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Jun 1, 2020 · On Kwajalein, the fatality rate for the Japanese force was 98.4 percent. On Saipan, almost 30,000—97 percent of the garrison—fought to the death. Of 23,000 Japanese troops on Iwo Jima, only 216 surrendered. On Okinawa, 92,0000—80 percent of the total Japanese force—was killed in action.
Some 110,000 Japanese and conscripted Okinawan defenders were killed in action. The battle created a humanitarian disaster for civilians as well. Exact numbers are impossible to know, but some estimates claim that over 100,000 civilians or as much as one-third of the pre-war population died during the battle.
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Battle of Okinawa, (April 1–June 21, 1945), World War II battle fought between U.S. and Japanese forces on Okinawa, the largest of the Ryukyu Islands. Okinawa is located just 350 miles (563 km) south of Kyushu, and its capture was regarded as a vital precursor to a ground invasion of the Japanese home islands. Dubbed “the Typhoon of Steel” for its ...
As the campaign on Iwo Jima was drawing to a close in March 1945, U.S. commanders marshalled strong army, air, and naval forces in preparation for Operation Iceberg, the invasion of Okinawa. The island, which is about 60 miles (roughly 100 km) long and no more than 20 miles (32 km) across at its widest point, had been thoroughly fortified by a Japanese garrison of some 100,000 men under the command of Lieut. Gen. Ushijima Mitsuru. Acknowledging that the battle for Okinawa would very likely replicate the brutal losses of Iwo Jima on a much greater scale, American planners hoped to overwhelm the Japanese with a massive preliminary bombardment and the largest amphibious landing conducted by the U.S. during the Pacific War.
The air and sea attacks that preceded the invasion had begun as early as October 1944, and Allied air operations carried out in March 1945 by carrier Task Force 58 under Rear Adm. Marc Mitscher destroyed hundreds of Japanese planes. While these losses reduced the Japanese defenders’ ability to challenge the Americans in the skies over Okinawa, the Japanese retained sufficient air power to stage devastating suicide attacks on Allied naval units. On March 26 a preliminary landing was made on the Kerama Islands, about 15 miles (24 km) to the west, where some 350 small boats had been assembled for suicide attacks on the landing force. Another preparatory landing was made on Keise, a collection of coral islets just 11 miles (18 km) southwest of the main invasion beaches. From Keise, American 155-mm Long Tom artillery batteries could provide fire support across most of southern Okinawa.
Over the final days of March, American underwater demolition teams and minesweepers cleared obstacles from the landing beaches. Under the overall leadership of theatre commander Adm. Chester Nimitz, Fifth Fleet commander Adm. Raymond Spruance would oversee the landings and U.S. ground troops would be commanded by Lieut. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr. The invasion was launched on April 1, 1945, when a contingent of U.S. ground troops landed at Hagushi, on the west coast of central Okinawa. Before nightfall, some 50,000 men of the U.S. 10th Army, under the command of Buckner, had gone ashore and established a beachhead about 5 miles (8 km) long.
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The Japanese response to the beach landings was deceptively muted, and by April 4, U.S. Army troops and Marines had cut the island in two. The first major Japanese counterattack came on April 6–7 in the form of suicidal raids by more than 350 kamikaze planes and the battleship Yamato. The Japanese had hoped that Yamato might finish off the Allied fleet after it had been weakened by the wave of kamikazes, but, with no air cover, the largest battleship ever constructed was easy prey for Mitscher’s carrier-based planes. The sinking of the Yamato on April 7 conclusively signaled the end of the “all-big-gun” battleship era of naval warfare. Altogether more effective were Japan’s aerial suicide weapons. Baka, essentially a piloted cruise missile, made its debut at Okinawa. Baka claimed its first victim, the destroyer USS Abele, in the seas off Okinawa on April 12.
Elements of the 10th Army drove cautiously to the north and had pacified the entire northern two-thirds of the island by April 22. During this period, U.S. forces suffered perhaps their highest profile casualty of the battle when journalist Ernie Pyle was killed in combat. Pyle, whose coverage of the European conflict had made him one of the most beloved war correspondents of World War II, had accompanied the 77th Infantry Division in an assault on Ie, an island just west of Okinawa. On April 18, while traveling to a forward command post, Pyle was mortally wounded by Japanese machine-gun fire.
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The Battle of Okinawa ( Japanese: 沖縄戦, Hepburn: Okinawa-sen), codenamed Operation Iceberg, [24] : 17 was a major battle of the Pacific War fought on the island of Okinawa by United States Army and United States Marine Corps forces against the Imperial Japanese Army. [25] [26] The initial invasion of Okinawa on 1 April 1945 was the largest ...
DayShipTypeCause19 Mar 45CarrierAir attack, bomb through flight, & hangar ...19 Mar 45CarrierAir attack20 Mar 45CarrierAir attack, two near misses from bombs, ...20 Mar 45DestroyerAir attack, kamikazeOn April 1, 1945, more than 60,000 soldiers and US Marines of the US Tenth Army stormed ashore at Okinawa, in the final island battle before an anticipated invasion of mainland Japan. After a largely unopposed initial advance, US forces soon encountered a network of Japanese inland defenses. Savage fighting erupted at the island’s southern end.
The result, whether voluntary or enforced by the Japanese, was mass suicides among the civilian population. By the time the Battle of Okinawa came to an end on 22 June, American forces had suffered more than 45,000 casualties, including 12,500 killed. Japanese deaths may have been higher than 100,000.
Apr 1, 2020 · More than 12,000 U.S. soldiers, sailors and Marines died during the fighting. In the waters around Okinawa, the Japanese launched the largest kamikaze, or suicide, attack of the war. Japanese...
