As the end of May approached, conflict had been raging on the Shuri line nearly two months and many an American soldier wondered whether Shuri would ever be taken or whether he would be alive to witness its capture. While on 21 May the eastern slope of Conical Hill had been taken, after more than a week of further fighting the high belt of Shuri defenses still held firm all around the ancient capital of the Ryukyus. The American gains in southern Okinawa had been confined to a rather small area of hills and coral ridges which, aside from Yontan and Kadena airfields seized on 1 April, had no important value for the attack on the Japanese home islands. It is true that these airfields, the flat extent of Ie Shima, and certain coastal areas of central Okinawa suitable for air base development were already swarming with naval and army construction battalions, at work on the task of making the island over into a gigantic, unsinkable carrier from which to mount the final air assault on Japan. But this was just a beginning. Most of the big prizes—the port of Naha, the big anchorage of Nakagusuku Bay, Yonabaru, Shuri, Naha airfield, and the flat coastal ground of southern Okinawa—were still effectively denied to the Americans, long after they had expected to capture them.
By the end of May, however, the flower of General Ushijima's forces on Okinawa had been destroyed. The three major enemy combat units—the 62d Division, the 24th Division, and the 44th Independent Mixed Brigade—had all been committed to the line and had all wasted away as a result of the incessant naval gunfire, artillery fire, air attacks, and the tank and infantry combat. Second-rate troops had for some time been present in the line, mixed with the surviving veterans of the regular combat units. By the end of May, 62,548 of the enemy had been reported killed "and counted" and another 9,529 estimated as killed. As compared with 3,214 killed in northern Okinawa and 4,856 on le Shima, 64,000 of these were reported killed in the fighting in the Shuri fortified zone. According to division reports, about 12,000 were killed by the 1st and 6th Marine Divisions and 41,000 by the 7th, 27th, 77th, and 96th Army Divisions while in the line at one time or another under XXIV Corps. The largest number were killed by the 96th Division, credited with 17,000.{437} Even though these reports of enemy losses are undoubtedly somewhat exaggerated, there is no question that Japanese forces, especially infantry combat units, had been seriously depleted. A conservative estimate would indicate that 50,000 of the best Japanese troops had been killed in the Shuri fighting by the end of May. The enemy's artillery also was weakening noticeably as piece after piece was captured or was destroyed by naval gunfire, counter battery fire, and air bombing.
Nothing illustrates so well the great difference between the fighting in the Pacific and that in Europe as the small number of military prisoners taken on Okinawa. At the end of May the III Amphibious Corps had captured only 128 Japanese soldiers. At the same time, after two months of fighting in southern Okinawa, the four divisions of the XXIV Corps had taken only 90 military prisoners. The 77th Division, which had been in the center of the line from the last days of April through May, had taken only 9 during all that time.{438} Most of the enemy taken prisoner either were badly wounded or were unconscious; they could not prevent capture or commit suicide before falling into American hands.
In the light of these prisoner figures there is no question as to the state of Japanese morale. The Japanese soldier fought until he was killed. There was only one kind of Japanese casualty—the dead. Those that were wounded either died of their wounds or returned to the front lines to be killed. The Japanese soldier gave his all.
Casualties on the American side were the heaviest of the Pacific war. At the end of May, losses of the two Marine divisions, whose fighting included approximately a month on the Shuri front, stood at 1,718 killed, 8,852 wounded, and 101 missing. In two months of fighting, chiefly on the Shuri front, the XXIV Corps suffered 2,871 killed, 12,319 wounded, and 183 missing. The XXIV Corps and the III Amphibious Corps had lost a total of 26,044 killed, wounded, or missing. American losses were approximately one man killed to every ten Japanese.{439}
Non battle casualties were numerous, a large percentage of them being neuropsychiatric or "combat fatigue" cases. The two Marine divisions had had 6,315 non battle cases by the end of May; the four Army divisions, 7,762. The most important cause of this was unquestionably the great amount of enemy artillery and mortar fire, the heaviest concentrations experienced in the Pacific war. Another cause of men's nerves giving way was the unending close-in battle with a fanatical foe. The rate of psychiatric cases was probably higher on Okinawa than in any previous operation in the Pacific.{440}
"There was only one kind of Japanese casualty..."