The Battle of Okinawa turns 75 as one of the bloodiest battles of the Pacific War, which took place from late March to June 1945. This long battle meant that more than 4,900 U.S. Sailors lost their lives compared with the U.S. Army and Marine Corps combined during this battle. Japan’s garrison of almost 77,000 was decimated, and the toll on civilians was terrible—nearly half of Okinawa’s civilian population died.
Okinawa was a critical strategic stepping-stone for the planned invasion of Japan. There was a monumental task for the U.S. Navy to transport, supply, and defend more than 500,000 U.S. Army and Marine personnel over very vulnerable logistics lines that stretched thousands of miles. The island’s forces had to be shielded from thousands of Japanese land-based aircraft relentless in their attacks, executed with alarming effectiveness by Kamikaze tactics.
The plan of the Japanese was clear: to protract the battle, to inflict maximum casualties on the enemy, and to demonstrate that they were ready to fight to the last man. Such willingness to sacrifice one’s life for the cause was epitomized in the Kamikaze pilots. Such tactics were quite foreign to American thinking. American sailors showed a similar will. Gunners continued to fire back at their attackers right to the very end, and damage control teams fought hard to save their ships, often against the odds.
Many Sailors suffered severe burn injuries from the kamikaze attacks, for the fuel-laden aircraft caused more fire on impact than conventional bombs. Though defeated in the battle for the island, the Japanese pointed out the horrible potential casualties that would be incurred in any invasion of their country.
Known as “Floating Chrysanthemums,” the naval portion of the Battle of Okinawa saw more than 1,400 kamikaze attacks against the U.S. Navy. Yet, these huge logistical difficulties and the full-time threats from ground-based aircraft never made the Navy flinch. While the first couple of weeks of the invasion were comparatively light in terms of losses, the first large-scale attack by the kamikaze on April 6-7, 1945, was a turning point. Known as Kikusui Operation No. 1, it involved 355 kamikaze aircraft and 340 conventional planes.
U.S. naval intelligence had alerted commanders to the impending raid, and many of the inexperienced kamikaze pilots were easy prey for radar-directed U.S. Navy fighters. But those that got through attacked the first ships they could find; the targets being the U.S. destroyers on northern radar picket stations. The destroyers Bush and Colhoun were sunk in fierce battles, and the destroyer minesweeper Emmons also went down after a gallant fight. Damage control saved several other destroyers, although they were so damaged that they could not be repaired.
On April 7, 1945, the Japanese battleship Yamato was sent to Okinawa on a suicide mission. Of its 3,332-strong crew, 276 survived. There was strong internal resistance to the deployment of the Yamato within the Imperial Japanese Navy, but the statements from Emperor Hirohito prevailed. The high degree of hope placed by the Emperor in the Yamato was dashed when it was sunk with minimal protection from aircraft, ending over 4,000 lives.
Jan Morris, in her book “Battleship Yamato: Of War, Beauty and Irony,” captures the tragic beauty of the Yamato’s last days. The Yamato was an “ironically beautiful instrument of death,” Morris wrote. That touched the different feelings of war: proud, sacrificial, and bloody. The Yamato sank on April 7, 1945, which could be said to mark the end of domination by sea warfare and probably the Age of Empire.
The Battle of Okinawa and the fate of the Yamato remind us of the enormous sacrifices made during World War II. The bravery and tenacity shown by those fighting, so often against the most overwhelming of odds, shall never be forgotten and has to be acknowledged.