Despite extensive use of artillery and tanks on previous days to batter cave openings in the face of the cliff, enemy fire flared as briskly as ever when the 3d Battalion, under Lt. Col. D. A. Nolan, Jr., reached the base of the escarpment on the morning of 12 June. Realizing that a frontal assault against this defended wall would be both slow and costly, Colonel Nolan left Company K to contain the enemy and to mop up near the bottom of the cliff; he ordered Capt. Roy A. Davis to take Company L around to the southeast, climb the escarpment in the 7th Division's zone, and then move back along the edge of the cliff to a position above Company K.{516}

It was nearly midafternoon before Davis and his men were in place on the high ground. Company K, meanwhile, worked along the base of the cliff under a steady volume of rifle fire but with protection of smoke. An effort to join the two elements of the battalion for the night failed, but the 381st Infantry had broken a 3-day stalemate at the steepest part of the escarpment and was now ready to pry the next section from Japanese control.

Japanese troops still controlled the Big Apple Peak, which rose about sixty feet above the general level of the plateau, but by evening of 12 June the 7th and 96th Divisions had forced the reconstituted 44th Independent Mixed Brigade from the southeastern end of the enemy's line.

General Ushijima acted as quickly as his shattered communication system and the confusion of his front-line units would permit. With his artillery pieces shelled and bombed into near-silence, and his supplies and equipment diminishing even faster than his manpower, his only hope was to send more troops into the shell fire and flame with which the American forces were sweeping the front-line area. His order read:

“The enemy in the 44th IMB sector has finally penetrated our main line of resistance....The plan of the 44th IMB is to annihilate, with its main strength, the enemy penetrating the Yaeju-Dake sector.

“The Army will undertake to reoccupy and hold its Main Line of Resistance to the death. The 62d Division will place two picked infantry battalions under the command of the CG, 44th IMB.”{517}

The 64th Brigade—the part of the 62d Division which had moved from Shuri to reserve positions near Makabe—did not issue this order until late on 13 June, fully thirty hours after its need arose. Moreover, piecemeal commitment of reserve troops was inadequate. By 13 June the 44th Brigade was so close to destruction that when the reinforcements arrived the remnants of the 44th were absorbed by the reinforcing battalions and there were still not enough men to hold the line. The enemy then committed the main strength of the 62d Division, his last reserve and hope, with a plea for cooperation and orders to "reoccupy and secure the Main Line of Resistance."

By the time the 62d Division could move onto the line, however, it ran squarely into General Hodge's men attacking south across the coral-studded plateau. The Americans were moving behind the fire of machine guns and tanks and over the bodies of the Japanese who had defended their last strong line "to the death."

The Battle of Kunishi Ridge

Only the eastern end of the Japanese line collapsed. On the western side of the island troops of the 24th Division fought to a standstill one regiment of the 96th Division and the 1st Marine Division from is until 17 June. This slugging battle of tanks and infantrymen, with heavy blows furnished by planes and by naval and ground artillery, was for the possession of Yuza Peak and Kunishi Ridge. Yuza Peak, approximately 300 feet higher than the surrounding ground, dominated this part of the fortified line and was the source of most of the enemy fire. Its capture was the responsibility of the 383d Infantry, 96th Division. The western side of Yuza Peak tapered off toward the sea and formed Kunishi Ridge, a 2,000-yard-long coral barrier lying athwart the 1st Marine Division sector. Movement toward the Peak was restricted by extensive mine fields.

On three successive days the 383d Infantry drove the enemy troops from the town of Yuza, but each time machine-gun fire plunging from the coral peak beyond forced the men to withdraw to defensive positions at night. The Japanese reoccupied the town each night. Real progress was first made on 15 June when the 2d Battalion, 382d Infantry, having relieved the center battalion of the 3834, gained the northern slope of the peak. The remainder of the 383d, weary from thirty-five days of continuous combat, passed into reserve on the following day, and Colonel Dill's 382d Infantry proceeded against the hard core of the Yuza line.{518}

Kunishi Ridge was the scene of the most frantic, bewildering, and costly close-in battle on the southern tip of Okinawa. After reaching the west coast of the island above Itoman and isolating Oroku Peninsula from the rest of the southern battlefield, the 1st Marine Division edged forward against slight resistance until the front lines were 1,500 yards north of Kunishi Ridge and subject to fire and observation from the heights of Yuza Peak. Two regiments, the 1st and 7th, were abreast. The 1st Marines, on the left, were the first to go beyond the guarded approaches of the Japanese line and the first to pay heavily with casualties. On 10 June the 1st Battalion lost 125 men wounded or killed during an attack against a small hill west of Yuza town. Seventy-five of these were from Company C. On the same day the 7th Marines reached the high ground at the northern edge of Tera, a long ridge contested almost as vigorously. The left flank swung ahead again on 11 June to Hill 69, west of Ozato, against steady and heavy opposition.{519}

A 1,000-yard strip of low and generally level ground separated the 1st Marine Division's line between Tera and Ozato from Kunishi Ridge, the next step in the advance. The 7th Marines ventured onto this open ground on 11 June and was promptly driven back by Japanese machine guns which covered the entire valley. As a result of this experience, General del Valle and the commander of the 7th Marines, Col. Edward W. Snedeker, decided to make the next move under cover of darkness. Each of the assault battalions was to lead off with one company at 0300 on 12 June, seize the west end of Kunishi Ridge and hold until daylight, and then support the advance of the remainder of the battalions.

Companies C and F walked onto the ridge with surprising ease, but the illusion of easy victory ended at dawn. Company C opened fire first, killing several enemy soldiers just as the two companies reached their objectives. This disturbance was the signal for immediate enemy action. Mortar shells began falling within a minute or two, and, as daylight increased, the Japanese sighted their guns along the length of the coral ridge and began shelling and machine-gunning the valley of approach to prevent reinforcement. Colonel Snedeker challenged the enemy guns with two tanks, but one of these was knocked out and the other driven back by the fury of the shell fire. Both forward companies were suffering casualties and asked for help, but the other companies of the two battalions could no more move across the valley with impunity than the assault companies could expose themselves on Kunishi Ridge.

An attempt to cross under smoke failed when the Japanese crisscrossed bands of machine-gun fire through the haze and forced the two companies and their tank support to withdraw. In the afternoon, with Companies C and F still asking for help, several tanks succeeded in reaching Kunishi Ridge with a supply of plasma, water, and ammunition and brought back the seriously wounded. After this successful venture the battalion commanders evolved a plan for ferrying infantrymen, six in each tank, across the 1,000-yard strip of exposed ground. Before nightfall fifty-four men had dropped through the tank escape hatches onto Kunishi Ridge, and twenty-two casualties were evacuated on the return trips. This method of transporting both supplies and men was used throughout the fighting for Kunishi Ridge.{520}

The difficulties of 12 June were only the beginning of trouble. With the return of daylight on 13 June six companies occupied the lower end of Kunishi Ridge, and none of them could move. All were dependent upon tanks for supplies and evacuation. Twenty-nine planes dropped supplies, but with only partial success since a portion of the drops fell beyond reach and was unrecoverable. One hundred and forty men from the two battalions were casualties on 13 June; the seriously wounded were returned in tanks, men with light wounds stayed on the ridge, and the bodies of the dead were gathered near the base of the ridge.

The burden of offensive action fell upon the tanks on 13 June and the three days following. Flame and medium tanks moving out on firing missions carried supplies and reinforcements forward and then, on the return trip for more fuel or ammunition, carried wounded men to the rear. Soft rice paddies made it necessary for the tanks to stay on the one good road in the sector, and this road was effectively covered by Japanese 47-mm. shells and other artillery, which destroyed or damaged a total of twenty-one tanks during the 5-day battle.

 

YUZA PEAK, under attack by the 382d Infantry, 96th Division. Tanks are working on the caves and tunnel system at base ridge of ridge.