Battle of Okinawa

Battle of Okinawa
Part of the Volcano and Ryukyu Islands campaign of the Pacific War (World War II)

1st Marine Regiment during fighting at Wana Ridge during the Battle of Okinawa, May 1945
Date1 April – 22 June 1945[1]
(2 months and 3 weeks)[2]
Location
Okinawa Island and Prefecture, Ryukyu Islands, Japan
26°30′N 128°00′E / 26.5°N 128°E / 26.5; 128
Result Allied victory
Belligerents
Ground forces:
United States
Naval forces:
United States
United Kingdom
Australia
 New Zealand
Canada		 Japan
Commanders and leaders
  • COMPACFLT:
  • Chester W. Nimitz
  • Tenth Army:
  • Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr. †
  • Roy Geiger
  • John R. Hodge
  • Fifth Fleet:
  • Raymond A. Spruance
  • Richmond K. Turner
  • Bernard Rawlings
  • Marc Mitscher
  • Western District Army:
  • Isamu Yokoyama
  • Combined Fleet:
  • Soemu Toyoda
  • Minoru Ōta †
  • 32nd Army:
  • Mitsuru Ushijima †
  • Isamu Chō †
  • Hiromichi Yahara (POW)
  • Special Attack Force:
  • Seiichi Itō †
Units involved

Ground units:
Tenth Army

  • III Amphibious Corps
    • 1st Marine Division
    • 2nd Marine Division
    • 6th Marine Division
  • XXIV Corps

Naval units:
Fifth Fleet

  • Task Force 50
    • Task Force 58
    • Task Force 57
  • Joint Exp. Force

Ground units:
32nd Army

  • 24th Infantry Division
  • 28th Infantry Division
  • 62nd Infantry Division
  • 44th Mixed Brigade
  • 45th Mixed Brigade
  • 59th Mixed Brigade
  • 60th Mixed Brigade
  • 27th Tank Regiment

Naval units:
Combined Fleet

  • 2nd Fleet
Strength

United States Navy

  • 7 fleet carriers,
  • 6 light carriers,
  • 18 escort carriers,
  • 8 fast battleships,
  • 10 old battleships,
  • 14 heavy cruisers,
  • 17 light cruisers,
  • 132 destroyers,
  • 45 destroyer escorts

Royal Navy

  • 5 fleet carriers
  • 6 escort carriers
  • 2 fast battleships
  • 4 light cruisers
  • 12 destroyers
  • 251 carrier based aircraft

Royal Australian Navy

Royal New Zealand Navy

  • 2 light cruisers

Royal Canadian Navy

  • 1 light cruiser

[3]

Ground forces

~541,000 in Tenth Army
~183,000 combat troops[4] rising to ~250,000[5]: 567 

Imperial Japanese Navy

[6][7]

Imperial Japanese Army Air Service

  • 850 kamikazes

[7]

Ground forces

  • ~76,000+ Japanese soldiers
  • ~40,000+ Okinawan conscripts and boeitai[8]
Casualties and losses

American personnel:
Battle casualties:
~50,000, including ~12,500 dead[9][10]
Army: 19,929[a]
Navy: 10,007 at Okinawa,[b] 1,294 on USS Franklin[c]
Marines: 19,460[d]
Non-battle casualties: 26,211 to 33,096 (all causes)[17]
British personnel:
Battle casualties:
119 killed
83 wounded
228 aircraft lost
4 fleet carriers damaged in kamikaze strikes [3]

Total casualties: ~76,000 to 84,000
Materiel:
375 tanks damaged, disabled, or destroyed[18]
13 destroyers sunk
15 amphibious ships sunk
8 other ships sunk
386 ships damaged
763 aircraft lost[5]: 573 [19]: 473 		 Japanese personnel:
Battle & non-battle casualties:
94,136 soldiers and sailors dead (all causes)[e]
4,037 dead from Yamato task force[21]
7,401 captured (by 30 June)[22][f]
Total casualties: ~105,000 to 110,000
Materiel:
1 battleship sunk
1 light cruiser sunk
5 destroyers sunk
9 other warships sunk
1,430 aircraft lost[23]
27 tanks destroyed
743–1,712 artillery pieces, anti-tank guns, mortars and anti-aircraft guns lost[19]: 91–92 
40,000–150,000 civilians dead[24][25][g]
Location within Japan
Battle of Okinawa (Pacific Ocean)

The Battle of Okinawa (Japanese: 沖縄戦, Hepburn: Okinawa-sen), codenamed Operation Iceberg,[27]: 17  was a major battle of the Pacific War fought on the island of Okinawa by the United States Army and United States Marine Corps forces against the Imperial Japanese Army.[28][29] The initial invasion of Okinawa on 1 April 1945 was the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific Theater of World War II.[30][31] The Kerama Islands surrounding Okinawa were preemptively captured on 26 March 1945 by the U.S. Army 77th Infantry Division. The 82-day battle on Okinawa lasted from 1 April 1945 until 22 June 1945. After a long campaign of island hopping, the Allies were planning to use Kadena Air Base on the island as a staging point for Operation Downfall, the planned invasion of the Japanese home islands, 340 mi (550 km) away.

The United States created the Tenth Army, a cross-branch force consisting of the U.S. Army 7th, 27th, 77th and 96th Infantry Divisions with the 1st, 2nd, and 6th Marine Divisions, to seize the island. The Tenth Army was unique because it had its own Tactical Air Force (joint Army-Marine command) and was supported by combined naval and amphibious forces. Opposing the Allied forces on the ground was the Japanese Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima's Thirty-Second Army, a mixed force consisting of regular army troops, naval infantry and conscripted local Okinawans. There were about 100,000 Japanese troops on Okinawa at the onset of the invasion. The battle was the longest sustained carrier campaign of the Second World War.[32]

The battle has been referred to as the "typhoon of steel" in English, known in Japanese as "tetsu no bōfū".[33][34] The nicknames refer to the ferocity of the fighting, the intensity of Japanese kamikaze attacks and the sheer numbers of Allied ships and armored vehicles that assaulted the island. The battle was the bloodiest and fiercest in the Pacific Ocean Theatre, with some 50,000 Allied and around 100,000 Japanese casualties,[35][19]: 473–474  also including local Okinawans conscripted into the Japanese Army.[24] According to local authorities, at least 149,425 Okinawan people were killed, died by coerced suicide or went missing.[36]

In the naval operations surrounding the battle, both sides lost considerable numbers of ships and aircraft, including the Japanese battleship Yamato. After the battle, Okinawa provided the victorious Allies with a fleet anchorage, troop staging areas, and airfields in close proximity to Japan as they planned to invade the Japanese home islands.

  1. ^ "Ryukus". US Army Center of Military History. Archived from the original on 19 September 2020. Retrieved 28 August 2020.
  2. ^ 26 March marked the first landing on the Kerama Islands around Okinawa in the Ryukus by the 77th Division.
  3. ^ a b "The Forgotten Fleet – Warfare History Network". warfarehistorynetwork.com. 2017. Retrieved 26 September 2024.
  4. ^ Sloan 2007, p. 18
  5. ^ a b Keegan, John (2005). The Second World War. Penguin. ISBN 978-0143195085.
  6. ^ "Okinawa naval order of battle". wikipedia. Retrieved 26 September 2024.
  7. ^ a b "Kamikazes and Okinawa Campaign". United States Naval Institute.org. May 1954. Retrieved 27 September 2024.
  8. ^ Hastings 2008, p. 370
  9. ^ "The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won" p. 302
  10. ^ "Okinawa: The Costs of Victory in the Last Battle". The National WWII Museum. 7 July 2022. Retrieved 23 June 2023.
  11. ^ Army Battle Casualties and Nonbattle Deaths in World War II. Final Report, 7 December 1941-31 December 1946 p. 95 Retrieved 2/1/2024
  12. ^ Tenth Army After Action Report, Ryukyus, vol. 1 9-IV-1. Retrieved 2/1/2024
  13. ^ History of the Medical Department in World War II, vol. III Appendix Table 14, see "Bombing and Landing on Okinawa." Retrieved 2/1/2024
  14. ^ Springer, "Inferno: The Epic Life and Death Struggle of the USS Franklin in World War II p. 317. Retrieved 2/1/2024
  15. ^ Frank, "Downfall" p. 402
  16. ^ Frank and Shaw, "History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II, Appendix M. Retrieved 2/1/2024
  17. ^ Frank 1999, p. 71.
  18. ^ "Survey of Allied tank casualties in World War II" Archived 17 July 2019 at the Wayback Machine, Technical Memorandum ORO-T-117, Department of the Army, Washington D.C.,Table 1.
  19. ^ a b c This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Appleman, Roy; Burns, James; Gugeler, Russel; Stevens, John (1948). Okinawa: The Last Battle. United States Army Center of Military History. ISBN 1410222063. Archived from the original on 8 November 2010. Retrieved 14 June 2010. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
  20. ^ Hirofumi Hayashi, "Okinawa-sen to minshu" (Japanese). p. 5. Retrieved 2/1/2024
  21. ^ Abe 1995, Tokko Yamato Kantai.
  22. ^ Appleman p. 489
  23. ^ Giangreco, D. (2009). Hell to Pay Operation Downfall and the Invasion of Japan, 1945–47. Naval Institute Press. p. 91. ISBN 978-1591143161.
  24. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference mcg was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  25. ^ "11: Battle of Okinawa". Nisei.hawaii.edu. 1 April 1945. Archived from the original on 2 September 2016. Retrieved 19 July 2022.
  26. ^ Kyle Ikeda, "Unspoken Memory and Vicarious Trauma" p. 12 Retrieved 2/1/2024
  27. ^ This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Nichols, Charles; Shaw, Henry (1955). Okinawa: Victory in the Pacific (PDF). Government Printing Office. ASIN B00071UAT8. Archived (PDF) from the original on 24 March 2021. Retrieved 18 January 2021.
  28. ^ Feifer 2001 pp. xi, 99–106
  29. ^ "Okinawa: The Costs of Victory in the Last Battle". The National WWII Museum | New Orleans. 7 July 2022. Retrieved 21 February 2024.
  30. ^ "The United States Navy assembled an unprecedented armada in March and April 1945". Militaryhistoryonline.com. Archived from the original on 16 December 2018. Retrieved 6 May 2012.
  31. ^ "The American invasion of Okinawa was the largest amphibious invasion of all time". Historynet.com. Archived from the original on 28 March 2008. Retrieved 6 May 2012.
  32. ^ Wheelan, Joseph (2020). Bloody Okinawa: The Last Great Battle of World War II (1st ed.). New York: Hachette Books. p. 343. ISBN 978-0-306-90320-5.
  33. ^ "Okinawa: The Typhoon of Steel". American Veterans Center. 1 April 1945. Archived from the original on 3 May 2012. Retrieved 12 October 2013.
  34. ^ At 60th anniversary, Battle of Okinawa survivors recall 'Typhoon of Steel' – News – Stripes Archived 5 April 2020 at the Wayback Machine, Allen, David; Stars and Stripes; 1 April 2005.
  35. ^ Huber, Thomas (May 1990). "Japan's battle of Okinawa, April–June 1945". Combined Arms Research Library. Archived from the original on 16 October 2004.
  36. ^ Cite error: The named reference Prefecture was invoked but never defined (see the help page).


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