Marine air, amply assisted by a sophisticated array of modern tools such as search, control and weather radars; landing force air-support control units equipped with advanced radio equipment; and frontline air control teams played a key role in supporting ground operations and forestalling kamikaze and conventional air attacks on the huge fleet that seemed to be a permanent fixture off Okinawa. Indeed, beginning on April 7, MAG-31 and MAG-33 fighter pilots scored hundreds of aerial victories off Okinawa, particularly in the north nearer to Japan. These included nocturnal kills by Marine squadrons equipped with F6F-5N Hellcat night fighters based ashore. Also, six Marine F4U Corsair squadrons were based aboard three fleet carriers, and they provided ground support and fleet cover. Indeed, Marine Corsairs took part in attacks on Kyushu airfields on March 18 and 19 that nearly swept kamikaze and conventional air units from the skies for several days. In return, Japanese aircraft damaged several American carriers, including USS Franklin, embarking two Marine F4U squadrons that saw a total of one day of offensive operations. By April 1945, Marine air was at the leading edge of technique and technology in support of modern combat operations across all three battle dimensions — land, sea and air.

The XXIV Corps met its first really stiff opposition on the southern front on April 6. Thereafter, resistance became more violent and better organized. The defenses extended across the entire width of the island and to an undetermined depth. In fact, it was a concentric defense, complete and pervasive, centered on the town of Shuri. Not apparent at the outset, but increasingly obvious with each passing day, the hard defenses could not and would not be carried by merely two Army divisions supported by organic and corps artillery, even after the artillery was bolstered on April 7 by IIIAC’s three 155mm gun battalions and three 155mm howitzer battalions — not to mention Marine air based at Yontan and whatever carrier air the fleet had on hand for ground support. Next, beginning on April 9, all four artillery battalions of the 11th Marines and two-thirds of the Army’s 27th Infantry Division were sent into the southern line, albeit with little effect.

By April 14, XXIV Corps had killed nearly 7,000 Japanese, but it had barely made a dent in the defenses north of Shuri. A corps attack on April 19 supported by 27 artillery battalions and 375 aircraft made negligible progress, then halted as the unperturbed Japanese troops moved back to their positions from underground shelters. The Army divisions advanced only after the Japanese withdrew from the advance defensive line on the night of April 23-24 to a more integrated line to the rear. On April 24, IIIAC was ordered to place one of its divisions in the Tenth Army reserve, and the 1st Marine Division was thus ordered to prepare to return to battle. (IIIAC’s third division, the 2nd, had been returned to Saipan to prepare for an amphibious assault near Okinawa that never took place.) On April 30, the 1st Marine Division advanced to replace the 27th Division in the XXIV Corps zone, and that Army division was ordered north to replace the 6th Marine Division so it could enter the southern battle.

The infantry units that the 1st Marine Division replaced had been ground down to regiments little larger than battalions, and battalions little larger than companies. Dead ahead was the bulk of a Japanese infantry division holding a defensive sector the island command had just reorganized to higher levels of lethality. On the division’s first full day on the line, the weather turned cool and rainy, a state that would prevail into July.

U.S. Marine Corps

Lieutenant General Isamu Cho was Ushijima’s chief of staff and committed suicide with his commander. Below: Marines use an Okinawan burial crypt for shelter during the fighting. Similar family burial places were located throughout the island, and many were put to use by the Marines.

The division went into the offensive on May 2, the westernmost of three divisions in the attack. The 5th Marines was stymied at the outset, but the adjacent 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines (3/1), fell into a gap. The 1st Marines attempted to change direction to exploit the gap, and 3/1 advanced even farther in the rain before nightfall. On the other hand, 1/1, on the division’s right, faced fierce opposition, and portions of the battalion that were cut off had to withdraw, after which 1/1 changed direction and won some new ground.

This baptismal day on the southern front was emblematic of the fighting that ensued. The Japanese made excellent use of broken ground and other natural cover, and the Marines were either stymied or fell into dead ground from which they could either advance or from which they had to withdraw to maintain a cohesive line against the uncanny knack the defenders showed for mounting enfilade movements. On May 3, the 5th Marines advanced more than 500 yards in its zone, but the 1st Marines was pinned down with heavy casualties, so the 5th had to pull back several hundred yards in places. There simply was no point at which the Marines could gain adequate leverage — the same scenario the replaced Army divisions had faced in their battle.

U.S. Marine Corps

Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima commanded Japanese forces on Okinawa. Well aware that he would be unable to drive off the Americans, Ushijima instead devoted his energies to inflicting the highest casualties possible on the invading forces. He succeeded. The general committed suicide at 3 a.m. on the morning of June 22.

General Ushijima still held many thousands of first-line troops in reserve. These men had been tied down defending beaches in southeastern Okinawa for landings that never took place. As the Japanese gained a finer sense of American tactics, it was put to Ushijima that an offensive using these fresh, well-trained and well-equipped troops might chasten the Americans and buy a great deal of time and flexibility. Some of the fresh troops were fed into the defensive sectors to make good the losses of weeks of bitter attritional warfare, but the bulk were held back to cover the suspect beaches or to serve as a mobile reserve. By April 22, most of the fresh force was fed into the Shuri sector to stiffen its defenses. Ultimately, however, a number of Ushijima’s senior officers won an argument to launch a major tank-supported counteroffensive, including counterlandings behind American lines, that was to blunt the American offensive and perhaps throw it back.

Preceded by mass kamikaze attacks on rear areas on the island and logistical shipping offshore, the counteroffensive, including counterlandings on both coasts, began after dark on May 3. Artillery fire matched artillery fire at the front, while in the rear Marines opened fire on Japanese troops coming ashore on the beach on which Company B, 1/1, anchored the entire XXIV Corps line. This was not where the Japanese intended to land, and quick reaction by the defenders and confusion among the attackers created conditions for a Marine victory. Many more Marines were fed into the fire-lit battle, LVT(A)s (landing vehicles, tracked, assault) sealed the battlefield, and fresh troops hunted down infiltrators. Forewarned by this landing attempt, Marines quelled other attempts farther up the coast. Army troops also defended successfully on the eastern coast.

At dawn, behind an artillery curtain that never abated during the night and a rolling smoke barrage, the bulk of the Japanese Imperial Army’s battle-hardened 24th Infantry Division crashed into a curtain of fire erected in front of the 7th and 77th Infantry divisions by 12 155mm and 8-inch gun and howitzer battalions and tag-team air attacks that would mount up to 134 sorties by the day’s end. On May 4, the 1st Marine Division actually attacked in its zone in spite of Japanese efforts to win through to the east, but the division was stalled several hundred yards short of its objective line.

Far from delaying an American victory, the ill-advised Japanese counteroffensive used up the largest pool of seasoned fighters on the island, of which nearly 7,000 were killed. But other good fighters had remained in their excellent defensive sectors, and they showed no sign of cracking appreciably in the face of inexorable pressure across the entire corps front. In less than a week on the Shuri front, 649 Marines became casualties.

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