Defeated yet not beaten, the Japanese retreated to the southern coast of Okinawa where they made their last stand.Īll Americans who fought in the Battle of Okinawa were heroic, but one soldier at the escarpment stood out-Corporal Desmond T. Torrential rains made the hills and roads watery graveyards of unburied bodies.Ĭasualties were enormous on both sides by the time the Americans took Shuri Castle in late May.
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The ship was bombarded and sank along with most of its crew.Īfter the Americans cleared a series of outposts surrounding the Shuri Line, they fought many fierce battles including clashes on Kakazu Ridge, Sugar Loaf Hill, Horseshoe Ridge and Half Moon Hill. But Allied submarines spotted the Yamato and alerted the fleet who then launched a crippling air attack. On April 7, Japan’s mighty battleship Yamato was sent to launch a surprise attack on the Fifth Fleet and then annihilate American troops pinned down near the Shuri Line. It was different along the Shuri Line where they had to overcome a series of heavily defended hills loaded with firmly-entrenched Japanese troops. Battleship YamatoĪmerican troops who headed North to the Motobu Peninsula endured intense resistance and over 1,000 casualties but won a decisive battle relatively quickly. Japanese troops had been instructed not to fire on the American landing forces but instead watch and wait for them, mostly in Shuri, a rugged area of southern Okinawa where General Ushijima had set up a triangle of defensive positions known as the Shuri Defense Line. The military force also included an unknown number of conscripted civilians and unarmed Home Guards known as Boeitai. Japan’s 32nd Army, some 130,000 men strong and commanded by Lt. The troops quickly secured both Kadena and Yontan airfields.
Wave after wave of troops, tanks, ammunition and supplies went ashore almost effortlessly within hours. On D-Day, American troops fought hard for every inch of beachhead-but troops landing on Okinawa’s beaches surged inland with little resistance. But the Fifth Fleet’s offensive onslaught was almost pointless and landing troops could have literally swum to shore-surprisingly, the expected mass of awaiting Japanese troops wasn’t there. Soldiers and Army brass alike expected the beach landings to be a massacre worse than D-Day.
WATCH Pacific: The Lost Evidence on HISTORY Vault Landing on the BeachheadsĪs dawn arrived on April 1, morale was low among American troops as the Fifth Fleet launched the largest bombardment ever to support a troop landing to soften Japanese defenses. Allied and Soviet troops had liberated much of Nazi-occupied Europe and were just weeks away from forcing Germany’s unconditional surrender.
Okinawa Islandīy the time American troops landed on Okinawa, the war on the European front was nearing its end. Though it resulted in an Allied victory, kamikaze fighters, rainy weather and fierce fighting on land, sea and air led to a large death toll on both sides. The invasion was part of Operation Iceberg, a complex plan to invade and occupy the Ryukyu Islands, including Okinawa. Marine Corps troops descended on the Pacific island of Okinawa for a final push towards Japan. On April 1, 1945-Easter Sunday-the Navy’s Fifth Fleet and more than 180,000 U.S. The Battle of Okinawa (April 1, 1945-June 22, 1945) was the last major battle of World War II, and one of the bloodiest.
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