On 6 April the strong enemy positions on Cactus Ridge continued to hold up the Corps' west flank. An air strike early in the morning put bombs squarely on the ridge, but the assaulting troops of the 96th Division found enemy fire as intense as ever. The 2d Battalion, 383d Infantry, made frontal assaults through intense mortar fire to gain the ridge. "We figured," S/Sgt. Francis M. Rall later wrote, "that the way to get out of that knee mortar fire was to get to where it was coming from. So we stood up in waves, firing everything we had and throwing hand grenades by the dozen, and charged the Jap position."{193} By such tactics the 2d Battalion gained the western half of Cactus. On the next day, 7 April, more American "banzai charges" won the rest of the ridge.
The capture of Cactus Ridge brought the 383d Infantry up against the formidable Japanese positions in the Kakazu area. On 7 and 8 April the regiment pushed down toward Kakazu Ridge, supported by planes, light and medium artillery, and naval gunfire from the battleship New York. Col. E. T. May, commanding the 383d, at this time had no conception of the enemy's strength on Kakazu. Small-scale attacks along the approaches to Kakazu by the 1st Battalion on 7 and 8 April failed with heavy losses. Spigot mortar fire was met on the 8th for the first time. The 320-mm. shells had little fragmentation effect but a terrific concussion and dug craters fifteen feet across and eight feet deep. The spigot mortar shells were dubbed "flying box cars" by the American troops, who claimed that they were able to see the huge missiles in time to run to safety.
From 6 to 8 April the 382d Infantry advanced slowly east of the Ginowan road. The enemy fought stubbornly from hilly ground north and west of Kaniku and delivered heavy fire from his strong positions on Tombstone Ridge, just south of Kaniku, and from Nishibaru Ridge, southwest of Tombstone. Quantities of rifle, machine-gun, mortar, and artillery fire were poured on the troops as they moved south. Savage hand-to-hand encounters marked the slow progress of the regiment, which suffered numerous casualties. By night of 8 April the regiment was strung out on a wide front just north of Kaniku and Tombstone Ridge. Heavy fire from the front, from the Kakazu area on the right (west), and from its exposed left (east) flank, where the 184th was slowed by strong opposition, had brought the 382d virtually to a dead stop.
After the fall of the Pinnacle, the 184th Infantry continued to move southward over broken eroded ground on its right (west) and rocky finger ridges on the left. On the flatlands along the coast the 32d Infantry advanced with little difficulty, keeping contact with the 184th. Only when forward elements of the 32d tried to push out ahead of the 184th in force did its assault units encounter aggressive Japanese opposition, in the form of heavy fire from the heights on the right. Thus the rate of advance of the 184th governed that of the XXIV Corps' left. By 7 April it was clear to the 7th Division commander, studying the ground ahead from his observation post on the Pinnacle, that the 184th was now meeting the main Japanese defenses.
The fighting in the 7th Division's sector on 7 April centered on a low, bare hill 1,000 yards west of the town of Minami-Uebaru, called Red Hill because of its color. The enemy had made a fortress of the hill by constructing his usual system of caves and connecting trenches. A frontal assault on Red Hill by troops of the 3d Battalion, 184th Infantry, failed in the face of machine-gun and mortar fire. In a second attempt, three platoons of tanks supported the attack. Ten medium and five light tanks advanced through a cut toward Red Hill; two tanks were blown up by mines and one was satchel-charged as the column moved toward the hill and up the sides. Intense enemy artillery and machine-gun fire drove the infantry back and disabled more tanks. Japanese swarmed in among the armor and tried to destroy the tanks with satchel charges and flaming rags. Two medium tanks held off the attackers, the defending crews resorting to hand grenades, while the rest of the operative tanks withdrew.{194}
The 14th Independent Infantry Battalion headquarters proudly described this action as a perfect example of how to separate troops from tanks and thus break up the American infantry-tank team. The enemy dispatch stated: "The above method of isolating the troops from the tanks with surprise fire followed by close combat tactics is an example in the complete destruction of enemy tanks and will be a great factor in deciding the victories of tank warfare."{195}
After these two reversals the 3d Battalion, 184th, made a wide enveloping maneuver to the right. Behind fire from artillery and supporting weapons, the troops drove toward Red Hill from the west and occupied it, suffering only two casualties in the move. Once more a Japanese outpost had shown its strength against a frontal attack and its vulnerability to a flanking maneuver. The capture of Red Hill left another sector of enemy territory open for the taking. The troops advanced 100 yards south before digging in. A platoon of tanks conducted a remarkable 4,000-yard foray almost to Hill 178 and withdrew safely, despite a bombing attack by two single-engined Japanese planes.
The 184th continued to make the main effort on the Corps' east flank during the next two days, 8 and 9 April. Two formidable enemy positions built around strong points lay between Red Hill and Hill 178-Tomb Hill, 1,000 yards northwest of Ouki, and Triangulation Hill, 1,000 yards northwest of Tomb Hill. Enemy artillery fire was the heaviest yet encountered by the 7th Division. Tank-infantry teams were the special target of the Japanese shells. The heavy enemy fire drove off infantry and demolished tanks; then the attacking Japanese satchel-charged the exposed tanks and bayoneted crews when they tried to escape. The enemy reoccupied abandoned tanks and converted them into pillboxes.
Triangulation Hill fell on 8 April after two bloody assaults. Tomb Hill, so named after the numerous burial vaults along its sides, held out until the 9th, when infantry and tanks, closely supported by artillery and planes, managed to seize and hang onto the crest of the hill. Its capture enabled the Sad to seize finger ridges east of Tomb Hill that dominated the approaches to Ouki. Japanese clung tenaciously to the reverse slope of Tomb Hill, and direct enemy observation from Hill 178, now only 1,500 yards to the southwest, hindered the efforts to clean out the area south of Tomb Hill.
An ambitious flanking maneuver around the Japanese right (east) was tried on the 10th, but it was a dismal failure. The 7th Division had come up against the hard rim of the Shuri fortified zone, and maneuver was impossible. The 7th now paused, while the XXIV Corps made its main effort in the Kakazu area.
The Japanese outpost units had done their work well. They had held the XXIV Corps off from the Shuri fortified zone for eight days. For its work during this and later periods, the 14th Independent Infantry Battalion was cited by Lt. Gen. Takeo Fujioka, commander of the 62d Division, who stated: "Burning with the determination to annihilate the enemy, the soldiers carried out counterattacks, followed by close combat, and crushed the continuously reinforced enemy who was attacking with fierce artillery and bombardment."{196} By the night of 8 April, XXIV Corps had suffered 1,510 battle casualties and had accounted for 4,489 Japanese killed and 13 captured.{197} The 96th had taken the bulk of the American casualties and was about to suffer further serious losses in abortive attempts to reduce the Kakazu positions.
Map No. 12: Kakazu Ridge
On 8 April Colonel May ordered the 1st and 3d Battalions of the 383d Infantry to seize the Kakazu hill mass the next day, and on the morning of 9 April the two battalions were drawn up in position for the attack. (See Map No. 12.)
The Japanese-held area in front of the 383d Infantry offered the enemy an ideal combination of defensive features. A deep moat, a hill studded with natural and man-made positions, a cluster of thick-walled buildings behind the hill these were the basic elements of Kakazu stronghold. The enemy had exploited each one of them. Moreover, Kakazu, unlike such outposts as the Pinnacle, was an integral element of the Shuri fortified zone and a vital rampart that could expect reinforcements and heavy fire support from within the ring of positions that surrounded the 32d Army headquarters, only 4,000 yards to the south.
The 1st and 3d Battalions were drawn up on the high ground several hundred yards northeast of the main hill of Kakazu. Between the Americans and Kakazu lay a deep gorge, half hidden by trees and brush, which could be crossed only with difficulty. The Kakazu hill mass itself, on the other side of this gorge, stretched northwest-southeast for 2,000 yards, sloping on the west toward the coastal flat and ending on the east at Highway 5. Kakazu was made up of two hills connected by a saddle. On the east was the larger of the two hills, about 500 yards long and topped by a fairly level strip of land averaging 25 yards in width; it came to be known to the American troops as Kakazu Ridge. At the western end of this ridge was a north-south saddle, sloping gently up toward the south. This saddle was dotted with tombs, as were the sides of Kakazu Ridge. West of the saddle was another portion of the Kakazu hill mass, forming the head of a T in relation to Kakazu Ridge, and stretching north-south for about 250 yards. This hill was later called "Crocker's Hill" by the 27th Division, but to the 96th it came to be known as "Kakazu West." On the northern slope of Kakazu West the ground fell away sharply in a steep cliff pockmarked with caves; on the east it was steep but not precipitous.
KAKAZU WEST and the west end of Kakazu Ridge, viewed from high ground north of the gorge. tombs used by the 1st Battalion, 381st Infantry, 96th Division, and a Japanese cave position can be seen. Below are caves along north slope of Kakazu West used by the 2d Battalion, 381st, while entrenched on the reverse slope of the knob.