Battle of Okinawa

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It has been suggested that L-Day be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)

Battle of Okinawa Part of World War II, the Pacific War Two Marines, Davis P. Hargraves with Thompson submachine gun and Gabriel Chavarria with BAR, of 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines, advance on Wana Ridge on May 18, 1945. Date March 18, 1945- June 23, 1945 Location Okinawa, Japan Result Allied victory Belligerents  United States  United Kingdom  Canada  Australia  New Zealand Empire of Japan Commanders Simon B. Buckner † Joseph W. Stilwell Ray Spruance Bruce Fraser Mitsuru Ushijima † Isamu Cho † Strength 548,000 servicemen, 1,300 ships,  ? aircraft 100,000 regulars and militia,  ? ships, 1,900 kamikaze aircraft Casualties and losses 12,513 dead or missing, 38,916 wounded, 33,096 non-combat losses, 79 ships sunk and scrapped, 763 aircraft destroyed 66,000 dead or missing, 17,000 wounded, 7,455 captured, 16 ships sunk and scrapped, 3,130 aircraft destroyed 75,000-140,000 civilians dead or missing

v • d • e Volcano and Ryukyu Islands campaign Iwo Jima – Okinawa – Ten-Go

The Battle of Okinawa, also known as Operation Iceberg, was fought on the Ryukyu Islands of Okinawa and was the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific Theater of World War II.^[1][2] The 82 day battle lasted from late March through June 1945.

The battle has been referred to as the "Typhoon of Steel" in English, and tetsu no ame ("rain of steel") or tetsu no bōfū ("violent wind of steel") in Japanese. The nicknames refer to the ferocity of the fighting, the intensity of gunfire involved, and sheer numbers of Allied ships and armored vehicles that assaulted the island. The battle has one of the highest casualties: the Japanese lost over 90,000 troops, and the Allies (mostly United States) suffered nearly 50,000 casualties, with over 12,000 killed in action. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed, wounded or attempted suicide.

The main reason for the battle was to gain a major island only 340 miles away from the main Japanese islands. The Allies were beginning to surround Japan, and Okinawa would serve as a base for the planned invasion of the mainland islands. The island didn't become a base in the end though, as the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused Japan to surrender just weeks after the end of the fighting at Okinawa.

Okinawa was the largest amphibious invasion of the Pacific campaign and the last major campaign of the Pacific War. More ships were used, more troops put ashore, more supplies transported, more bombs dropped, more naval guns fired against shore targets than any other operation in the Pacific. More people died during the Battle of Okinawa than all those killed during the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Casualties totaled more than 38,000 Americans wounded and 12,000 killed or missing, more than 107,000 Japanese and Okinawan conscripts killed, and perhaps 100,000 Okinawan civilians who perished in the battle.

The battle of Okinawa proved to be the bloodiest battle of the Pacific War. Thirty-four allied ships and craft of all types had been sunk, mostly by kamikazes, and 368 ships and craft damaged. The fleet had lost 763 aircraft. Total American casualties in the operation numbered over 12,000 killed [including nearly 5,000 Navy dead and almost 8,000 Marine and Army dead] and 36,000 wounded. Navy casualties were tremendous, with a ratio of one killed for one wounded as compared to a one to five ratio for the Marine Corps. Combat stress also caused large numbers of psychiatric casualties, a terrible hemorrhage of front-line strength. There were more than 26,000 non-battle casualties. In the battle of Okinawa, the rate of combat losses due to battle stress, expressed as a percentage of those caused by combat wounds, was 48% [in the Korean War the overall rate was about 20-25%, and in the Yom Kippur War it was about 30%]. American losses at Okinawa were so heavy as to elicit Congressional calls for an investigation into the conduct of the military commanders. Not surprisingly, the cost of this battle, in terms of lives, time, and material, weighed heavily in the decision to use the atomic bomb against Japan just six weeks later.

Contents 1 Order of battle 1.1 Land 1.2 Sea 1.2.1 U.S. Navy 1.2.2 British Commonwealth 2 Naval battle 2.1 Operation Ten-Go 3 Land battle 3.1 Northern Okinawa 3.2 Southern Okinawa 4 Casualties 4.1 Civilian Losses 5 Aftermath 6 Revisionist controversy regarding mass suicides 7 See also 8 References

[edit] Order of battle

[edit] Land

The U.S. land campaign was controlled by the Tenth Army, commanded by Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr. The army had two corps under its command, III Amphibious Corps under Major General Roy Geiger, consisting of 1st and 6th Marine Divisions, and XXIV Corps under Major General John R. Hodge, consisting of the 7th and 96th Infantry Divisions. The 2nd Marine Division was an afloat reserve, and Tenth Army also controlled the 27th, earmarked as a garrison, and 77th Infantry Divisions. In all, Tenth Army contained 102,000 Army, 88,000 Marine Corps, and 18,000 Navy personnel.

The Japanese land campaign (mainly defensive) was conducted by the 77,000 strong Japanese Thirty-Second Army. It initially consisted of the 9th, 24th, and 62nd Divisions, and the 44th Independent Mixed Brigade. The 9th Division was moved to Taiwan prior to the invasion, resulting in shuffling of Japanese defensive plans. Primary resistance was to be led in the south by Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima, his chief of staff, Lieutenant General Isamu Cho and his chief of operations, Colonel Hiromichi Yahara. Yahara advocated a defensive strategy, whilst Cho advocated an offensive one. In the north, Colonel Takehido Udo was in command.

[edit] Sea

[edit] U.S. Navy

Most of the air-to-air fighters and the small dive-bombers and strike aircraft were U.S. Navy carrier-based airplanes. The Japanese had used kamikaze tactics since the Battle of Leyte Gulf, but for the first time, they became a major part of the defense. Between the American landing on Easter Sunday and May 25, seven major kamikaze attacks were attempted, involving more than 1,500 planes. The total strength of the Allied fleet at Okinawa was 1,300 ships, including 40 carriers, 18 battleships, and 200 destroyers. The U.S. Navy sustained greater casualties in this operation than in any other battle of the war.

[edit] British Commonwealth

Although Allied land forces were entirely composed of U.S. units, the British Pacific Fleet (BPF; known to the U.S. Navy as Task Force 57) provided about a quarter of Allied naval air power (300 planes). It comprised 17 aircraft carriers, but the British armoured decks meant that fewer planes could be carried in a single aircraft carrier, although the carriers were more resilient to kamikaze strikes. Although all the aircraft carriers were provided by the UK, the carrier group was a combined British Commonwealth fleet with British, Canadian, New Zealand and Australian ships and personnel. Their mission was to neutralize Japanese airfields in the Sakishima Islands and provide air cover against Japanese kamikaze attacks.

[edit] Naval battle

The British Pacific Fleet (BPF) was assigned the task of neutralizing the Japanese airfields in the Sakishima Islands, which it did successfully from March 26 until April 10. On April 10, its attention was shifted to airfields on northern Formosa. The force withdrew to San Pedro Bay on April 23. Although by then a commonplace event for the U.S. Navy, this was the longest time that a Royal Naval fleet of that size had been maintained at sea.

There was a hypnotic fascination to the sight so alien to our Western philosophy. We watched each plunging kamikaze with the detached horror of one witnessing a terrible spectacle rather than as the intended victim. We forgot self for the moment as we groped hopelessly for the thought of that other man up there. Vice Admiral C.R. Brown[3]

On May 1, BPF returned to action, subduing the airfields as before, this time with naval bombardment as well as aircraft. Several kamikaze attacks caused significant damage, but since the British used armored flight decks on their aircraft carriers, they only experienced a brief interruption to their force's objective.^[4]

In the two month battle for Okinawa, the Japanese flew 1,900 kamikaze missions, sinking dozens of Allied ships and killing more than 5,000 U.S. sailors. The ships lost were smaller vessels, particularly the destroyers of the radar pickets, as well as destroyer escorts and landing ships. While no major Allied warship was lost, several fleet carriers were severely damaged.

The protracted length of the campaign under stressful conditions forced Admiral Nimitz to take the unprecedented step of relieving the principal naval commanders to rest and recuperate. Following the practice of changing the fleet designation with the change of commanders, U.S. naval forces began the campaign as the U.S. Fifth Fleet under Admiral Raymond Spruance, but ended it as the U.S. Third Fleet under Admiral William Halsey.

[edit] Operation Ten-Go

Main article: Operation Ten-Go

Operation Ten-Go was the attempted attack by a strike force of Japanese surface vessels led by the battleship Yamato. This small task force had been ordered to fight through enemy naval forces, then beach themselves and fight from shore; using their guns as artillery and her crewmen as naval infantry. The Yamato and other vessels in Operation Ten-Go were spotted by submarines shortly after leaving Japanese home waters, and attacked by U.S. carrier aircraft.

Under attack from more than 300 aircraft over a two day span, the world's largest battleship sank on April 7, 1945, long before she could reach Okinawa. U.S. torpedo bombers were instructed to only aim for one side to prevent effective counter flooding by the battleship's crew, and hitting preferably the bow or stern, where armor was believed to be the thinnest. Of the Yamato's screening force, the light cruiser, the Yahagi, and 4 out of the 8 destroyers were also sunk.

[edit] Land battle

Progress of Land Battle of Okinawa
1st April	15th April	1st May	15th May	1st June	15th June

The land battle took place over about 87 days beginning March 26, 1945.

The first Americans ashore were soldiers of the 77th Infantry Division, who landed in the Kerama Islands (Kerama Retto), fifteen miles (24 km) west of Okinawa on March 26, 1945. Subsidiary landings followed, and the Kerama group was secured over the next five days. In these preliminary operations, the 77th Infantry Division suffered 31 dead and 81 wounded, while Japanese dead and captured numbered over 650. The operation provided a protected anchorage for the fleet and eliminated the threat from suicide boats. On March 31 Marines of the Fleet Marine Force Amphibious Reconnaissance Battalion landed without opposition on Keise Shima, four islets just eight miles (13 km) west of the Okinawan capital of Naha. 155 mm Long Toms went ashore on the islets to cover operations on Okinawa.

[edit] Northern Okinawa

The main landing was made by XXIV Corps and III Amphibious Corps on the Hagushi beaches on the western coast of Okinawa on L-Day, April 1, which was both Easter Sunday and April Fools' Day in 1945. The 2nd Marine Division conducted a demonstration off the Minatoga beaches on the southeastern coast to confuse the Japanese about American intentions and delay movement of reserves from there.

Tenth Army swept across the south-central part of the island with relative ease by World War II standards, capturing the Kadena and the Yomitan airbases. In the light of the weak opposition, General Buckner decided to proceed immediately with Phase II of his plan—the seizure of northern Okinawa. The 6th Marine Division headed up the Ishikawa Isthmus. The land was mountainous and wooded, with the Japanese defenses concentrated on Yae-Take, a twisted mass of rocky ridges and ravines on the Motobu Peninsula. There was heavy fighting before the Marines finally cleared the Motobu Peninsula on April 18.

Meanwhile, the 77th Infantry Division assaulted Ie Shima, a small island off the western end of the peninsula on April 16. In addition to conventional hazards, the 77th Infantry Division encountered suicide bombers, and even Japanese women armed with spears. There was heavy fighting before Ie Shima was declared secured on April 21 and became another air base for operations against Japan.

Few U.S. soldiers encountered the feared Habu snake and soon discarded the cumbersome leggings designed to protect them from snakebite.

[edit] Southern Okinawa

While the Marines cleared northern Okinawa, XXIV Corps wheeled south across the narrow waist of Okinawa. The 7th and 96th Infantry Divisions encountered fierce resistance from Japanese troops holding fortified positions on high ground and engaged in desperate hand-to-hand fighting in west-central Okinawa along Cactus Ridge, about five miles (8 km) northwest of Shuri. By the night of April 8 the XXIV Corps had cleared these and several other strongly fortified positions. They suffered over 1,500 battle casualties in the process, while killing or capturing about 4,500 Japanese, yet the battle had only just begun, for it was now realized they were merely outposts guarding the Shuri Line.

The next American objective was Kakazu Ridge, two hills with a connecting saddle that formed part of Shuri's outer defenses. The Japanese had prepared their positions well and fought tenaciously. Fighting was fierce. Japanese soldiers hid in caves armed with hidden machine guns and explosives; American forces often lost many men before clearing the Japanese out from each cave or other hiding place. The Japanese would send the Okinawans at gunpoint out to acquire water and supplies for them, which induced casualties among civilians. The American advance was inexorable but resulted in massive casualties sustained by both sides.

As the American assault against Kakazu Ridge stalled, General Ushijima, influenced by General Cho, decided to take the offensive. On the evening of April 12 32nd Army attacked American positions across the entire front. The Japanese attack was heavy, sustained, and well organized. After fierce, close fighting the attackers retreated, only to repeat their offensive the following night. A final assault on April 14 was again repulsed. The entire effort led 32d Army's staff to conclude that the Americans were vulnerable to night infiltration, but that their superior firepower made any offensive Japanese troop concentrations extremely dangerous, and they reverted to their defensive strategy.

The 27th Infantry Division, which had landed on April 9 took over on the right, along the west coast of Okinawa. General Hodge now had three divisions in the line, with the 96th in the middle, and the 7th on the east, with each division holding a front of only about a mile and half.

Hodge launched a new offensive of April 19 with a barrage of 324 guns, the largest ever in the Pacific Ocean Theater. Battleships, cruisers, and destroyers joined the bombardment, which was followed by 650 Navy and Marine planes attacking the enemy positions with napalm, rockets, bombs, and machine guns. The Japanese defenses were sited on reverse slopes, where the defenders waited out the artillery barrage and aerial attack in relative safety, emerging from the caves to rain mortar rounds and grenades upon the Americans advancing up the forward slope.

A tank assault on Kakazu Ridge, launched without sufficient infantry support in the hope of a breakthrough, failed with the loss of 22 tanks. Although flamethrower tanks cleared many cave defenses, there was no breakthrough, and the XXIV Corps lost 720 killed, wounded or missing. The losses might have been greater, except for the fact that the Japanese had practically all of their infantry reserves tied up farther south, held there by another feint off the Minatoga beaches by the 2d Marine Division that coincided with the attack.

At the end of April, the 1st Marine Division relieved the 27th Infantry Division, and the 77th Infantry Division relieved the 7th. When the 6th Marine Division arrived, III Amphibious Corps took over the right flank and Tenth Army assumed control of the battle.

On May 4 32nd Army launched another counter offensive. This time Ushijima attempted to make amphibious assaults on the coasts behind American lines. To support his offensive, the Japanese artillery moved into the open. By doing so they were able to fire 13,000 rounds in support but American counter-battery fire destroyed 19 guns on May 4 and 40 more over the next two days. The attack was a complete failure.

Buckner launched another American attack on May 11. Ten days of fierce fighting followed. On May 13 troops of the 96th Infantry Division and 763d Tank Battalion captured Conical Hill. Rising 476 feet (145 m) above the Yonabaru coastal plain, this feature was the eastern anchor of the main Japanese defenses and was defended by about 1,000 Japanese. Meanwhile, on the opposite coast, the 6th Marine Division fought for "Sugar Loaf Hill". The capture of these two key positions exposed the Japanese around Shuri on both sides. Buckner hoped to envelop Shuri and trap the main Japanese defending force.

By the end of May monsoon rains which turned contested slopes and roads into a morass exacerbated both the tactical and medical situations. The ground advance began to resemble a World War I battlefield as troops became mired in mud and flooded roads greatly inhibited evacuation of wounded to the rear. Troops lived on a field sodden by rain, part garbage dump and part graveyard. Unburied Japanese bodies decayed, sank in the mud, and became part of a noxious stew. Anyone sliding down the greasy slopes could easily find their pockets full of maggots at the end of the journey.^[5]

On May 29, Major General Pedro del Valle, commanding the 1st Marine Division, ordered Company A, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines to capture Shuri Castle. Seizure of the castle represented both strategic and psychological blows for the Japanese and was a milestone in the campaign. Del Valle was awarded a Distinguished Service Medal for his leadership in the fight and the subsequent occupation and reorganization of Okinawa. However the castle was outside the 1st Marine Division's zone, and only frantic efforts by the commander and staff of the 77th Infantry Division prevented the Marines from being subjected to an American air strike and artillery bombardment.

Either by design or the "fog of war", Buckner did not detect the Japanese retreat to their second line of defense, which ultimately led to the greatest slaughter on Okinawa in the latter stages of the battle, including the deaths of thousands of civilians.

The island fell on about June 21, 1945, though some Japanese continued fighting, including the future governor of Okinawa prefecture, Masahide Ota.

Ushijima and Cho committed suicide by seppuku in their command headquarters on Hill 89 in the closing hours of the battle. Major Yahara had asked Ushijima for permission to commit suicide, but the general refused his request, saying, "If you die there will be no one left who knows the truth about the battle of Okinawa. Bear the temporary shame but endure it. This is an order from your army Commander."^[6]

Yahara was the most senior officer to have survived the battle on the island, and he later authored a book entitled The Battle for Okinawa.

[edit] Casualties

U.S. losses were over 38,000 casualties, of whom 12,000 were killed or missing—over twice the number of casualties as at Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal combined. Several thousand servicemen who died indirectly (from wounds and other causes) at a later date are not included in the total. One of the most famous U.S. casualties was the war correspondent Ernie Pyle, who was killed by Japanese machine gun fire on Ie Shima.^[7] U.S. forces suffered their highest ever casualty rate for combat stress reaction during the entire battle, at 48% (compared to 30% in the Korean War).

At sea three hundred and sixty-eight ships were damaged while another thirty-six, including fifteen amphibious ships and twelve destroyers were sunk during the Okinawa campaign.^[8] While still another one hundred and twelve amphibious craft were damaged. In the end more than four thousand nine hundred officers and men of the Navy lost their lives, largely as a result of Japanese kamikazes.^[8]

General Buckner's decision to attack the Japanese defenses head-on, although proving to be extremely costly in U.S. lives, was ultimately successful. Just four days from the closing of the campaign, General Buckner was killed by Japanese artillery fire while inspecting his troops at the front line. He was the highest-ranking U.S. officer to be killed by enemy fire during the war.

There were about 66,000 Japanese combatants killed and 7,400 captured. Some of the soldiers committed seppuku or simply blew themselves up with hand grenades. Many of the Japanese prisoners were native Okinawans who had been impressed into the Army shortly before the battle and were less imbued with the Japanese Army's no-surrender doctrine.^[9] This was also the only battle in the war in which surrendering Japanese were made into POWs by the thousands.^{[citation needed]} When the American forces occupied the island, the Japanese took Okinawan clothing to avoid capture and the Okinawans came to the Americans' aid by offering a simple way to detect Japanese in hiding. Okinawan language differs greatly from Japanese; with Americans at their sides, Okinawans would give directions to people in the local language, and those who did not understand were considered Japanese in hiding who were then captured.

[edit] Civilian Losses

At some battles, such as Iwo Jima, there had been no civilians involved, but Okinawa had a large indigenous civilian population. Okinawan civilian losses in the campaign were estimated to be between 75,000 and 140,000. In addition, it is estimated that more than a third of the surviving civilian population was wounded.

With the impending victory of American troops, civilians often committed mass suicide, urged on by the fanatical Japanese soldiers who told locals that victorious American soldiers would go on a rampage of killing and raping. Ryukyu Shimpo, one of the two major Okinawan newspapers, wrote in 2007: "There are many Okinawans who have testified that the Japanese Army directed them to commit suicide. There are also people who have testified that they were handed grenades by Japanese soldiers" (to blow themselves up).^[10] Some of the civilians, having been induced by Japanese propaganda to believe that U.S. soldiers were barbarians who committed horrible atrocities, killed their families and themselves to avoid capture. Some Okinawans threw themselves and their family members from the cliffs where the Peace Museum now resides. A Japanese American Military Intelligence Service^[11] combat translator with the U.S. military, Teruto “Terry” Tsubota, tried to convince civilians to not kill themselves, even climbing into caves to talk to them, but his efforts had limited success.^[12]

Edwin P. Hoyt, in "Japan’s War: The Great Pacific Conflict", argues that the Allied practice of mutilating the Japanese dead and taking pieces of them home was exploited by Japanese propaganda very effectively, and "contributed to a preference to death over surrender and occupation, shown, for example, in the mass civilian suicides on Saipan and Okinawa after the Allied landings"^[13] Life Magazine "picture of the week" in May 22, 1944 depicted a beautiful blonde with a Japanese trophy skull sent to her by her Marine lieutenant boyfriend.^[14][15] This image gained widespread circulation in Japan, as did the news that U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had been presented with a letter-opener carved out out of a Japanese soldiers arm bone by Congressman Walter.^[16] In Japanese media the Americans came to be portrayed as "deranged, primitive, racist and inhuman".

While there are no official documents from US or Japanese sources that mention any instances of rape atrocities, there are several anecdotal accounts that such acts may have occurred.^[17]

"One possible explanation for why the United States military says it has no record of any rapes is that few if any Okinawan women reported being attacked out of fear and embarrassment, and that those who did were ignored by the United States military police, the historians said. Moreover, there has never been a large-scale effort to determine the real extent of such crimes."^[18]

According to Peter Schrijvers, rape was "a general practice against Okinawan women".^[19] An estimated 10,000 Okinawan women were raped by American troops during the Okinawa campaign.^[19]. However, despite being told that they would suffer rape, torture and murder at the hands of the Americans, civilians "were often surprises at the comparativly humane treatment they received from the American enemy."^[20][21] According to Laura Elizabeth Hein and Mark Selden the Americans "did not pursue a policy of torture, rape, and murder of civilians as Japanese military officials had warned."^[22]

In 1998 the remains of three US Marines stationed on Okinawa were discovered outside of a local village. Accounts from elderly Okinawans may verify that the men had made frequent trips to the village to rape the women that lived there but were ambushed and killed by men from the village on one of their return trips.^[18] according to the same article, published in 2000,: "rape was so prevalent that most Okinawans over age 65 either know or have heard of a woman who was raped in the aftermath of the war."^[18]

Okinawan historian Oshiro Masayasu (former director of the Okinawa Prefectural Historical Archives) writes based on several years of research:

Soon after the US marines landed, all the women of a village on Motobu Peninsula fell into the hands of American soldiers. At the time, there were only women, children and old people in the village, as all the young men had been mobilized for the war. Soon after landing, the marines "mopped up" the entire village, but found no signs of Japanese forces. Taking advantage of the situation, they started "hunting for women" in broad daylight and those who were hiding in the village or nearby air raid shelters were dragged out one after another.^[23]

U. S. historian James J. Weingartner attributes the very low number of captured Japanese in U.S. POW compounds to two important factors, a Japanese reluctance to surrender and a widespread American "conviction that the Japanese were "animals" or "subhuman'" and unworthy of the normal treatment accorded to POWs.^[24] The latter reason is supported by historian Nial Fergusson, who says that "Allied troops often saw the Japanese in the same way that Germans regarded Russians [sic] — as Untermenschen."^[25] The massacres of Japanese prisoners is also supported by the research of Professor Richard Aldrich.^[26]

In its history of the war, the Okinawa Prefectural Peace Memorial Museum^[27] presents Okinawa as being caught in the fighting between America and Japan. During the 1945 battle, the Japanese Army showed indifference to Okinawa's defense and safety, and the Japanese soldiers used civilians as human shields against the Americans.^{[citation needed]} Japanese military confiscated food from the Okinawans and executed those who hid it, leading to a mass starvation among the population^{[citation needed]}, and forced civilians out of their shelters. Japanese soldiers also killed about 1,000 Okinawans who still spoke a different local dialect in order to suppress spying.^[28]

[edit] Aftermath

Ninety percent of the buildings on the island were completely destroyed, and the lush tropical landscape was turned into "a vast field of mud, lead, decay and maggots".^[29]

The military value of Okinawa "exceeded all hope". Okinawa provided a fleet anchorage, troop staging areas, and airfields in close proximity to Japan. After the battle, the U.S. cleared the surrounding waters of mines in Operation Zebra, occupied Okinawa, and set up the United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands, a form of military government.^[30] Significant U.S. forces remain garrisoned there, and Kadena remains the largest U.S. air base in Asia.

Some military historians believe that Okinawa led directly to the use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A prominent holder of this view is Victor Davis Hanson, who states it explicitly in his book Ripples of Battle:

"...because the Japanese on Okinawa, including native Okinawans, were so fierce in their defense (even when cut off, and without supplies), and because casualties were so appalling, many American strategists looked for an alternative means to subdue mainland Japan, other than a direct invasion. This means presented itself, with the advent of atomic bombs, which worked admirably in convincing the Japanese to sue for peace, without American casualties. Ironically, the American conventional fire-bombing of major Japanese cities (which had been going on for months before Okinawa) was far more effective at killing civilians than the atomic bombs and, had the Americans simply continued, or expanded this, the Japanese would likely have surrendered anyway. Nevertheless, the bombs were a powerful symbolic display of American power, and the Japanese capitulated, obviating the need for an invasion of the home islands."

In 1945, Winston Churchill called the battle "among the most intense and famous in military history."

In 1995, the Okinawa government erected a memorial named Cornerstone of Peace^[31] in Mabuni, the site of the last fighting in southeastern Okinawa. The memorial lists all the known names of those who died in the battle, civilian and military, Japanese and foreign. At present there are 237,318 names listed including 148,136 Okinawans (mostly civilians) and 14,005 Americans.

[edit] Revisionist controversy regarding mass suicides

There is ongoing major disagreement between Okinawa's local government and Japan's national government over the role of the Japanese military in civilian mass suicides during the battle. In March 2007, the national Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry (MEXT) advised textbook publishers to reword descriptions that the embattled Imperial Japanese Army forced civilians to kill themselves in the war so they would not be taken prisoner by the U.S. military. MEXT preferred descriptions that just say that civilians received hand grenades from the military.

This move sparked widespread protests among the Okinawans. In June 2007, the Okinawa Prefectoral Assembly adopted a resolution stating, "We strongly call on the (national) government to retract the instruction and to immediately restore the description in the textbooks so the truth of the Battle of Okinawa will be handed down correctly and a tragic war will never happen again."^[32]

On September 29, 2007, about 110,000 people held a rally in the history of Okinawa to demand that MEXT retract its order to textbook publishers on revising the account of the civilian suicide. The resolution stated: "It is an undeniable fact that the 'multiple suicides' would not have occurred without the involvement of the Japanese military and any deletion of or revision to (the descriptions) is a denial and distortion of the many testimonies by those people who survived the incidents."^[33]

On December 26, 2007, MEXT partially admitted the role of the Japanese military in civilian mass suicides.^[34] The ministry's Textbook Authorization Council allowed the publishers to reinstate the reference that civilians "were forced into mass suicides by the Japanese military," on condition it is placed in sufficient context. "It can be said that from the viewpoint of the (Okinawa residents), they were forced into the mass suicides," the council report stated.^[35] That was, however, not enough for the survivors who said it is important for children today to know what really happened.^[36]

Nobel Prize winning author Kenzaburo Oe has written a booklet which states that the mass suicide order was given by the military during the Battle of Okinawa in the closing days of World War II.^[37] He was sued by the revisionists, including a wartime commander during the battle, who disputed this and wanted to stop publication of the booklet. At a court hearing on November 9, 2007, Oe testified: "Mass suicides were forced on Okinawa islanders under Japan's hierarchical social structure that ran through the state of Japan, the Japanese armed forces and local garrisons."^[38] On March 28, 2008, the Osaka District Court ruled in favor of Oe stating, "It can be said the military was deeply involved in the mass suicides". The court recognized the military's involvement in the mass suicides and murder-suicides, citing the testimony about the distribution of grenades for suicide by soldiers and the fact that mass suicides were not recorded on islands where the military was not stationed.^[39]

[edit] See also

• Cornerstone of Peace
• Himeyuri Students
• Ryukyuan people

[edit] References

Notes

Books

• Zaloga, Steven J. Japanese Tanks 1939-45. Osprey, 2007. ISBN 978-1-84603-091-8.

Web

v • d • e World War II
Western Europe · Eastern Europe · Africa · Mediterranean · Asia and the Pacific · Atlantic
Major participants			Timeline		Aspects
To 1945 unless otherwise indicated. Principal co-belligerents in italics.			Prelude • Causes • in Asia • in Europe 1939 • Invasion of Poland • Phoney War • Winter War • Battle of the Atlantic5 1940 • Denmark and Norway • Battle of France • Battle of Britain • Libya and Egypt • British Somaliland • Baltic Occupation • Bessarabia and Bukovina • Invasion of Indochina • Invasion of Greece 1941 • East Africa Campaign • Invasion of Yugoslavia • Invasion of the USSR • Middle East campaign • Siege of Leningrad • Battle of Moscow • Attack on Pearl Harbor 1942 • Battle of Midway • Battle of Stalingrad • 2nd Battle of El Alamein • Operation Torch • Guadalcanal Campaign	1943 • End in Africa • Battle of Kursk • Solomon Islands • Invasion of Sicily • Invasion of Italy5 • Gilbert and Marshall Islands 1944 • Cassino and Anzio • Invasion of Normandy • Mariana and Palau Islands • Operation Bagration • Battle of the Dnieper • Warsaw Uprising • Iassy-Kishinev Operation • Liberation of Paris • Operation Market Garden • Operation Crossbow • Operation Pointblank • Battle of Leyte Gulf 1945 • Battle of Iwo Jima • Battle of Okinawa • Battle of Berlin • Germany surrenders • Hiroshima and Nagasaki • Japan surrenders • List of military engagements	• Attacks on North America • Blitzkrieg • Comparative military ranks • Cryptography • Home front • Military awards • Military equipment • Military production • Nazi plunder • Resistance • Technology • Total war Aftermath /consequences • Effects/Casualties • Expulsion of Germans • Operation Paperclip • Occupation of Germany • Morgenthau plan • Territorial changes • Occupation of Japan • Franco-Vietnamese War • Cold War • in contemporary culture Civilian impact / atrocities • Allied war crimes • German war crimes • Italian war crimes • Japanese war crimes • Soviet war crimes • The Holocaust • Bombing of civilians
Allies		Axis
at war from 1937  China entered 1939  Czechoslovakia  Poland  UK  India  France  Australia  New Zealand  South Africa  Canada entered 1940  Norway  Belgium  Netherlands  Greece	entered 1941  Yugoslavia  USSR  USA entered 1942  Mexico  Brazil entered 1943  Italy   entered 1944  Romania  Bulgaria  Finland • others	at war from 1937  Japan entered 1939  Germany  Slovakia entered 1940  Italy  to 1943 entered 1941  Bulgaria  to 1944 Croatia Finland  to 1944  Hungary  Iraq  to 1941  Romania  to 1944 entered 1942  Thailand entered 1943  RSI • others
• Allied Leaders • Axis Leaders • Commanders
Resistance movements Austria · Baltic1 · Czech lands · Denmark · Ethiopia France · Germany2 · Greece · Italy Jewish2 · Korea · Netherlands · Moldavia2 Norway · Poland · Thailand · Soviet Union Slovakia4 · Ukraine3 · Vietnam Yugoslavia · others
				Lists
				Category · Topics Conferences
1 Anti-Soviet. 2 Anti-Soviet and anti-Nazi. 3 Anti-Nazi, anti-Polish, and anti-Soviet. 4 Anti-Magyar, anti-Nazi, and anti-Soviet. 5 Lasted to May 1945.		World War II at Wiktionary  WWII textbooks at Wikibooks      WWII quotes at Wikiquote  WWII source texts at Wikisource       WWII media at Commons  WWII news stories at Wikinews