Dawn of Easter Sunday, 1 April 1945, disclosed an American fleet of 1,300 ships in the waters adjacent to Okinawa, poised for invasion. Most of them stood to the west in the East China Sea. The day was bright and cool—a little under 75°; a moderate east-northeast breeze rippled the calm sea; there was no surf on the Hagushi beaches. Visibility was 10 miles until 0600, when it lowered to from 5 to 7 miles in the smoke and haze. More favorable conditions for the assault could hardly be imagined.
The Japanese doubtless marveled at the immensity of the assemblage of ships, but they could not have been surprised at the invasion itself. The Kerama Islands had been seized; Okinawa had been heavily bombarded for days; and underwater demolition teams had reconnoitered both the Hagushi beaches and the beaches above Minatoga on the southeast coast, indicating that landings were to be expected at either place or both. Moreover, Japanese air and submarine reconnaissance had also spotted the convoys en route.{117}
The Japanese had been powerless to interfere with the approach to the Ryukyus. Bad weather, however, had caused not only seasickness among the troops but also concern over the possibility that a storm might delay the landings. It was necessary for some convoys to alter their courses to avoid a threatening typhoon. The rough seas caused delays and minor damage and resulted in other deflections from planned courses. Thus on the evening before L Day various task forces converging on Okinawa were uncertain of their own positions and those of other forces. All arrived on time, however, and without mishap.{118}
For the men, observing the outline of the strange island in the first rays of light before the beaches became shrouded in the smoke and dust of naval and air bombardment, this Easter Sunday was a day of crisis. From scale models of Okinawa studied on shipboard they had seen that the rising ground behind the landing beaches, and even more the island's hills and escarpments, were well suited for defense. They had read of the native houses, each protected by a high wall, and of the thousands of strange Okinawan tombs which might serve the enemy as pillboxes and dugouts. They had been encouraged by the weakness of Kerama Retto's defenses, but the generally held expectations of an all-out defense of the beaches on the first Japanese "home" island to be invaded was one to appall even the dullest imagination. And behind the beaches the men were prepared to meet deadly snakes, awesome diseases, and a presumably hostile civilian population.{119}
H Hour had been set for 0830. At 0406 Admiral Turner, Commander of Task Force 51, signaled, "Land the Landing Force."{120} At 0530, twenty minutes before dawn, the fire support force of 10 battleships, 9 cruisers, 23 destroyers, and 177 gunboats began the pre-H-Hour bombardment of the beaches. They fired 44,825 rounds of 5-inch or larger shells, 33,000 rockets, and 22,500 mortar shells. This was the heaviest concentration of naval gunfire ever to support a landing of troops. About seventy miles east of Okinawa, Task Force 58 was deployed to furnish air support and to intercept attacks from Kyushu. In addition, support carriers had arrived with troop convoys. At 0745 carrier planes struck the beaches and near-by trenches with napalm.{121}
Meanwhile LST's and LSM's, which had carried to the target both the men composing the first assault forces and the amphibian vehicles in which they were to ride, spread their yawning jaws and launched their small craft, loaded and ready for the shore. Amphibian tanks formed the first wave at the line of departure, 4,000 yards from the beach. Flagged on their way at 0800, they proceeded toward land at four knots. From five to seven waves of assault troops in amphibian tractors followed the tanks at short intervals.{122}
Opposite each landing beach, control craft, with pennants flying from the mast, formed the assault waves of amphibious vehicles in rotating circles. At 0815 the leading waves of amtracks uncoiled and formed a line near their mother control craft. Five minutes later the pennants were hauled down and an almost unbroken 8-mile line of landing craft moved toward the beaches.
Gunboats led the way in, firing rockets, mortars, and 40-mm. guns into prearranged target squares, on such a scale that all the landing area for 1,000 yards inland was blanketed with enough 5-inch shells, 4.5-inch rockets, and 4.2-inch mortars to average 25 rounds in each 100-yard square. Artillery fire from Keise added its weight. After approaching the reef, the gunboats turned aside and the amphibian tanks and tractors passed through them and proceeded unescorted, the tanks firing their 75-mm. howitzers at targets of opportunity directly ahead of them until landing. Simultaneously, two 64-plane groups of carrier planes saturated the landing beaches and the areas immediately behind with machine-gun fire while the fire from supporting ships shifted inland. When the assault wave moved in, the landing area had been under constant bombardment for three hours.{123}
As the small boats made their way steadily toward the shore the men kept expecting fire from the Japanese. But there was no sign of the enemy other than the dropping of an occasional mortar or artillery shell, and the long line of invasion craft advanced as though on a large-scale maneuver. The offshore obstacles had either been removed by the underwater demolition teams or were easily pushed over by the amphibian tractors. Some concern had been felt as to whether, despite the rising tide, the Navy landing boats would be able to cross the coral reef, and the first waves were to inspect the reef and send back information. The reef did not hinder the first waves, in amphibian vehicles, but those who followed in boats had difficulty and were therefore ordered to transfer at the edge of the reef and cross in LVT's.
Beginning at 0830, the first waves began to touch down on their assigned beaches. None was more than a few minutes late. The volume of supporting fire had increased until a minute or two before the first wave landed; then suddenly the heavy fire on the beach area ended and nothing was to be heard except the rumble of the shells that were shifted inland. Quickly the smoke and dust that had shrouded the landing area lifted, and it became possible for the troops to see the nature of the country directly before them. They were on a beach which was generally about twenty yards in depth and which was separated by a 10-foot sea wall from the country beyond. There were few shell holes on the beach itself, but naval gunfire had blown large holes in the sea wall at frequent intervals to provide adequate passageways.{124} Except at the cliff-bordered Bishi River mouth, in the center of the landing area, the ground rose gradually to an elevation of about fifty feet. There was only sparse natural vegetation, but from the sea wall to the top of the rise the coastal ground was well cultivated. In the background, along the horizon, hills showed through the screen of artillery smoke. Farther inland, in many places, towns and villages could be seen burning and the smoke rising above them in slender and twisted spires. These evidences of devastation, however, made less impression upon the men than did the generally peaceful and idyllic nature of the country, enhanced by the pleasant warmth, the unexpected quiet, and the absence of any sign of human life.
Map No. 8: Tenth Army Advance, 1-3 April 1945