Division Leathernecks of the month-long monsoon they had endured in the New Britain campaign. During seventeen days of intermittent storms, some fifteen inches of rain fell on Okinawa.
Nothing could stand against it; a letter from home in the sodden pocket of a GI or Marine had to be read and re-read and memorized before the ink ran and it fell apart in less than a week; a pair of socks lasted no longer; and a pack of cigarettes became watery and uninflammable unless smoked the same day, or else, along with matches, they were kept dry within a contraceptive inside a helmet liner. Pocketknife blades rusted together, and watches recorded the period of their own decay. Rain made garbage of the food; pencils swelled into useless pulp; fountain pens became clogged with watery ink, and their points burst apart; rifle barrels turned blue with mold and had to be slung upside down to keep the raindrops from fouling their bores. Sometimes bullets in the rifle magazines stuck together, while machine gunners had to go over their belts daily, extracting the bullets and oiling them to prevent their sticking to the cloth loops. Everything lay damp and sodden, squishy and squashy to the touch, exuding a steady and musty reek that was the odor of decaying vegetation.
To the Americans out in the open—unlike their enemies warm, dry, and snug in their underground warrens— there were only three things of value to be found in this gurgling, gushing, rushing, streaming, dripping, drenching downpour that turned Okinawa’s numerous narrow and shallow streams into raging, boiling, white torrents of water: a dry place, hot and solid food, and most of all—most unbelievably important of all!—a hot cup of coffee. At sundown before blackout discipline would be in force, among squads huddling together all over the island, tiny fires were made of the wrappings of cigarette packages and the waxed covers of K rations, and water heated in a canteen cup containing grains of K ration soluble coffee—thus were their bellies fortified against another cold black rainy night.
And the rain on Okinawa made Okinawa mud. It was unique because it was everywhere: in the ears, under the nails, inside leggings, or squeezed coarse and cold between the toes. It got into a man’s weapons, it was in his food, and sometimes he could feel it grinding like emery grains between his teeth. Whatever was slotted, pierced, open, or empty received this mud. Wounds also. Men prayed not to get hit while rain fell and made mud. It embarrassed drivers of bulldozers and made pick-and-shovel coolies of those lordly tank troops. Some days it denied Americans the use of roads altogether, and GIs and Marines on the attack again often had to be supplied by airdrop. Frequently it was hardly possible to walk in it. A few strides and a man’s shoes were coated and heavy with mud. Two more and they seemed as though encased in lead. A third step and it was easier to slip out of them before the mud sucked them off and walk in it bare-footed. Engineers on the airfields actually put their shoes aside and worked in sacking drawn over their feet and tied around the knees.
It was this mud in which the entire Tenth Army lay immobilized on the eighth of May, the day on which smeared and dripping Marines and GIs received the splendid news that Germany had surrendered.
“So what?” they snorted in contempt.
The death of Hitler and the destruction of his Third Reich meant about as much to these embattled Americans as the pardon of one condemned criminal might mean to another still under sentence of death. General Ushijima and the stubborn soldiers of his Thirty-second Army were their only concern, and at that very moment Ushijima was taking advantage of the rain that had stalled his enemy to strengthen his flanks while his artillerists reminded their foe that the air still sang and shrieked with invisible death. Ushijima also reinforced the strongpoints guarding the vital forty-foot-wide east-west highway behind his barrier line, settling down to that grim step-for-step war of attrition urged on him by Colonel Yahara. Because of these defenses—and the incessant rain—the Tenth Army drive southward on May 9 moved even slower.
At the same time, the
That was the dogfight fought at over 40,000 feet among a Japanese two-seater Nick fighter and two Corsairs piloted by Klingman and Captain Kenneth Reusser. On combat air patrol over Ie Shima on May 10 they spotted the vapor trail of the Japanese at 25,000 feet. They chased him, climbing steadily from 10,000 altitude until, after a pursuit of 185 miles, firing off most of their ammunition to lighten their load, they caught up with the Nick at 38,000 feet.
They closed.
Reusser shot up all his ammunition in damaging the Japanese’s left wing and left engine. Klingman bored in to within 50 feet and pressed his gun button. His guns were frozen. He drove in, his propellers whirling. They chopped up the enemy’s rudder and left it dangling. In the Nick’s rear cockpit the gunner was banging his fists on his own frozen guns. The Corsair’s big propellers chewed on. Klingman turned and came back for another pass. He cut off the rudder and loosened the right stabilizer. He was running out of gas. He decided he didn’t have enough to make Okinawa anyway and turned for a third pass. He cut off the Nick’s stabilizer. The plane went into a spin, and at 15,000 feet it lost both wings and plunged into the East China Sea.
Klingman started down, losing his oxygen at 18,000 feet, and his power at 10,000. But he landed at Kadena Field, dead-stick and on his belly, his wings and fuselage sewn with bullet holes and pieces of the destroyed Nick in his cowling.
Nevertheless, the losses inflicted on the enemy aircraft did not dissuade Admiral Turner from asking Buckner once again to speed up his attack, and the Tenth Army chief obliged by scheduling a massive, four-division assault for May 11.
The Tenth Army had four full divisions abreast. General Hodge’s Twenty-fourth Corps was on the left (or east) with the Ninety-sixth and Seventy-seventh divisions in that order, and General Geiger’s Third Corps on the right (or west) with the First and Sixth. The Ninety-sixth’s objective was Conical Hill, the Seventy-seventh would buck at Shuri Castle, the First strike the Dakeshi-Wana-Wana complex guarding Shuri, and the Sixth at Sugar Loaf Hill. Of these four objectives, those facing the Marine divisions were the strongest.
Sugar Loaf opposite the Sixth was at least the formidable equal of the bloody meat grinder of Iwo Jima. It was not just one hill but a complex of three. Sugar Loaf itself did not look difficult, just an oblong ridge about fifty feet high. But it was protected to its left rear by the Half-Moon and on its right rear by the Horseshoe, a long ridge bristling with mortars. On the left where the First Division was attacking was Shuri Heights, also stuffed with gunners who could hit the Sixth on Sugar Loaf as well as the First to their front.
To attempt to get at Sugar Loaf was to be hit by the others. To strike at the others was to be hit by Sugar Loaf. But this was not suspected until the main position was reached on the morning of May 14, after a fighting crossing of the Asa River and steady grinding down of smaller hills guarding the approaches.
On that May 14 most of the morning was spent evacuating Marines stricken while crossing the flat open ground approaching that harmless-looking loaf of earth. In the afternoon a charge with supporting tanks was driven back when three of four tanks were knocked out, and artillery from Sugar’s front, left-rear, and rear fell among the riflemen. A second assault before dusk reached Sugar Loaf’s base. But of 150 Marines from the Second Battalion, Twenty-second, who began it, only 40 reached the hill. They were exhausted. They were out of supplies. It was getting dusk. Suddenly, the enemy stopped firing. The men realized that someone was speaking to them. It was Major Henry Courtney, the battalion’s executive officer.
“If we don’t take the top of this hill tonight,” he was saying, “the Japs will be down here to drive us away in the morning. The only way we can take it is to make a Banzai charge of our own. I’m asking for volunteers.”
There was hardly a pause before the Glory Kid stepped forward, grinning.
“I hate to sound like a guy in a dime novel,” said Corporal Rusty Golar, “but what the hell did we come here for?”
There were 19 other volunteers from this exhausted remnant, and 26 fresh men who appeared carrying supplies. Major Courtney took these 45 Marines up Sugar Loaf under cover of darkness, heaving grenades as they went, digging in under the protection of their own mortars. From the Horseshoe and Half-Moon came machine-gun fire and mortar shells, while grenades came up at them from the reverse slope of Sugar Loaf. At midnight, Courtney heard the enemy gathering below. He decided to strike them.
“Take all the grenades you can carry,” he whispered. “When we get over the top, throw them and start
