Shuri Castle, the key bastion of the Okinawa defenses, was in American hands—and if the 77th Division was irritated, if the Tenth Army was displeased, the soldier who commanded the Americans on Okinawa could not be entirely annoyed. The flag which Captain Dusenbury of South Carolina flew was the flag of Simon Bolivar Buckner’s father. The Stars and Bars, not the Stars and Stripes, waved over Okinawa.
Two days later Old Glory was in its rightful place. General del Valle sent a party with the standard of the First Marine Division, the one that had flown over Guadalcanal, New Britain and Peleliu.
Now, above Shuri Castle not far from the spot where Commodore Perry had hoisted the American flag a century ago, the most victorious flag of the Pacific was caught and flung in the breeze.
The Japanese retreating to the south could see it. They fired on it, missing. They kept firing, for they understood that the terrible power it symbolized was already massing to come south and destroy them.
16
It was the month of June, the month of Ushijima’s last stand.
Lieutenant General Buckner had redisposed his Tenth Army for the final heave of the war. On the west or right flank the Marines’sector had been narrowed. The Sixth Marine Division was going to make a shore-to-shore amphibious assault on the Oroku Peninsula in the southwest, and the First Marine Division had not the strength to cover the entire Third Corps front.
The Third Corps, in fact, was depleted. With the Second Marine Division sent back to Saipan—rather than kept afloat as a
The Twenty-fourth Corps was in better shape. Major General Hodge had three divisions—exclusive of the 27th on garrison in the north—and had been able to rest one while the other two were attacking. Only infrequently, as in the final days before Shuri, were all three in the line. But from June 4 onward the Twenty-fourth Corps was grinding down on the Yaeju-Yuza Peaks where most of the 32nd Army’s remnants had holed up. Even General Ushijima was here, conducting the last stand from his headquarters cave just above the ocean.
The Yaeju-Yuza’s caves were crammed with men, and also with misery. There were many sick and dying. Some caves had become reeking pest-holes. As many as 40 men lay in some of these hillside holes. At times a doctor or a corpsman came around to ask how they felt. They could do little more. They had no supplies. Men died from wounds not considered serious. Filth accumulated. The rain drummed outside, water streamed into the caves and the wounded nearly drowned. The smell was so overpowering that men could hardly breathe.
Still Ushijima was determined to fight on with so many of his men in such affliction. He shared the fanaticism of those Army die-hards who were even then, in that month of June, attempting to wreck the peace party which the new premier, Baron Kantaro Suzuki, was forming with the secret encouragement of Emperor Hirohito. Tokyo had been savaged twice more, on May 23 and 25, and the Emperor was now genuinely dismayed by the slaughter among his people.
But General Ushijima and General Cho, resuming their old relationship, were capable of no such dismay. The fight was to be to the finish, and on June 4 the Tenth Army shuddered and drove forward.
On that date the Sixth Marine Division’s spearheads shoved off from Naha to make the last Marine amphibious assault of World War Two. Again the amtracks, the wallowing sea waves, the naval gunfire thundering overhead, the shores of the objective winking and spouting smoke—and in they went to conquer three-by-two Oroku Peninsula in a whirling ten-day battle. Again beaches, coral pinnacles, caves, hills, tunnel systems, 5,000 last-ditch Japanese to be killed, an admiral to be driven to suicide, and again death and wounds for Marines—1,608 of them. Oroku was the Pacific War in microcosm—even in its Medals of Honor: Private Robert McTureous attacking machine guns firing on stretcher-bearers and losing his life to save his buddies; Corpsman Fred Lester continuing to treat wounded Marines while dying of his own wounds. But Oroku fell; it ended with Admiral Ota committing
Beneath Oroku, the First Marine Division had broken through to the south coast. Okinawa had been sliced down the middle, but more important to those weary, hungry Marines who did it was the sea outlet to which amtracks could now bring supplies. The men had been a week on reduced rations, slogging through the mud which made supply nearly impossible.
On the eastern flank the 7th and 96th Infantry Divisions were also nearing the southern coast. Lieutenant General Buckner had already made a surrender appeal to Ushijima. He had had a letter dropped behind the lines. It said:
The forces under your command have fought bravely and well, and your infantry tactics have merited the respect of your opponents…. Like myself, you are an infantry general long schooled and practiced in infantry warfare…. I believe, therefore, that you understand as clearly as I, that the destruction of all Japanese resistance on the island is merely a matter of days….
The letter was dropped on June 10. It reached Ushijima and Cho on June 17. They thought it hilarious. How could a
Ushijima and Cho had already resigned themselves to
There was nothing left, save the satisfying news next day that the American who had insulted them with a surrender offer was himself dead.
Simon Bolivar Buckner had come down to Mezado Ridge to see the fresh Eighth Marine Regiment enter battle. The Eighth had come to Okinawa on June 15, after seizing Admiral Turner’s radar outposts, and was attached to the First Division. As had happened in the beginning at Guadalcanal, when another regiment of the Second Division was attached to the First, so it was happening in the end at Okinawa.
Colonel Clarence Wallace sent the Eighth Marines in at Kunishi Ridge. They were to attack in columns of battalions to seize a road, to split the enemy in two, to carry out General del Valle’s plans for a decisive thrust to the sea. Lieutenant General Buckner joined Colonel Wallace on Mezado Ridge at noon. He watched the Marines for about an hour. They moved swiftly on their objective. Buckner said:
“Things are going so well here, I think I’ll move on to another unit.”
Five Japanese shells struck Mezado Ridge. They exploded and filled the air with flying coral. A shard pierced General Buckner’s chest and he died within ten minutes—knowing, at least, that his Tenth Army was winning.
Command went to Roy Geiger, senior officer and about to be promoted to lieutenant general. The grizzled white bear who had been at Guadalcanal in the beginning was leading at the end on Okinawa.
That came three days later.
On June 21 a patrol from the Sixth Marine Division reached a small mound atop a spiky coral cliff. It was the tip of Ara Point. Beneath them were the mingling waters of the Pacific Ocean and the East China Sea.
A few more days of skirmishing and a reverse mop-up drive to the north remained. When these were over, and the last of the
