Battle of Okinawa

In the early pre-dawn twilight of April 1, 1945, Sgt. Takejiro Higa of the 314th Language Detachment of the U.S. 96th Infantry Division peered out at the familiar Okinawan coastline from the deck of an invasion ship with a sinking heart. Conflicting emotions churned within him: "I have a duty and responsibility as an American soldier. But why must I invade the home of my ancestors?" He stood on deck facing the approaching island with tears streaming down his cheeks.

As the U.S. forces prepared to make land, little did Higa realize that he was to witness and participate in "Operation Iceberg," the bloodiest and most bitterly fought battle of the Pacific War where almost 240,000 American, Japanese and Okinawan lives were lost and the island of Okinawa left devastated and ravished. (Feifer: 141)

The American attacking force consisted of 183,000 troops of the U.S. Tenth Army and Marine Divisions commanded by General Simon Bolivar Buckner, supported by Navy and Air Force fire and bombardment. Okinawa was defended by 77,000 troops of the Japanese 32nd Army commanded by Gen. Mitsuru Ushijima, assisted by Lt.Gen Isamu Cho and Col. Hiromichi Yahara, and augmented by conscripted 20,000 "Boeitai" (Okinawa Home Guard) as labor and service troops and 750 middle school boys organized into the "Tekketsu Kinnotai" (Blood and Iron Corps).

For "Operation Iceberg," Pacific Commander Admiral Nimitz had assembled and launched the greatest amphibious invasion force of the Pacific War, as the horizon of the offshore sea was almost obliterated with hundreds and hundreds of ships moving toward the invasion beaches. As the pre-H Hour bombardment lifted, an 8-mile long line of amphibious assault and landing craft moved shoreward onto the Hagushi and Chatan beachheads landing 60,000 assault troops, surprisingly without any enemy fire or resistance (Fisch : 258)

20 kilometers to the south from the top of Shuri Castle, General Ushijima and his staff calmly peered through binoculars, witnessing the devastating bombardment followed by thousands of American troops landing on the beaches unmolested, laughing and bemused that the enemy had wasted all that valuable ammunition on undefended ground. But this was all in accordance with the Japanese strategy to conserve its troop strength concentrated in the southern end of Okinawa, by allowing an initial enemy landing but to strenuously defend against the invading Americans at the strongly fortified Naha-Shuri-Yonabaru defense line.

Col. Yahara summarized the overall Japanese military strategy and philosophy of the Japanese defenders on Okinawa as the jikyusen, war of attrition, thusly:

"Japan was frantically preparing for a final decisive battle on the home islands, leaving Okinawa to face a totally hopeless situation. From the beginning I had insisted that our proper strategy was to hold the enemy as long as possible, drain off his troops and supplies, and thus contribute our utmost to the final decisive battle for Japan proper." (Gandt: 168)

Translated into real terms, this dark outlook was to render the entire Japanese forces, the total land and resources of Okinawa and all of its residents, to become ...