FOR a week before the landings on Okinawa Allied planes and ships bombarded the island in the hope of reducing Japanese defenses. Imperial Headquarters had expected just such an approach and was ready for it. General Ushijima’s one hundred thousand troops were so skillfully concealed on the island that the Americans drastically underestimated their numbers. They thought there were only sixty thousand troops on the island.
They also misunderstood Ushijima’s tactics. He had virtually abandoned the airfields and the Hagushi beaches where the Americans would land. He concentrated his forces south and east of Naha, the capital city on the Motobu Peninsula. They remained quietly in their fortified positions as the shells and bombs whistled down, to land mostly in the wrong places.
The Kamikazes
Imperial Headquarters’ plan called for the troops to lie doggo for a week. Then, when the Americans had relaxed their vigilance, Japan’s forces would rise up and smite them, on the sea, in the air, and on the land.
This plan was Ten Ichi Go. In Japanese it meant: Holy War, Part One.
The army on Okinawa was to open the counterattack. The air force was to open its Kikusui (Floating Chrysanthemum) mass air attack on the Allied vessels. The surface navy was to expend its last strength to destroy the transports off the beaches of Okinawa. The submarine force was to send its strength to Okinawa.
The Holy War orders meant much more than that. The submarine service, for example, was given a plan for production of special weapons, and the order came down from Imperial Headquarters that all operations of all services were to be cooperative, which meant that they were to be interlocking.
As the minister of the navy noted in his correspondence, the entire military resources of Japan were now to be mobilized in the defense of the nation, meaning all the men, women and children of Japan.
Schoolboys and schoolgirls were organized into companies and were trained for battle on the beaches with spears and sticks. These, Imperial Headquarters promised, would be replaced with guns and grenades at the proper moment.
The policy emerged out of dire necessity, since the February raids on Kyushu had wiped out the ability of Admiral Ugaki to retaliate in great strength. On April 1, when the American landings began, Admiral Toyoda had issued a special appeal to Admiral Ugaki to retaliate. Ugaki replied that he did not have the resources and that it would be nearly a week before he could bring them together.
To meet the need Admiral Toyoda shifted the Third Air Fleet to Ugaki’s operational base at Kanoya on Kyushu. This gave the admiral the planes he needed. The catch was that the pilots of the Third Air Fleet were for the most part still in training. It would take most of the week to get them ready for any operations.
Operation Ten Go
* * *
THE American landing was ridiculously easy. The first hours on Iwo Jima had been so desperate that there had been talk of abandoning the invasion. Now, on Okinawa, the Japanese had completely reversed their tactics. The marines landed at 8:30 A.M. By 10:00 A.M. they had reached the edge of Yontan airfield without suffering a single casualty. Half an hour later other troops reached the edge of Kadena airfield. By noon both fields were in Allied hands.
There were no Japanese planes in the sky, no submarines, no troops to be seen. In the northern sector of the island the marines managed to find fifteen Japanese soldiers to shoot at. They also found more than six hundred Okinawan civilians, who had to be brought in and interned in stockades. By mid-afternoon fifty thousand American troops were ashore, and the ships were beginning to unload, more or less relaxed because the job seemed so easy.
Then they were reminded that there was still a war on. Some Kamikazes began coming in.
The Sixth Air Army, with Herculean effort, managed to get twenty-three planes together on Kyushu for Special Attack. Early on the morning of April 1 five planes took off from the Shiromi army field and headed purposefully for Okinawa. The flight leader was Captain Itsue Kobase. They had not gone far when all the planes but the captain’s turned back with “engine trouble.” The trouble may have been imaginary, but it is equally likely that it was real; the planes represented the dregs, the hand-me-downs from the training command.
Captain Kobase carried out his attack and apparently hit LST 884 off the south coast of Okinawa. The plane exploded and damaged the LST severely, but did not sink her.
Those other planes of Kobase’s unit were repaired and in the afternoon Warrant Officer Kanakene, Lieutenant Osatoko Ohashi and Sergeant Tomiku Fujisato took off a second time from Shiromi field. They were joined by a plane from the Sixty-fifth Squadron.
The planes separated as they neared Okinawa, but seemed to
The Kamikazes
get through the Combat Air Patrol. The day had been quiet and vigilance among the Americans was lax. The Kamikazes came in at dusk to attack.
One of the planes crashed into the battleship West Virginia , causing about thirty casualties but not severely damaging the ship. Another smashed into the transport Hinsdale and put her out of action. She had to be towed to Kerama Retto. A third Kamikaze hit the transport Alpine and blew a large hole in her side. The fourth Kamikaze hit the transport Achernar. The damage to the transports was severe but they were able to discharge their cargo and then return to Kerama Retto.
The British naval contingent was operating in the southern islands of the Nansei Shoto, largely because the Americans had put them out in left field. But left field had already turned out to be just as dangerous a place as Okinawa. The Japanese had several airfields down there, and Kamikazes from those fields and from Kyushu came after the British carriers.
On the morning of April 1 one formation of Japanese planes approached the British force. Four Japanese planes were shot down by British fighters, but the others came in. One fighter strafed the deck of the carrier Indomitable , causing several casualties, then zoomed off to strafe the battleship King George V , but did no damage.
Then a Kamikaze crashed into the deck of the carrier Indefatigable. If the pilot lived, he must have been surprised; the deck of the British carrier was made of steel, and the damage was limited to injuries to personnel.
The destroyer Ulster was also damaged and towed to Leyte. The carrier Illustrious took a Kamikaze but the damage was limited and it slipped off into the sea.
The next four days of April were much the same. On land the Americans pushed forward briskly. On the sea they fought the Kamikazes, but not in great number. Again these were army planes, most of them from the Sixth Air Army. On April 2 one suicide plane hit the destroyer transport Dickerson , killing fifty-three men
Operation Ten Go
and wounding fifteen. The ship was towed back to Kerama Retto and was so badly damaged that she was later taken out to sea and scuttled.
That day the Seventy-seventh Division moved out of Kerama Retto, its job done, and was held in reserve in the event it was needed on Okinawa or for some other nearby operation.
Many of the troops were aboard the transport Goodhue , the leading ship on the right column of the convoy. Suddenly a Kamikaze hit the transport. The plane fell on the afterdeck and spread darning gasoline all over the ship.
The next ship hit was the transport Chilton , which was leading the center column of the convoy. The Japanese plane came in fast, chased by an American Hellcat fighter. The pilot missed his crash, tumbled over the side and exploded in the water, sending up debris. Shock spread over the ship. One of the pilot’s legs and a machine gun from the plane flopped on the forward deck.
Two minutes later another Kamikaze crashed into the transport Henrico , the lead ship in the left column. The plane was carrying two bombs, both of which exploded. The fuselage itself banged into the captain’s cabin.
The casualties were many and serious. The captain of the ship was killed as was the commanding officer of the 305th Infantry Regiment. His executive officer and several other staff officers also perished, and many men were wounded. Virtually all the regimental records were lost. It would take the 305th a while to recover from this suicidal blow.
Other ships hit that day were the Telfair and the Wyandotte.
That is the way it went that bloody day. Even a near miss usually killed and wounded men, as with the Telfair. The Kamikaze could only rake the bow of the ship with its wing, but one man was killed and four were wounded when the plane exploded on the water just off the bow. This sort of damage was so common that often it was buried in the records.
One fact was certain: the Kamikaze attack was terrifying, almost paralyzing. The fact that it did not paralyze the troops and the
The Kamikazes
seamen, as Admiral Onishi had so fervently hoped, was due almost entirely to the spirit and training of these young Americans. Even at this stage of the war, they were underrated by the Japanese high command.
|
The Kamikaze attacks, |
even of limited volume, |
were damaging |
||
|
to this |
effect: |
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|
Date |
Ship |
Killed |
Wounded |
Damage |
|
April 2 |
Dickerson |
53 |
15 |
Total loss |
|
Goodhue |
24 |
114 |
Moderate |
|
|
Telfair |
1 |
16 |
Slight |
|
|
Henrico |
49 |
0 |
Out of war |
|
|
April 3 |
LST-599 |
0 |
21 |
Serious |
|
Prichett |
0 |
0 |
Moderate |
|
|
Wake Island |
0 |
0 |
Serious |
|
|
April 4 |
Weathered in |
|||
|
April 5 |
Weathered in |
The first five days of April were the lull before a storm the like of which the Americans had never before seen.
The morning of Friday, April 6, dawned cloudy-bright, the sun peeking in and out of the thinning overcast above Kyushu, with a forecast of clearing weather. It was just what Admiral Ugaki wanted. He had assembled a new fleet of aircraft and he had an entirely new kind of suicide operation in mind.
Admiral Onishi’s original policy concentrated on employing small units of Kamikazes, which might avoid detection and get in against the enemy before they were noticed. But Admiral Ugaki had not had much luck with that policy. Now he invented the wave technique. He would send hundreds of Kamikazes against the Americans in waves, accompanied by hundreds of fighters whose job was to divert the Allied fighters.
The suicide units were now officialy named Kikusui , Floating Chrysanthemum.
Operation Ten Go
ON April 6 the Kamikaze pilots were as ready as could be expected for men who basically needed another year of training. Today Operation Ten Go could begin.
Admiral Ugaki began the day early, armed with a sighting report. Search planes had placed two carrier groups plus many other ships off the south side of Okinawa. The first mission was dispatched before daylight.
What happened to that group of suicide planes the admiral never discovered. From monitoring the enemy radio he gathered that three of the six carriers in the two groups were damaged. But the enemy radio traffic was guarded and did not give a clear picture.
No planes returned to tell the story. The weather had not lived up to the meteorologists’ predictions. A whole flight of eager young men had died for the most part needlessly. Admiral Ugaki was very depressed and expressed feelings of futility in his diary.
It was not an auspicious start for Operation Ten Go.
On the other hand, at noon things picked up for the Japanese. Admiral Ugaki stood on the airfield and watched as the first wave of twenty-seven fighters passed overhead. These were decoys, to draw the American fighters away from the Kamikaze force.
Then came waves two, three and four, each consisting of twenty- seven planes, bound for Okinawa. Their mission was to secure air superiority so that the Kamikaze pilots could do their job and reap their glory. The army also sent out fourteen fighters to assist in the task.
The forces were split so that they would approach Okinawa from east and south and create a pincers movement to cut up the American fighters. Army scout planes flying ahead reported on enemy dispositions.
Admiral Ugaki was counting on the relaxation of enemy vigilance to help his mission succeed. At 4:30 P.M., Admiral Toyoda flew in from Tokyo to show his interest and lend his prestige to the operation. The admiral’s pennant was raised high on the flagpole and for an hour Ugaki’s base was the command post of the Combined Fleet.
The Kamikazes
Giving the fighters sufficient time to get well ahead, the navy attack unit of 110 Kamikazes set out for Okinawa, taking a detour so they would not arrive too soon. They would approach the south area. Meanwhile, the Sixth Air Army dispatched ninety planes and the Eighth Air Army on Taiwan also sent one squadron.
All morning long the lookouts aboard the American ships had seen nothing, and the radar screens had remained dark and blank. It looked like just another day in what seemed to be lethargic Japanese defense of Okinawa. The word was going around that the Japanese were all washed up.
In the sky the Combat Air Patrol planes were chasing enemy fighters across the island, over Ie Shima and far out to sea. Every time a plane splashed the men on the ships cheered. Usually the splashes were Japanese.
The first ships to feel the Kamikaze sting this afternoon were the destroyers Bush and Colhoun. They were “sitting ducks” placed on picket duty outside the perimeter; their duty was to spot the enemy planes coming in and warn the fleet. It was lonely and dangerous work, as everyone had known from the moment that assignments were made. But radar could not do it all; the Japanese were expert at flying “down on the deck”; the radar waves were confused by the waves of the sea.
The pickets had been recognized by the Japanese for what they were, and the scout planes and cover planes bombed and strafed them as they came by. This had been going on since 2:00 A.M. But at 3:00 P.M., a wave of Admiral Ugaki’s Kamikazes came along and spotted the picket destroyers. A dozen Kamikazes peeled off and began attacking the Bush, while another dozen went after the Colhoun.
The Bush shot down two Kamikazes but a third bored in despite heavy anti-aircraft fire and crashed into the ship between the stacks. It plunged into the forward engine room and killed every man there. The ship was dead in the water.
Combat Air Patrol planes soon appeared to drive away the Kamikazes and shot down several, but they were low on fuel after
Operation Ten Go
chasing Japanese fighters all afternoon, and had to turn back to their carriers. So the Japanese got more shots at the picket destroyers.
The Colhoun was next to take a Kamikaze. The plane came jinking in and struck the deck, then plunged into the bowels where its bomb exploded. Some heroic work by the engine-room gang kept the ship going, but then three more Kamikazes came in. The gunners of the destroyers shot down two. The third struck the Colhoun so hard it blew a hole out of the bottom of the ship, fractured the keel and stopped the ship dead in the water.
Another bomber came in, hit the ship a glancing blow and caromed into the water. The explosion of the bomb underwater knocked a hole, in the ship’s side and washed every man off the fantail of the destroyer.
Then came another Kamikaze to hit the Bush , and struck her so hard that one member of the crew reported that only the keel was holding her together. She took still another Kamikaze, and the ammunition began to explode.
Just as darkness was settling in the Colhoun was smashed by another suicide plane. This was the coup de grace. Soon the ship was abandoned and sunk by American fire.
The Bush , which had withstood so much, was suddenly slammed at about dark by a heavy swell. That pressure was enough to break her back; bow and stern parted company and both sank. LCS-84 , also hit by a Kamikaze that afternoon, went to work to rescue survivors in the water.
The Kamikazes had done a job on two American destroyers. The effort against the results:
The Bush was attacked by about twenty planes. Her crews shot down three and the ship was hit by three Kamikazes. Her casualties were 94 men killed of a crew of 333. Virtually all the others were hurt or wounded when the ship sank.
The Colhoun shot down four Kamikazes and was hit by four. She had to be abandoned and sunk, so her casualties were lighter: thirty-five men killed and twenty-one men wounded.
The Kamikazes
To achieve this the Japanese had expended fourteen aircraft and fourteen men. Obviously the price to Japan was cheap for the results obtained.
FAR from the scene of the ordeal of the picket destroyers lay the main U.S. invasion fleet. As the sky began to lose its sunny lustre late that afternoon the shadows on deck darkened.
Just after 5:00 P.M. many little blips began to appear on the radar screens. Something different was happening, something quite unlike the relative quiet of the past five days. Admiral Ugaki’s Kamikazes were arriving on station.
In a few minutes the American ships began to come under attack. A unit of minesweepers had been assigned that day to work the area between Iheya Retto, a small group of islands, and the Okinawa coast. Coming in from the east, at 3:15 P.M., part of Admiral Ugaki’s pincers passed directly over the minesweepers. The sky was suddenly full of aircraft with the red ball of the rising sun adorning their wingtips.
The destroyer minesweeper Rodman , working a channel area, was attacked and hit by three Kamikazes. She survived. But the destroyer minesweeper Emmons . . .
When the Rodman was first hit, the Emmons came alongside to assist her. She began circling the other vessel and her gunners shot down six Kamikazes. A group of American fighters then showed up, and in half an hour the men of the Emmons counted twenty splashing Kamikazes. But soon there were more.
Nine of them came tearing down toward the Emmons , which was speeding along at twenty-five knots. Four misjudged and splashed nearby, but five were on target and struck the Emmons , one after the other. The devastation was terrible.
The first hit came on the ship’s fantail. The plane struck and exploded, carrying away the ship’s sweep gear. Almost immediately the second plane struck on the starboard side of the pilot house. The captain of the ship, Lieutenant Commander Eugene Foss II, was blown over the side.
Operation Ten Go
The third Kamikaze came into the port side and hit the vessel where the combat information center was located. Inside the center were five officers and ten men who were directing the ship’s fire. Four of the officers and the ten men were killed. The fifth officer was Lieutenant John J. Griffin, Jr., a reservist who was gunnery officer of the ship. He came wandering out, still not quite sure how he had survived.
Griffin heard someone shouting: “Abandon ship!”
He looked around. Things did not seem that bad. Obviously some seaman had panicked after seeing the captain blown over the side. Some men went over, but six officers and fifty-seven men remained aboard to try to save the ship.
The fourth Kamikaze struck the starboard side of the vessel, at the No. 3 five-inch gun, and blew a hole below the waterline. The fifth probably did the most structural damage of all; it came in low and struck at the waterline on the starboard bow.
By this time fires were raging throughout the ship. The entire bridge was destroyed and the ready ammunition on deck was beginning to explode. The captain was overboard. The executive officer was dead. The first lieutenant was wounded. Lieutenant Griffin, now the senior officer present, took charge.
He tried to organize damage-control parties. The fire lines were spread out on deck, but all of them were holed by machine-gun fire, shrapnel and pieces of bursting airplane. The mains were damaged and fires raged. Had it not been for the sprinkler systems in the ammunition rooms, the ship would have blown sky high. All that could be done was get the wounded out, and man the guns as long as possible.
The air was still full of Kamikazes. One of them came in strafing, his bullets lacing the deck from bow to stern. An ensign named Elliott saw him coming and threw himself in front of five enlisted men. His body was stitched, but the enlisted men survived.
The gunners shot down another plane, but they were fighting a losing battle against the fires and at 7:30 P.M. Griffin heard a violent explosion from the ammunition-handling room. He knew that the ship was about to go, and ordered her abandoned.
The Kamikazes
As the men began plunging into the water, or finding places of refuge and waiting for other vessels to approach, the pyrotechnics continued. It was dark now and the exploding ammunition lighted up the sky.
The PGM-11 , a mine-disposal vessel, stood alongside and took off some of the men in spite of the explosions. Lieutenant Griffin boarded LCS(L)(3)33 and was saved.
The ordeal had lasted for five hours. Later that vessel picked up a Japanese suicide pilot who had survived a crash in the water. He was not popular aboard and the crew kept him quiet with a dogging wrench.
AT 4:30 P.M. the destroyers Leutze and Newcomb were battening down for night screen work to protect the fire-support warships off the Okinawa coast. Suddenly the lookouts began to shout. There was nothing on the radar screen, but coming in fast, and very low, in the manner developed by Admiral Onishi, were a dozen enemy planes.
There were seven destroyers in that screen and most of them began to shoot. Hot white tracers from 20mm guns and red fireballs from 40mm guns laced the air, and the larger puffs of smoke from the five-inch—shell explosions darkened the sky.
The first Kamikaze got inside and crashed the deck of the Newcomb, smashing her afterstack. The next plane was knocked down by gunfire, but the third again hit the Newcomb , this time boring down into the bowels of the ship and exploding with a force that knocked out the Newcomb's power and blew the engine room to pieces.
The fourth Kamikaze came in and crashed into the forward stack. The splashing gasoline caught fire. Flames raced high above the ship and the smoke so completely concealed her from the vessels around that it was thought the Newcomb had sunk.
The destroyer Leutze swung alongside to help her sister ship. The crew were trying to put out the raging fires on the Newcomb
273 Operation Ten Go
when another Kamikaze came in and hit the Leutze on the stern.
Many compartments were flooded and the ship began to settle by the stern. The after ammunition room was in danger of blowing up. The rudder was jammed. The captain, Lieutenant Leon Gra- bowsky, pulled her away from the Newcomb and went to work to save his own ship.
The two ships struggled in the water as the fight went on.
Meanwhile, not far away, the minesweeper Defense shot down one Kamikaze and then was struck by two more, but luckily they were glancing blows and she did not sink. Indeed, she was able to come to the aid of the Leutze , and helped tow her back to Kerama Retto.
The fleet tug Tekesta came out and also helped tow the Newcomb into Kerama Retto.
Down south, the British experienced some Kamikaze activity too, although the Japanese attacks there were not nearly so extensive as those at Okinawa. One Kamikaze grazed the deck of the Ilustrious. All the others were shot down.
THE ships of the U.S. fleet congregated in groups around Okinawa, depending on their function. The area outside the island but inside the picket-destroyer circle was occupied by the anti-submarine screen. The Japanese now found these ships too.
The destroyer escort Witter was the first ship to come under attack. At 4:12 P.M. a Kamikaze crashed into her. Then came a respite of two hours before another Kamikaze smashed against the destroyer Morris. Large fires started below decks and there was some danger that the ship would go down, until other destroyers closed in and helped put out the fires with their hoses.
Japanese planes seemed to be everywhere. In the transport area, the destroyer Howorth dodged two Kamikazes and shot them down. Then she was attacked by eight suicide planes. Three were shot down, one grazed a wing against the deck and splashed nearby, and the fifth was shot down at a comfortable distance. The sixth
The Kamikazes
hit the ship and did serious damage. Even so, the ship was still operating and on the way to Kerama Retto for repairs, when her gunners shot down still another Kamikaze coming in over the stern.
The destroyer Hyman was on her way out of the main fleet area to take up a picket post off Ie Shima when she was jumped by Kamikazes. Her gunners shot down three planes. The fourth hit on the torpedo tubes and the bomb set off the torpedoes. The explosion was enormous, but the ship could still move, and she started back for Kerama Retto.
Off the east coast the destroyer Mullaney was hit hard, began to burn and the skipper abandoned ship. Along came help from several ships. The fires were put out and the captain rejoined his ship and took her back to Kerama Retto.
The Kamikazes were literally buzzing like bees around the entire area and arrived at Kerama Retto that afternoon. At 4:30 P.M., LST-47 was coming out of the harbor when her crew spotted two airplanes low on the water, heading in toward the haven. They opened fire. One was hit and began to smoke, then changed direction and headed for the LST. The pilot crashed the plane into the LST two feet above the waterline. The bomb exploded inside and gutted the ship. She was abandoned and burned for twenty- four hours more, then sank.
Kamikazes came into the harbor and hit the Victory ships Logan V and Hobbs V, which had been converted to ammunition ships. The crews abandoned in a hurry, but the ships floated around the harbor for a whole day. No one dared come near. They burned and their ammunition went off in crackling bursts. Finally they were sunk by naval gunfire.
It was well past dark when the long day of battle finally came to an end. It had been exhausting for both sides. The Americans estimated they had shot down 486 planes. The Japanese escorts who returned reported counting 150 smoke plumes, which Admiral Ugaki immediately translated into burning ships.
So the day ended, but not the battle. It had just begun.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX