On April 1, 1945, thousands of American troops landed on the beaches of Okinawa, a heavily fortified Pacific island to the south of Japan. Nearly three months later, the United States claimed victory over Japan, at the cost of thousands of Marines and soldiers.
80 years since the Battle of Okinawa, a memorial to the dead stands on the island, with residents commemorating the end of the fighting each year. This year, the occasion is one of the last major anniversary events marking eight decades of the last year of World War II. The fighting ended on June 22, 1945. June 23 is celebrated on the island — home to the U.S. military’s important Kadena Air Base – as Okinawa Memorial Day.
By the spring of 1945, Japan was on the retreat, having lost several of its major island fortresses in the Pacific. However the Japanese military was continually putting up major resistance, forcing the American military to fight tooth and nail for every piece of land as it moved west towards the Japanese home islands. With a bloody victory won in Iwo Jima in March, American forces were working on taking the Ryukyu Islands, to the south of Japan. If they could, it would give them a staging ground only a few hundred miles from Japan and further cut off the enemy. If the Allies were to take Japan — this was before the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, plans called for enacting a ground invasion dubbed Operation Downfall — then Okinawa needed to fall first.
The Imperial Japanese military also realized the importance of the island. They heavily fortified their position, putting in two full divisions and several smaller units to inflict massive casualties on the invaders. Given the importance of the mission, the Allies devoted extensive resources to the invasion. The U.S. military created the Tenth Army, formed out of four Army divisions and three Marine Divisions. Aided by a large naval force, they staged the main landing on April 1. It would be the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific Theater.
Many of the Marines and soldiers fighting on Okinawa were veterans of the island hopping campaign. However the 82 days of fighting on Okinawa would not be easy. Japanese forces set up extensive defenses, aiming to lure Americans deeply inland to where they could inflict heavy casualties. The invasion was not helped by the weather or Okinawa’s rough terrain, with troops finding themselves caught in hellish storms, walking into Japanese ambushes, or combinations of the two. Eugene Sledge, whose memoir ‘With the Old Breed: recounted the battle and provided some of the basis for the miniseries ‘The Pacific,’ recounted the overflowing mud, flooding foxholes and miserable conditions that left soldiers and Marines as worn down as the combat was.
At sea, the worn-down Japanese navy heavily utilized kamikaze attacks to strike the larger British and American navies. These damaged the aircraft carrier the USS Bunker Hill, among others. However the U.S. Navy managed to score heavy victories, including sinking the battleship Yamato in April 1945.
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Slowly the ground invasion gained momentum. In May, after two months, Americans captured the fortified area around Shuri castle. Japanese forces were pressed back to one end of the island. Despite that, they continued to resist. It was only on June 22 that fighting ended and the Tenth Army raised the flag in conquest.
Ultimately the fighting costs the lives of 12,000 Americans. Three times as many were wounded. Japanese forces saw more than 94,000 killed, with 7,000 captured. And the civilians who lived on the island were not spared. The dense forests, house to house combat and Japanese guerilla tactics — plus the heavy firepower the U.S. used to take out their entrenched positions — meant many were caught in the crossfire. An estimated tens of thousands, at least 40,000, were killed.
The heavy losses and fierce Japanese defense played a major role in how the United States decided to pursue the rest of the war. It also contributed to the decision to use the new atomic bombs on Japan. Harry S. Truman, who took over as president after the battle had begun, was troubled by the heavy losses in the battle, eventually remarking that he hoped to avoid “Okinawa from one end of Japan to the other.”
80 years after the U.S. claimed victory, remnants of the battle remain. Unexploded ordnance on Okinawa is an ongoing problem, with more than 2,000 tons of munitions safely detonated over the last 50 years.
This year, some events were held to commemorate the start of the battle in April. Earlier this month, on June 7, American soldiers and sailors, alongside members of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces, staged a cleaning of the Okinawa Peace Memorial Park, ending with laying flowers to honor the dead from the 82-day-long battle. Today, June 23, is Okinawa Memorial Day in the prefecture. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba joined local officials for the occasion, where they added more than 300 new names to a wall commemorating the people confirmed to have died in one of the bloodiest battles in all of World War II.
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Nicholas Slayton is a Contributing Editor for Task & Purpose. In addition to covering breaking news, he writes about history, shipwrecks, and the military’s hunt for unidentified anomalous phenomenon (formerly known as UFOs).
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