Part 6

On 15 May, Day and his men watched another Marine assault develop from the northeast. Again there were Marines on the eastern crest of the hill, but fully exposed to raking fire from Half Moon and mortars from Horseshoe. Day’s Marines directed well-aimed rifle fire into a column of Japanese running towards Sugar Loaf from Horseshoe, “but we really needed a machine gun.” Good fortune provided a .30-caliber, air-cooled M1919A4 in the wake of the retreating Marines. But as soon as Day’s gunner placed the weapon in action on the forward parapet of the hole, a Japanese 47mm crew opened up from Horseshoe, killing the Marine and destroying the gun. Now there were just two riflemen on the ridgetop.

Tragedy also struck the 1st Battalion, 22d Marines, on the 15th. A withering Japanese bombardment caught the command group assembled at their observation post planning the next assault. Shellfire killed the commander, Major Thomas J. Myers, and wounded every company commander, as well as the CO and XO of the supporting tank company. Of the death of Major Myers, General Shepherd exclaimed, “It’s the greatest single loss the Division has sustained. Myers was an outstanding leader.” Major Earl J. Cook, battalion executive officer, took command and continued attack preparations. The division staff released this doleful warning that midnight: “Because of the commanding ground which he occupies the enemy is able to accurately locate our OPs and CPs. The dangerous practice of permitting unnecessary crowding and exposure in such areas has already had serious consequences.” The warning was meaningless. Commanders had to observe the action in order to command. Exposure to interdictive fire was the cost of doing business as an infantry battalion commander. The next afternoon, Lieutenant Colonel Jean W. Moreau, commanding 1/29, received a serious wound when a Japanese shell hit his observation post squarely. Major Robert P. Neuffer, Moreau’s exec, assumed command. Several hours later a Japanese shell wounded Major Malcolm “O” Donohoo, commanding 3/22. Major George B. Kantner, his exec, took over. The battle continued.

The night of 15-16 seemed endless to Corporal Day and his surviving squadmate, Private First Class Dale Bertoli. “The Japs knew we were the only ones up there and gave us their full attention. We had plenty of grenades and ammo, but it got pretty hairy.” The south slope of Sugar Loaf is the steepest. The Japanese would emerge from their reverse-slope caves, but they faced a difficult ascent to get to the Marines on the military crest. Hearing them scramble up the rocks alerted Day and Bertoli to greet them with grenades. Those of the enemy who survived this mini-barrage would find themselves backlit by flares as they struggled over the crest. Day and Bertoli, back to back against the dark side of the crater, shot them readily.

“The 16th was the day I thought Sugar Loaf would fall,” said Day. He and Bertoli hunkered down as Marine tanks, artillery, and mortars pounded the ridge and its supporting bastions. “We looked back and see the whole battle shaping up, a great panorama.” This was the turn of I/3/22, well supported by tanks. But Day could also see that the Japanese fires had not slackened at all. “The real danger at Sugar Loaf was not the hill itself, where we were, but in a 300-yard by 300-yard killing zone which the Marines had to cross to approach the hill from our lines to the north.... It was a dismal sight, men falling, tanks getting knocked out ... the division probably suffered 600 casualties that day.” In retrospect, the 6th Marine Division considered 16 May to be “the bitterest day of the entire campaign.”

By then the 22d Marines was down to 40 percent effectiveness and General Shepherd relieved it with the 29th Marines. He also decided to install fresh leadership in the regiment, replacing the commander and executive officer with the team of Colonel Harold C. Roberts and Lieutenant Colonel August C. Larson.

The weather cleared enough during the late afternoon of the 16th to enable Day and Bertoli to see well past Horseshoe Hill, “all the way to the Asato River.” The view was not encouraging. Steady columns of Japanese reinforcements streamed northward, through Takamotoji village, towards the contested battlefield. “We kept firing on them from 500 yards away,” still maintaining the small but persistent thorn in the flesh of the Japanese defenses. Their rifle fire attracted considerable attention from prowling squads of Japanese raiders that night. “They came at us from 2130 on,” recalled Day, “and all we could do was keep tossing grenades and firing our M-1s.” Concerned Marines north of Sugar Loaf, hearing the nocturnal ruckus, tried to assist with mortar fire. “This helped, but it came a little too close.” Both Day and Bertoli were wounded by Japanese shrapnel and burned by “friendly” white phosphorous.

Early on the 17th a runner from the 29th Marines scrambled up to the shell-pocked crater with orders for the two Marines to “get the hell out.” A massive bombardment by air, naval gunfire, and artillery would soon saturate the ridge in preparation of a fresh assault. Day and Bertoli readily complied. Exhausted, reeking, and partially deafened, they stumbled back to safety and an intense series of debriefings by staff officers. Meanwhile, a thundering bombardment crashed down on the three hills.

The 17th of May marked the fifth day of the battle for Sugar Loaf. Now it was the turn of Easy Company, 2/29, to assault the complex of defenses. No unit displayed greater valor, yet Easy Company’s four separate assaults fared little better than their many predecessors. At midpoint of these desperate assaults, the 29th Marines reported to division, “E Co. moved to top of ridge and had 30 men south of Sugar Loaf; sustained two close-in charges; killed a hell of a lot of Nips; moved back to base to reform and are going again; will take it.” But Sugar Loaf would not fall this day. At dusk, after prevailing in one more melee of bayonets, flashing knives, and bare hands against a particularly vicious counterattack, the company had to withdraw. It had lost 160 men.

The 18th of May marked the beginning of seemingly endless rains. Into the start of this soupy mess attacked Dog Company, 2/29, this time supported by more tanks which braved the minefields on both shoulders of Sugar Loaf to penetrate the no-man’s land just to the south. When the Japanese poured out of their reverse-slope holes for yet another counterattack, the waiting tanks surprised and riddled them. Dog Company earned the distinction of becoming the first rifle company to hold Sugar Loaf overnight. The Marines would not relinquish that costly ground.

But now the 29th Marines were pretty much shot up, and still Half Moon, Horseshoe, and Shuri remained to be assaulted. General Geiger adjusted the tactical boundaries slightly westward to allow the 1st Marine Division a shot at the eastern spur of Horseshoe, and he also released the 4th Marines from Corps reserve. General Shepherd deployed the fresh regiment into the battle on the 19th. The battle still raged. The 4th Marines sustained 70 casualties just in conducting the relief of lines with the 29th Marines. But with Sugar Loaf now in friendly hands, the momentum of the fight began to change. On 20 May, Lieutenant Colonel Reynolds H. Hayden’s 1/4 and Lieutenant Colonel Bruno A. Hochmuth’s 3/4 made impressive gains on either flank. By day’s end, 2/4 held much of Half Moon, while 3/4 had seized a good portion of Horseshoe. As Corporal Day had warned, most Japanese reinforcements funneled into the fight from the southwest, so 3/4 prepared for nocturnal visitors at Horseshoe. These arrived in massive numbers, up to 700 Japanese soldiers and sailors, and surged against 3/4 much of the night. Hochmuth had a wealth of supporting arms: six artillery battalions in direct support at the onset of the attack, and up to 15 battalions at the height of the fighting. Throughout the crisis on Horseshoe, Hochmuth maintained a direct radio link with Lieutenant Colonel Bruce T. Hemphill, commanding 4/15, one of the support artillery firing battalions. This close exchange between commanders reduced the number of short rounds which might have otherwise decimated the defenders and allowed the 15th Marines to provide uncommonly accurate fire on the Japanese. The rain of shells blew great holes in the ranks of every Japanese advance; Marine riflemen met those who survived at bayonet point. The counterattackers died to the man.

Even with Hochmuth’s victory the protracted battle of Sugar Loaf lacked a climactic finish. There would be no celebration ceremony here. Shuri Ridge loomed ahead, as did the sniper-infested ruins of Naha. Elements of the 1st Marine Division began bypassing the last of the Wana defenses to the east. The 6th Division slipped westward. Colonel Shapley’s 4th Marines crossed the Asa River, now chest-high from the heavy rainfall, on 23 May. The III Amphibious Corps stood poised on the outskirts of Okinawa’s capital city.

The Army divisions in XXIV Corps matched the Marines’ breakthroughs. On the east coast, the 96th Division seized Conical Hill, the Shuri Line’s opposite anchor from Sugar Loaf, after weeks of bitter fighting. The 7th Division, in relief, seized Yonabaru on 22 May. Suddenly, the _Thirty-second Army_ faced the threat of being cut off from both flanks. This time General Ushijima listened to Colonel Yahara’s advice. Instead of fighting to the death at Shuri Castle, the army would take advantage of the awful weather and retreat southward to their final line of prepared defenses in the Kiyamu Peninsula. Ushijima executed this withdrawal masterfully. While American aviators spotted and interdicted the southbound columns, they also reported other columns moving north. General Buckner assumed the enemy was simply rotating units still defending the Shuri defenses. But these north-bound troops were ragtag units assigned to conduct a do-or-die rear guard. At this, they were eminently successful.

This was the situation encountered by the 1st Marine Division in its unexpectedly easy advance to Shuri Ridge on 29 May as described in the opening paragraphs. The 5th Marines suddenly possessed the abandoned castle. While General del Valle tried to placate the indignation of the 77th Division commander at the Marines’ “intrusion” into his zone, he got another angry call from the Tenth Army. It seems that the Company A, 1/5 company commander, a South Carolinian, had raised the Stars and Bars of the Confederacy over Shuri Castle instead of the Stars and Stripes. “Every damned outpost and O.P. that could see this started telephoning me,” said del Valle, adding, “I had one hell of a hullabaloo converging on my telephone.” Del Valle agreed to erect a proper flag, but it took him two days to get one through the intermittent fire of Ushijima’s surviving rear guards. Lieutenant Colonel Richard P. Ross, commanding the 3d Battalion, 1st Marines, raised this flag in the rain on the last day of May, then took cover. Unlike Sugar Loaf, Shuri Castle could be seen from all over southern Okinawa, and every Japanese gunner within range opened up on the hated colors.

The Stars and Stripes fluttered over Shuri Castle, and the fearsome Yonabaru-Shuri-Naha defensive masterpiece had been decisively breached. But the _Thirty-second Army_ remained as deadly a fighting force as ever. It was an army that would die hard defending the final eight miles of shell-pocked, rain-soaked southern Okinawa.

[Sidebar (page 30): Marine Artillery at Okinawa

The nature of the enemy defenses and the tactics selected by the Tenth Army commander made Okinawa the biggest battle of the war for Marine artillery units. General Geiger landed with 14 firing battalions within IIIAC; the total rose to 15 in June when Lieutenant Colonel Richard G. Weede’s 2/10 came ashore in support of the 8th Marines.

Brigadier General David R. Nimmer commanded III Corps Artillery and Lieutenant Colonel Curtis Burton, Jr., commanded the 2d Provisional Field Artillery Group, which contained three batteries of 155mm howitzers and three of 155mm “Long Tom” guns. Colonel Wilburt S. (“Big Foot”) Brown commanded the 11th Marines and Colonel Robert B. Luckey, the 15th Marines. The Marine divisions had greatly enhanced their firepower since the initial campaigns in the Pacific. While one 75mm pack howitzer battalion remained (1/11), the 105mm howitzer had become the norm for division artillery. Front-line infantry units also were supported by the 75mm fire of medium tanks and LVT-As, 105mm fire from the new M-7 self-propelled “siege guns,” 4.5-inch multiple rocket launchers fired by the “Buck Rogers Men,” and the attached Army 4.2-inch mortar platoons.

Lieutenant Colonel Frederick P. Henderson described this combination of fire support: “Not many people realize that the artillery in Tenth Army, plus the LVT-As and naval gunfire equivalent gave us a guns/mile of front ratio on Okinawa that was probably higher than any U.S. effort in World War II.”

General Buckner urged his corps commanders to integrate field artillery support early in the campaign. With his corps artillery and the 11th Marines not fully committed during the opening weeks, General Geiger quickly agreed for these units to help the XXIV Army Corps in their initial assaults against the outer Shuri defenses. In the period of 7 April-6 May, these artillery units fired more than 54,000 rounds in support of XXIV Corps. This was only the beginning. Once both Marine divisions of IIIAC entered the lines, they immediately benefited from Army artillery support as well as their own organic fire support. As one example, prior to the 5th Marines launching a morning attack on the Awacha Pocket on 6 May, the regiment received a preliminary bombardment of the objective from four battalions--two Army, two Marine.

By the end of the battle, the Tenth Army artillery units would fire 2,046,930 rounds down range, all in addition to 707,500 rockets, mortars, and shells of five-inch or larger from naval gunfire ships offshore. Half of the artillery rounds would be 105mm shells from howitzers and the M-7 self-propelled guns. Compared to the bigger guns, the old, expeditionary 75mm pack howitzers of 1/11 were the “Tiny Tims” of the battlefield. Their versatility and relative mobility, however, proved to be assets in the long haul. Colonel Brown augmented the battalion with LVT-As, which fired similar ammunition. According to Brown, “75mm ammo was plentiful, as contrasted with the heavier calibers, so 1/11 (Reinforced) was used to fire interdiction, harassing, and ‘appeasement’ missions across the front.”

Generals Geiger and del Valle expressed interest in the larger weapons of the Army. Geiger particularly admired the Army’s eight-inch howitzer, whose 200-pound shell possessed much more penetrating and destroying power than the 95-pound shell of the 155mm guns, the largest weapon in the Marines’ inventory. Geiger recommended that the Marine Corps form eight-inch howitzer battalions for the forthcoming attack on of Japan. For his part, del Valle prized the accuracy, range, and power of the Army’s 4.2-inch mortars and recommended their inclusion in the Marine division.

On some occasions, artillery commanders became tempted to orchestrate all of this killing power in one mighty concentration. “Time on target” (TOT) missions occurred frequently in the early weeks, but their high consumption rate proved disadvantageous. Late in the campaign Colonel Brown decided to originate a gargantuan TOT by 22 battalions on Japanese positions in the southern Okinawan town of Makabe. The sudden concentration worked beautifully, he recalled, but “I neglected to tell the generals, woke everyone out of a sound sleep, and caught hell from all sides.”

General Geiger insisted that his LVT-As be trained in advance as field artillery. This was done, but the opportunity for direct fire support to the assault waves fizzled on L-Day when the Japanese chose not to defend the Hagushi beaches. Lieutenant Colonel Louis Metzger commanded the 1st Armored Amphibian Battalion and supported the 6th Marine Division up and down the length of the island. Metzger’s LVT-As fired 19,000 rounds of 75mm shells in an artillery support role after L-Day.

The Marines made great strides towards refining supporting arms coordination during the battle for Okinawa. Commanders established Target Information Centers (TICs) at every level from Tenth Army down to battalion. The TICs functioned to provide a centralized target information and weapons assignment system responsive to both assigned targets and targets of opportunity. Finally, all three component liaison officers--artillery, air, and naval gunfire--were aligned with target intelligence information officers. As described by Colonel Henderson, the TIC at IIIAC consisted of the corps artillery S-2 section “expanded to meet the needs of artillery, NGF, and CAS on a 24-hour basis.... The Corps Arty Fire Direction Center and the Corps Fire Support Operations Center were one and the same facility--with NGF and air added.”

Such a commitment to innovation led to greatly improved support to the foot-slogging infantry. As one rifle battalion commander remarked, “It was not uncommon for a battleship, tanks, artillery, and aircraft to be supporting the efforts of a platoon of infantry during the reduction of the Shuri position.”

[Sidebar (page 34): Marine Tanks at Okinawa

The Sherman M-4 medium tank employed by the seven Army and Marine Corps tank battalions on Okinawa would prove to be a decisive weapon--but only when closely coordinated with accompanying infantry. The Japanese intended to separate the two components by fire and audacity. “The enemy’s strength lies in his tanks,” declared Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima before the invasion. Anti-tank training received the highest priority within his _Thirty-second Army_. These urgent preparations proved successful on 19 April when the Japanese knocked out 22 of 30 Sherman tanks of the 27th Division, many by suicide demolitionists.

The Marines fared better in this regard, having learned in earlier campaigns to integrate infantry and artillery as a close, protective overwatch to their accompanying tanks, keeping the “human bullet” suicide squads at bay. Although enemy guns and mines took their toll of the Shermans, only a single Marine tank sustained damage from a Japanese suicide foray.

Lieutenant Colonel Arthur J. Stuart commanded the 1st Tank Battalion during the Okinawa campaign. The unit had fought with distinction at Peleliu a half-year earlier, despite shipping shortfalls which kept a third of its tanks out of the fight. Stuart insisted on retaining the battalion’s older M-4A2 Shermans because he believed the twin General Motors diesel engines were safer in combat. General del Valle agreed: “The tanks were not so easily set on fire and blown up under enemy fire.”

By contrast, Lieutenant Colonel Robert L. Denig’s 6th Tank Battalion preferred the newer M-4A3 model Shermans. Denig’s tankers liked the greater horsepower provided by the water-cooled Ford V-8 engine and considered the reversion to gasoline from diesel an acceptable risk. The 6th Tank Battalion would face its greatest challenge against Admiral Minoru Ota’s mines and naval guns on Oroku Peninsula.

The Sherman tank, much maligned in the European theater for its shortcomings against the heavier German Tigers, seemed ideal for island fighting in the Pacific. By Okinawa, however, the Sherman’s limitations became evident. The 75mm gun proved too light against some of Ushijima’s fortifications; on these occasions the new M-7 self-propelled 105mm gun worked better. And the Sherman was never known for its armor protection. At 33 tons, its strength lay more in mobility and reliability. But as Japanese antitank weapons and mines reached the height of lethality at Okinawa, the Sherman’s thin-skinned weak points (1.5-inch armor on the sides and rear, for example) became a cause for concern. Marine tank crews had resorted to sheathing the sides of their vehicles with lumber as a foil to hand-lobbed Japanese magnetic mines as early as the Marshalls campaign. By the time of Okinawa, Marine Shermans were festooned with spot-welded track blocks, wire mesh, sandbags, and clusters of large nails--all designed to enhance armor protection.

Both tank battalions fielded Shermans configured with dozer blades, invaluable assets in the cave fighting to come, but--surprisingly--neither outfit deployed with flame tanks. Despite rave reports of the success of the USN Mark I turret-mounted flame system installed in eight Shermans in the battle of Iwo Jima, there would be no massive retrofit program for the Okinawa-bound Marine tank units. Instead, all flame tanks on Okinawa were provided courtesy of the U.S. Army’s 713th Armored Flamethrower Battalion. Company B of that unit supported the IIIAC with brand-new H-1 flame tanks. Each carried 290 gallons of napalm-thickened fuel, good for two-and-a-half minutes of flame at ranges out to 80 yards. The Marines received consistently outstanding support from this Army company throughout the battle.

The Marines employed the newly developed T-6 “Tank Flotation Devices” to get the initial assault waves of Shermans ashore on L-Day. The T-6 featured a series of flotation tanks welded all around the hull, a provisional steering device making use of the tracks, and electric bilge pumps. Once ashore, the crew hoped to jettison the ungainly rig with built-in explosive charges, a scary proposition.

The invasion landing on 1 April for the 1st Tank Battalion was truly “April Fool’s Day.” The captain of an LST carrying six Shermans equipped with the T-6 launched the vehicles an hour late and 10 miles at sea. It took this irate contingent five hours to reach the beach, losing two vehicles on the reef at ebb tide. Most of Colonel Stuart’s other Shermans made it ashore before noon, but some of his reserves could not cross the reef for 48 hours. The 6th Tank Battalion had better luck. Their LST skippers launched the T-6 tanks on time and in close. Two tanks were lost--one sank when its main engine failed, another broke a track and veered into an unseen hole--but the other Shermans surged ashore, detonated their float tanks successfully, and were ready to roll by H plus 29.