U.S. Marine Corps

U.S. commanders observe their troops' movements. Standing from left are Lt. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr., commander of the Tenth Army; Maj. Gen. Lemuel Shepherd, commander of the 6th Marine Division; and his assistant commander, Brig. Gen. William T. Clement. Buckner was killed by a Japanese shell on June 18, 1945.

Immediate objectives were Yontan and Kadena airfields, in the IIIAC and XXIV Corps zones, respectively. As soon as these airfields could be brought to operational status, combat-support aircraft would operate from them. Also, many aircraft carriers would remain on station off Okinawa for as long as their air groups were needed. The land-based component was a Marine command named the Tactical Air Force and consisting of several Marine air groups of fighters and light bombers. Marine fighter squadrons based aboard fleet carriers and several new Marine carrier air groups (fighters and torpedo bombers) based aboard escort carriers would be available throughout the land operation.

The landings were made against zero opposition and with almost no casualties. Far from going into a state of optimism, however, the many veterans in the assault force realized that a very hard road lay before them, that the Japanese had chosen to dig deep and fight on their own terms.

Yontan Airfield fell by midmorning, after Marines overcame very light opposition along the juncture of the 1st and 6th Marine divisions. Reinforcements moved to fill gaps that developed due to rapid advances by the 4th, 7th and 22nd Marines. Marines of the 1st Division captured an intact bridge across a stream at the IIIAC-XXIV Corps boundary and overcame hastily built field fortifications all across the division front. Divisional and IIIAC artillery battalions landed routinely, and many batteries were providing fire by 1530 hours. The IIIAC advance halted between 1600 and 1700 to avoid more gaps and to help the Marines on the far right maintain contact with the 7th Infantry Division, whose left flank outpaced the 1st Marine Division right-flank unit by several hundred yards. The halt also gave artillery units outpaced by the rapid advance time to move forward and register night defensive fires.

Basically, all of L-day's headaches arose from the light-to-nonexistent defensive effort, and not the usual spate of battle problems. Both airfields, Kadena and Yontan, were firmly in American hands by nightfall, and engineers were already at work to get them operational in the shortest possible time.

U.S. Marine Corps

A Marine Vought F4U-1D Corsair launches its wing-mounted rockets against Japanese targets on Okinawa. The Americans were using Okinawa's airfields within days of their capture to support operations on the island.

While by no means a romp, the days that followed on L-day were nearly bloodless. Enemy troops were encountered here and there as the two Marine divisions swallowed up miles of territory against, at most, desultory opposition. Captives proved to be second- and third-rate troops, mostly technicians and other noncombatants drafted into ad hoc defensive units, lightly armed and miserably trained. Also, many thousands of civilians turned themselves in to Marines, to be passed along to temporary stockades in the rear. The most hard-pressed Marine units were engineers, then supply troops. Roads were barely discernible paths, so they had to be engineered for modern traffic, and many bridges had to be built over gullies and other breaks in the terrain. Even with roads in place, it was difficult to push supplies forward to the rapidly advancing ground units; they moved ahead thousands of yards a day and were constantly on the brink of outrunning their supply dumps. It was difficult, also, for artillery units to keep pace with the advance, and the infantry had a difficult time maintaining contact with flank units, because the advance tended to broaden an already broad front. By April 3, the Marine divisions were on ground slated to fall on L-plus-15.

As the advance continued with surprising ease, a picture slowly emerged from prisoner interrogations. The main Japanese effort had gone into deeply fortifying the southern portion of the island. The XXIV Corps ran into the outlying positions on April 4, on the phase line established for L-plus-10. But the Marines were oriented east and north, and swallowing miles of lightly defended ground each day. Before the two Marine divisions could join the fight in the south, they had to secure the rest of the island.

By April 4, the 1st Marine Division had completed its cross-island advance and had thus run out of objectives. It turned to scouring land already in its hands and building up its logistical base. By then, Japanese troops cut off in the IIIAC zone had begun to coalesce into what the Marines eventually characterized as guerrilla forces that lived off the land in wild areas and exploited opportunities to attack patrols and rear-area facilities. Such forces also appeared in the rear of the 6th Division. These so-called guerrillas had to be painstakingly tracked by Marine units far more suited for intense modern conflict. Fortunately for the Americans, although the Japanese guerrillas were well motivated, they were not trained for such operations and were easily hunted down if they showed themselves. To help quell civilian complicity in the guerrilla operation, several thousand Okinawan males were interned in camps beginning on April 11. The Tenth Army eventually clamped down on all civilians and filled eight internment camps in the IIIAC zone with Okinawans of all ages and both sexes. This seemed to end the problem of civilian aid to guerrilla operations, but those small groups of isolated Japanese soldiers continued to operate in diminished circumstances throughout most of the campaign.

The 6th Marine Division continued to drive north — literally driven on tanks and other vehicles. One reconnaissance force advanced 14 miles unopposed, then turned back to the main body. The 6th Engineer Battalion had a tough time widening and improving roads and replacing or bracing bridges at such a pace. On April 9, supplies began to come ashore on beaches much closer to the 6th Division front, and the 1st Armored Amtrac Battalion was committed to provide artillery support because the 15th Marines artillery battalions had such a difficult time keeping up with the rapidly moving infantry.

On April 7, Marine Air Group (MAG) 31 began to handle flight operations for its newly arrived squadrons at Yontan Airfield, and MAG-33 arrived on April 9. This relieved some of the ground-support burden on carrier air units, which were increasingly drawn into a battle of attrition with kamikaze units located in Japan and intermediate bases. Indeed, Marine air became almost wholly committed to XXIV Corps as it hit increasingly stiffer resistance in the south.

It took the 6th Marine Division until April 13 to locate a well-led, competent and powerful Japanese force — on Mount Yae Take, in extreme northern Okinawa. A four-day battle involving Marine air and artillery and naval gunfire support reduced the enemy force of 1,500 and opened the door for the final northern push, which was completed on April 20. The 6th Marine Division's drive had cost 207 killed, 757 wounded and six missing by April 20, and the Marines had killed an estimated 2,000 Japanese troops.

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