howitzer up front. Setting up on a knoll eight hundred yards away and firing over open sights, the crew’s first missile—a ninety-five-pound shell with a hardened tip and a concrete-piercing fuse—sent a hefty chunk of coral flying into the air. Seven more destructive shots so upset the Japanese that they sprayed the knoll with machine- gun fire. Two men were wounded, and the survivors quickly dug a hole for their gun. Now unseen, assisted by other guns and flamethrowing tanks, the Americans literally shot both crags into smithereens until both collapsed on themselves.
To the Seventh’s right the Ninety-sixth struck at three ridges: Tanabaru-Nishibaru-Tombstone. It took two days of savage fighting to clear Tombstone and to advance to the crest of Nishibaru. On the night of April 21-22 the Japanese counter-attacked three times against a battalion of the 382nd commanded by Lieutenant Franklin Hartline. In one charge Staff Sergeant David Dovel lifted his machine gun to fire it at the enemy full-trigger, severely burning his hands on the red-hot barrel. Dovel was also wounded in both legs, but survived. Meanwhile soldiers firing light or 60 mm mortars elevated their small stovepipes to a dangerously close eighty-six degrees, dropping shells only thirty yards to their front. Colonel Hartline joined the battle, throwing grenades and firing the weapons of the fallen. At 3:15 A.M. the Japanese retreated, leaving 198 dead comrades behind.
Tanabaru now lay temporarily open, and it was Captain Hoss Mitchell’s Lardasses who seized the opportunity. Its earlier losses filled by replacements, the company fought a savage hand-grenade battle that lasted nearly four hours, until Mitchell with three grenades and a carbine rushed the crest to wipe out a machine-gun nest. By nightfall of April 23 the Ninety-sixth held its objectives securely, though it had paid a bloody price of 99 killed and 19 missing with a staggering 660 wounded. Even so, the success of the Seventh and Ninety-sixth clearly indicated to General Hodge that Ushijima’s outer line was cracking.
Soldiers of the Twenty-seventh on the twentieth—except for two companies that panicked and fled in disorder when they blundered into an enemy position—were not quite so careful as their comrades in the center and left, probably because they had had a comparatively easy time of it on April 19. Still on the right flank, the New Yorkers moved confidently against a position called Item Pocket, unaware that it was probably Ushijima’s toughest and most cleverly designed fortification. Its name derived from its presence in the
Against it came two battalions of Colonel Gerard Kelly’s 165th Infantry, the first commanded by Lieutenant Colonel James Mahoney on the left and the second under Lieutenant Colonel John McDonough on the right. Resisting them was Lieutenant Colonel Kosuke Nishibayashi’s Twenty-first Independent Infantry Battalion of about six hundred soldiers together with two or three hundred Okinawan conscripts. All had been working for months on Item’s defenses, which they called Gusukuma after a nearby town. There was no safe way to approach the position. Because two bridges on Highway 1 had been knocked out, tanks could not menace it. Every ridge was protected by mortars with machine guns zeroed in from others. Tunnels ran beneath the ridges with openings on either side and on the top. Thus each ridge was a Kakazu in miniature, abundantly stocked with food, ammunition, and water. Until Item fell, there could be no real progress south.
No real attempt to penetrate Item was made on the first day, but on the night of the twenty-first a detail of eight men from McDonough’s battalion led by Technical Sergeant Ernest Schoeff tried to seize a ridge in a night attack, and provoked one of the wildest fights of the Okinawa campaign. Forty to fifty Japanese screaming “Banzai!” and hurling grenades charged them from about forty yards away. Scrambling into foxholes that they had dug, Schoeff’s men fought back with grenades of their own, rifle shots, rifle butts—even hurling rocks. Pfc. Paul Cook took out ten of the enemy before being killed himself, and when they closed for hand-to-hand fighting, Schoeff broke his M-1 rifle over one enemy’s head, grabbed an
On the twenty-fifth Ryan with two platoons climbed a key ridge and was savagely attacked by Japanese trying to drive them off. But they held, and then, assisted by other companies, began clearing the ridge to turn Item’s seaward flank. Nevertheless resistance continued until April 28, when Highway 1 was finally opened to southbound American traffic. Now Griner’s troops began to extend their grasp on the Urasoe-Mura Escarpment’s western flank, suffering so severely that the division’s losses rose above five hundred during a single day. By the morning of April 24, the western end of the Urasoe-Mura Escarpment was in American hands. Only Kakazu in Ushijima’s outer defenses remained unconquered. Hoping to reduce that stubborn position, Hodge formed a special attack force under Brigadier General William Bradford, the Twenty-seventh’s assistant division commander. Called “Bradford Force,” it was to strike Kakazu early on the twenty-fourth. But that night during a heavy fog a powerful enemy artillery barrage struck the American forward elements. When Bradford Force attacked, its men found to their amazement that there was little or no resistance. Under cover of the fog and the bombardment, the wily Ushijima had ordered a general retreat to preserve his remaining strength.
For five days since April 19 the Japanese had fought a dogged defensive battle, limiting the Americans’ gains to yards and at Kakazu stopping them in their tracks. But by darkness of April 23 the line had been pierced in so many places that it was in danger of collapsing with a consequent loss of many men; either by enemy action or suicide. So General Ushijima withdrew to his next chain of defenses.
In effect, the battle for southern Okinawa had advanced but a single, solid step—with many more steps to follow.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Major General Curtis Le May had been in command of the Twentieth Air Force since the summer of 1944. At thirty-nine, this burly flier, so big he could barely fit into a fighter cockpit, was anxious to apply his theories of incendiary bombing with the new B-29 Superfortress bomber then coming off the production lines. It was not until February 1945, however, that he had enough of these gigantic aircraft to stage a major firebombing raid—this time on Kobe and with such excellent results that an ecstatic Le May prepared for the monster March 9 strike at Tokyo that became the most destructive air raid in history.
Now believing—like all those “Bomber Barons” so detested by Dwight Eisenhower—that his command alone might bring Nippon to her knees, Le May was not happy to be ordered to concentrate on the enemy air bases on Kyushu in support of the Okinawa operation. From April 16 onward the Superforts hammered the
So the Superforts continued to strike the Kyushu fields, even though Admiral Ugaki frequently used all the late-model fighters at his disposal in an effort to destroy them. This was not quite possible, for his interceptors had neither the speed nor the firepower necessary to take out a Superfort. Nevertheless, some vicious aerial duels developed high in the skies. One of the most fierce erupted on April 27 when a hundred B-29s attacked Kanoya and five other airfields. There were so many Japanese fighters aloft and buzzing the big bombers that Lieutenant Kenneth Hornbeck later told war correspondents: “The milk run is over—the cream is curdled.” Lieutenant Philip Van Schuyler reported: “They must have made a hundred attacks on the eleven B-29s that I saw, and thirty on our four-plane section.” One crippled Superfort flying out of formation was pounced on by four enemy fighters releasing white phosphorous bombs across its path. By skillful maneuver, the stricken aircraft broke clear. Four fighters fell and one Superfort was lost.
On the following day American gunners using their electronic computing gunsights claimed to have shot down thirty-six Japanese fighters together with thirteen “probables.” Again, a B-29 was lost. Using the tactics of
