Robert Leckie - Okinawa

Shirigaku

shoguns

Shuri

Shuri Castle

Shuri Heights

Shuri Ridge

Singapore

Skyline Ridge

slow assault tactics

Smith, Aubrey

Smith, Howland M. “Howlin’ Mad”

Smith, Ralph

Soballe, Victor

Solch, Joseph

Solomon Islands

Soviet Union

Spruance, Raymond

Stalin, Joseph

Stare, Edward

Sterner, Cyril

Stormes

Strawberry Hill

Sturgeon

Sugahara, Michio

Sugar Loaf Hill

suicide bombers, see kamikaze

Sumatra

Superfortresses (B-29 bombers)

supplies

Suribachi, Mount

Sutten, Stanley

Suzuki, Kantaro

Swallow

Taiwan (Formosa)

Takeda, Fujio

Taluga

Tanabaru

Tarawa

Task Force Fifty-eight (TF 58), I n

Franklin

Task Force Thirty-eight (TF 38), In

Taylor, Joe

Ten-Go (Heavenly Operation)

Tennessee

Thailand

Thought Police

Tojo, Hideki

Tokyo

Tokyo Plain

Tombstone Ridge

Tooker, Adin

Toyama Maru

Toyoda, Soemu

Truman, Harry S.

Turner, Richmond Kelly

Udo, Kensuke

Udo, Takehiko

Ugaki, Matome

Uhlmann

“Umi Yukaba,”

Urasoe-Mura Escarpment

Ushijima, Mitsuru

American victory and

character of

Conical Hill and

exaggerated battle reports of

farewell dinner of

last stand of

Ushijima, Mitsuru ( cont. )

and material vs. spiritual power

Minatoga Beaches and

Naha-Shuri-Yonabaru Line and

at Shuri Castle

suicide of

surrender appeal made to

U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey

Vandegrift, Alexander

Van Schuyler, Philip

Vincennes

Vogt, John

Wada, Kosuke

Wake

Wallace, Clarence

Wana Draw

Wana Ridge

Wart Hill

Washington Star

Wasp

Watson, Thomas

Westmoreland, William

World War I

Wray, George

Xavier, Francis

Yaeju-Yuza Peaks

Yaetake, Mount

Yahagi

Yahara, Hiromichi

Yamamoto, Isoroku

Yamato

Yamato clan

Yokoi, Toshiyuki

Yonabaru

Yonabaru Airfield

Yontan Airfield

Yoshida, Masaru

Yoshida, Mitsuru

zaibatsu

Zampa Cape

Robert Leckie was the author of more than thirty books, most of them on military history, which include Helmet for My Pillow, a personal narrative of World War II. He joined the U.S. Marine Corps the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor and served nearly three years in the Pacific as a machine gunner and scout of the First Marine Division, and was wounded and decorated.

Published by the Penguin Group

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First published in the United States of America by Viking Penguin,

a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 1995

Published in Penguin Books 1996, 2010

Copyright © Robert Leckie, 1995 All rights reserved

All photograph: AP/Wide World Photos

eISBN : 978-1-10119629-8

1. World War, 1939-1945—Campaigns—Japan—Okinawa Island.

2. Okinawa Island (Japan)—History. I. Title.

D767.99.O45L43 1995

940.54’25—dc20 94-39145

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When Spruance commanded this enormous concentration of naval striking power, it was called “Task Force Fifty-eight”; when Bull Halsey’s flag was flown it was “Task Force Thirty-eight.”

Because there is no hard-and-fast rule for translating Japanese geographical terms— shoto , meaning various islands or group of islands; gunto or retto, a group of islands; shima or jima, an island; or ie, an islet—this narrative will use the general English words for the same.

Japanese warplanes were divided into feminine names for bombers and masculine ones for fighters.

This means “regiment,” not division. In American military parlance a regiment formed by three battalions is known by its “arm.” Thus the First Regiment of the First Marine Division is called “First Marines,” or the Seventh Regiment of the First Cavalry Division “Seventh Cavalry.” Too often historians with no military experience mistake these designations to mean division, a much larger formation that—whether infantry, cavalry, or Marine—is usually formed by three “line” regiments and an artillery regiment with other special troops.

This comment in no way is intended to demean these gallant GIs—or anyone who has looked upon the horrid Medusa face of battle—but appears only because it might be asked why other nicknames are mentioned but not the Ninety-sixth’s.

This incident, reported by George McMillan in The Old Breed, his history of the First Marine Division in World War II, does not ring true. Marines are trained to keep their weapons on safety lock even during an invasion, and not to unlock them until a firefight is about to erupt or until receipt of enemy fire. “Let one go” is also untypical. “Got his gun off” is the proper slang. I can remember a corporal I learned to despise from Guadalcanal onward running toward the beach at Peleliu with terror on his face and holding his right hand aloft with the trigger finger missing and spouting carmine. My only comfort watching him sprint for the safety of the Battalion Aid Station on the beach was that his missing member would always remind him of his cowardice. So I doubt this episode—from the pen of a headquarters sergeant—and mention it only to show how absolutely unopposed the Okinawa invasion actually was at its beginning.

Here is perhaps the most moving of all the phenomena of the war: the self-sacrifice of noble and brave young American fighting men who smothered enemy grenades with their bodies to save their buddies. Yet, discussing this once with a group of teachers, I had just begun to quote Jesus Christ’s dictum “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends,” when one of them angrily interrupted me. “Nonsense!” he cried in scorn. “Who would do such a crazy thing?” Glaring at me, he asked with heavy sarcasm, “Would you?” I replied, “I might. But never to save someone like you.”