Leaving Iwo Jima Behind
4th Division started to leave the island as early as 14 March and sailed for Maui. Five days later the last of General Erskine’s Marines stepped off Iwo Jima’s beaches. 5th Division and corps troops started loading out on 18 March and headed for Hawaii, an operation that lasted ten days. It left 3rd Marine Division (less 3rd Marines) behind to take over patrol and defence responsibilities until 147th Infantry arrived from New Caledonia on 20 March. Between them they carried out day patrols and set night ambushes of various sizes to protect installations against prowling Japanese.
The completion of the Iwo Jima operation was formally announced at 08:00 on 26 March and Commander Forward Area, Central Pacific, assumed responsibility for the defence and development of the island. Major General James E. Chaney also took over operational control of all units stationed on the island while Brigadier General Ernest Moore assumed the designation of Air Defense Commander. While General Schmidt left Iwo Jima by air, his headquarters embarked on USS President Monroe.
3rd Division began loading on 27 March and assumed full responsibility for ground defence on 4 April. Although the last Marine unit left Iwo Jima on 12 April, the fighting was not over; hundreds of Japanese were still hiding in caves and tunnels across the island. Many would commit suicide or die from their untreated wounds but others waited for their moment to strike at the Americans. In April and May the 147th Infantry captured 867 prisoners and killed around 1600 in skirmishes across the island.
The Cost
The Battle of Iwo Jima cost over 26,000 American casualties, including 6800 dead, and it was the only US Marine battle where the American casualties exceeded those of the Japanese. However, of the 22,000 Japanese soldiers on the island it was believed that over 21,000 died from fighting or ritual suicide so the number of deaths tripled the American fatalities. It was believed that only about 300 Japanese were left alive in the caves and tunnels and they stayed there due to the combination of their Bushido code of honour and effective anti-American propaganda. They would only emerge at night to look for provisions and when they were captured or surrendered they were surprised to be treated well. Two men lasted six years underground (some sources say four years). In the end nearly 3000 were rounded up. Only two Marines were captured during the battle and neither survived captivity.
The Battle for Okinawa
General Simon Buckner’s Tenth US Army had been training for the invasion of the Ryukyu Islands for some time but preparations intensified as soon as Iwo Jima was captured. Okinawa was just south of the Japanese mainland and it had been chosen as the staging area for an invasion. Since the summer of 1944 Japanese troops had been pouring onto the island to build fortifications and by March 1945 they were ready for the imminent amphibious attack. As 77th Division cleared the outlying islands in preparation for the main assault, there was no doubt about it; Operation Iceberg was going to be a costly campaign.
Tenth Army’s landings on Okinawa required a massive flotilla. While landing craft and amphibious vehicles ferried troops and supplies from the landing ships to the beach, destroyers kept a watchful eye for Japanese planes.
On 1 April, Task Force 56, a fleet of ten battleships, nine cruisers, 23 destroyers and over 100 rocket gunboats opened fire at the start of L-Day, in what was the heaviest concentration of naval gunfire ever used during an amphibious invasion. As shells hit the shoreline, hundreds of landing craft and amphibious vehicles carried two Army divisions and two Marine divisions towards Hagushi beaches on the west side of the island while simulated amphibious landings off the southeast coast kept General Ushijima guessing. His decision to defend the interior of the island meant that Tenth US Army was able to put over 60,000 men ashore by nightfall for a handful of casualties; it was the calm before the storm.
7th Division and 1st Marine Division advanced quickly across the island, cutting Ushijima’s forces in two. The majority of his troops were holding the Shuri Line to the south and General Simon Buckner ordered 6th Marine Division to drive north up the Ishikawa Isthmus while the rest of Tenth Army deployed. It found the main Japanese concentration in wooded ravines on the Motobu Peninsula and it took over two weeks to clear the area.
While Tenth US Army advanced across Okinawa the Japanese Navy Air Service struck back, making kamikaze and conventional air attacks against Task Force 51’s warships and landing craft. A final attempt to engage the US Navy on 6 April ended in disaster when an American submarine spotted the super battleship Yamato leaving Kyushu; aircraft from Task Force 58’s carriers intercepted it and sank the pride of the Japanese Navy.
Meanwhile, XXIV Corps attacked the ridges and hills covering the Outer Shuri Line on 5 April and while 96th Division fought for Cactus Ridge, 7th Division captured the Pinnacle. The advance stalled on Kakazu Ridge, in front of the Main Shuri Line but Buckner’s men kept pushing forward in a bloody battle of endurance.
After clearing Motobu Peninsula, 77th Division landed on the island of Ie Shima off the northwest coast of Okinawa on 16 April and cleared it after a week of heavy fighting. It allowed US engineers to build a runway on the tiny island, turning it into a base for air attacks against Okinawa.
On the mainland, XXIV Corps was still struggling to make progress and the addition of an extra division to the American line was making little difference. A renewed attack against Kakazu Ridge on 19 April failed and the GIs and Marines had to rely on explosives and flamethrowers to burn or blast their way across Skyline Ridge and Tombstone Ridge. General Buckner referred to these new tactics as the ‘blowtorch and corkscrew’ method.
One by one the hills and ridges of the Outer Shuri Line were cleared. By the end of April, XXIV Corps had reorganised just in time to meet General Ushijima’s counterattack on 4 May. As 32nd Army’s infantry, tanks and artillery fought to regain the Outer Shuri Line, kamikaze aircraft and boats sank seventeen American ships. Japanese casualties were enormous and 7th Division struck back, clearing Maeda Escarpment on 7 May.
The attack against the Inner Shuri Line began on 11 May and while the first breakthrough came two days later, heavy rains prevented XXIV Corps from moving forward. The delay allowed the Japanese troops to withdraw from the ruins of Shuri and Naha to the Yaeju-Dake Escarpment at the south end of the island.
The Japanese Air Force struck back at the fleet anchored off Okinawa on 6 April. The sky is dotted with anti-aircraft fire as a pilot aims his burning plane towards an aircraft carrier.
While XXIV Corps pushed forward, 6th Marine Division landed on the Oroku Peninsula, bypassing the main Japanese line. Ushijima refused to surrender and committed suicide on 22 June (General Buckner had been killed in action). Hundreds of Japanese soldiers followed their leader’s example rather than surrender and as XXIV Corps cleared out the last pockets of resistance, the bloodiest campaign in the Pacific finally came to an end on 2 July 1945. While Tenth Army had suffered 62,000 casualties (12,000 of them killed or missing), 95,000 Japanese troops on Okinawa died defending the island; only 7400 were captured. Civilian casualties have been estimated at anywhere between 50,000 and 150,000.
The Atomic Bomb
The Philippine and Okinawa campaigns ended at the beginning of July but thousands of Japanese soldiers were still holding out in the mountains and jungles. After the horrendous losses on Okinawa, the prospect of attacking mainland Japan was terrible and as the Soviet Army planned to intervene in the war against Japan, the United States’ new President, Harry S Truman, wanted a speedy conclusion to the war in the Pacific.
The US Navy proposed to force a Japanese surrender through a total naval blockade and air raids, and Japan’s inland and coastal waterways were mined by air under Operation Starvation. Strategic bombing also increased under the command of General Curtis LeMay and around half of the built-up areas of 64 cities were destroyed by fire bombing, drastically reducing Japanese industrial production. It is estimated that 100,000 people were killed in air raids over Tokyo on 9 and 10 March alone.
One possible solution was provided on 16 July. For some time the Allies had been striving to harness nuclear energy and the successful testing of an atomic weapon at Alamogordo, New Mexico, gave the American President the answer, albeit a terrifying one. The Potsdam Declaration of 26 July, calling for Japan’s immediate and unconditional surrender, was made with the knowledge that atomic weapons could be unleashed. The Japanese High Command refused, setting the scene for the dawning of a new age of warfare, the nuclear age.
Whether the decision to carry out the atomic bombings was the right one has long been debated. While some experts believed the bombing raids and naval blockade had undermined Japan’s ability to wage war, others argued that the use of the atomic bomb cancelled the need for what would have been a very costly invasion, both in military and civilian casualties.
On the morning of 6 August Enola Gay, a B-29 Superfortress piloted by Colonel Paul Tibbets, flew over the port of Hiroshima at the southern end of the Japanese mainland. It dropped a single bomb codenamed ‘Little Boy’ and as Tibbets turned his plane for home, the bomb exploded at 2000 feet. ‘A bright light filled the plane, we turned back to look at Hiroshima. The city was hidden by that awful cloud … boiling up, mushrooming.’
Thousands of men, women and children died in an instant when the atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima; thousands more would die over the years that followed.
The explosion burnt everything in its path while strong winds demolished virtually everything within a three-kilometre radius. Thousands were killed or seriously injured but worse was to come; radiation sickness affected many of the survivors and estimates put the death toll over the first twelve months at more than 140,000.
Three days later a second atomic bomb, codenamed ‘Fat Man’, was dropped on the nearby city of Nagasaki with the same devastating effects. One the same day, the one-million strong Soviet Army invaded Manchuria as agreed with President Roosevelt back in March.
While the Japanese Supreme War Council considered the Allies’ demands to surrender, some commanders were determined to die defending their homeland. On 10 August the Japanese Cabinet accepted the Potsdam terms and five days later Emperor Hirohito broadcast to the nation and to the world that his people would to ‘bear the unbearable’; Imperial Japan would surrender. 15 August would become known as ‘V-J Day’ (Victory in Japan) in English-speaking nations.
Allied warships sailed into Tokyo harbour on 28 August and on the morning of 2 September General Douglas MacArthur met the Japanese envoys on the deck of the USS Missouri; at four minutes past nine o’clock the war in the Pacific came to an end. MacArthur announced the news to the world: ‘Today the guns are silent. A great tragedy has ended. A great victory has been won.’