruance and his subordinate commanders placed their faith in combat air patrols, reconnaissance flights, and radar picket lines. Serving as “point men” of the American naval formations, U.S. destroyers patrolled the sea 50 miles from their assigned task forces to provide early-warning and strike capability against enemy aircraft.¹⁰

The result was equal parts stirring and depressing for U.S. forces. As the “tin can sailors” extended their patrolling perimeter and integrated smaller support vessels within their formations, they continued to lose destroyers—and crews—at the distressing rate of a ship per day. But the sailors fought on, leading Captain Frederick Moosbrugger to declare, “Never in the annals of our glorious naval history have naval forces done so much with so little against such odds for so long a period.”¹¹

Dramatic as these engagements were, they became a matter of routine for the U.S. Navy at Okinawa. From their outpost, experienced Japanese fighter pilots accompanied squadron after squadron of one-way, suicidal sorties to their assigned American warships. Between April and June, ten coordinated kamikaze offensives totaling 1,465 aircraft swarmed Spruance’s fleet. One in six of the planes found their respective targets, sinking three dozen U.S. ships and damaging another 350 by the end of the campaign.¹²

Naval Power Triumphant

At Okinawa, American sailors endured some of the most difficult combat conditions of the entire war, indeed of U.S. naval history more generally. As historian George Carroll Dyer argued, even “maintaining” a navy in the waters around Okinawa became a “difficult, bloody, and long protracted struggle.”¹³ As if underlining his point, Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz made the tough and unconventional decision to relieve Raymond Spruance and his entire staff prior to completion of the campaign out of concern for the strain four months of near-constant, nerve-racking combat at sea had put on them.¹⁴

Although Japanese kamikaze attacks were not unveiled at Okinawa, they were matured to a frightening degree, leading the staff of the Enterprise to label them “the most effective [Japanese] aerial weapon” of the entire war.¹⁵ The marked increase in both scale and efficiency of the kamikaze pilots foreshadowed even more costly operations ahead. What methods and zeal might lay around the corner, Allied naval officers wondered.

American bluejackets were not alone, as any surviving soldier or Marine could attest. On Okinawa, “I existed from moment to moment,” Eugene Sledge recorded in his famous memoir, “sometimes thinking death would have been preferable. We were in the depths of the abyss, the ultimate horror of war.”¹⁶ Even if the Pacific war had left the rails of humanity some months before, Okinawa seemed to find yet another heightened pitch, simultaneously demonstrating the mastery of tactics, the totality of purpose, and the complete dismissal of mercy from both Japanese and U.S. forces.

Exact figures are difficult to confirm, but the latest estimates are disturbing. Although early U.S. intelligence estimated 65,000 Japanese troops on Okinawa, more recent scholarship places Ushijima’s detachment at 100,000. More than 90,000 of them lost their lives in the battle. At least another 100,000 local civilians—and perhaps as many as 150,000—also perished in the fighting.

While fewer by an order of magnitude, American losses were equally exceptional in the context of the war. Across all services, the United States lost 49,151 men, counting battle deaths as well as injuries. For the U.S. Navy, which lost 4,907 sailors killed, Okinawa was the bloodiest single engagement of the entire conflict, three times as deadly as the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal in late 1942. Alongside the bloody struggle for Iwo Jima, completed just a few months earlier, the battles delivered a grim foretaste of the combat to come on the Japanese Home Islands of Kyushu and Honshu.¹⁷

Despite the suffocating reality that more terrible engagements might remain around the corner, U.S. forces emerged from Okinawa sure of their proven tactics, their compounding resources, and their increasing odds of ultimate triumph. Unlike the service parochialism and occasional disorder that had threatened to divide U.S. Navy and Marine Corps forces at early junctures such as Guadalcanal and Tarawa, the commitment and resilience of Spruance’s Fifth Fleet earned his sailors a warm nickname from the men ashore. At Okinawa, it was “the Fleet that Came to Stay.”

Okinawa was a cornerstone of victory in the Pacific. It provided a spacious aerial base for continued bombing, a proximate anchorage for naval blockading, and a staging area for the war’s final assaults on Kyushu and Honshu, projected for late 1945 and early 1946. Encouraging as these spoils were, however, the battle also illustrated just how ominous the remainder of the war would be. As historian Richard Frank concluded, few Americans were interested in carrying forward Okinawa’s casualty ratio of 1 U.S. injury or death for every 1.2 Japanese casualties. Fewer still were interested when they learned that Japan had 5 million remaining troops. These realities, and more, contributed to President Harry Truman’s decision to authorize use of the atomic bombs just weeks later.

The campaign for Okinawa confirmed both the potential and the import of U.S. sea power in delivering final victory in the Pacific. Allied triumph on the island was enabled by naval aviators, protected by naval surface forces, and delivered by amphibious combat units. The battle was a seminar in joint campaigning. If more difficult objectives remained—an uncomfortable but unavoidable reality in the summer 1945—they too could be taken through the supremacy of U.S. industry and the superiority of American naval power.