OKINAWA FACTS:
Date: April 1, 1945 – June 21, 1945 82 DAYS
The island, which is about 60 miles long and no more than 20 miles across at its widest point, had been thoroughly fortified by a Japanese garrison of some 100,000 men under the command of Lieut. Gen. Ushijima Mitsuru.
The air and sea attacks that preceded the invasion had begun as early as October 1944, and Allied air operations carried out in March 1945 by carrier Task Force 58 under Rear Adm. Marc Mitscher destroyed hundreds of Japanese planes.
The invasion was launched on April 1, 1945, when a contingent of U.S. ground troops landed at Hagushi, on the west coast of central Okinawa. Before nightfall, some 50,000 men of the U.S. 10th Army, under the command of Buckner, had gone ashore and established a beachhead about 5 miles long.
Japanese response to the beach landings was deceptively muted, and by April 4, U.S. Army troops and Marines had cut the island in two. The first major Japanese counterattack came on April 6â7 in the form of suicidal raids by more than 350 kamikaze planes and the battleship Yamato.
In the end, the Japanese lost Okinawa simply because they had run out of caves and boulders from which to fight and men to do the fighting. The stiffness of the opposition is reflected in the following timetable: from April 4 to May 26, U.S. forces on southern Okinawa had advanced only 4 miles. It took them from May 26 to June 21 to cover the remaining 10 miles to the southern tip of the island.
American casualties numbered some 12,000 killed and 36,000 wounded.
An estimated 110,000 Japanese troops were killed, whereas fewer than 8,000 surrendered.
The civilian population of Okinawa was reduced by perhaps one-fourth; 100,000 Okinawan men, women, and children perished in the fighting or committed suicide under orders from the Japanese military.
On June 22, Ushijima, the Japanese commander, and his chief of staff, Lieut. Gen. Cho Isamu, committed ritual suicide (seppuku) rather than surrender to the Americans.
MILITARY HISTORY SOCIETY OF ROCHESTER
ROCHESTERMILITARY.COM
