Okinawa (26 page)

When Spruance commanded this enormous concentration of naval striking power, it was called “Task Force Fifty-eight”; when Bull Halsey’s flag was flown it was “Task Force Thirty-eight.”

Because there is no hard-and-fast rule for translating Japanese geographical terms—
shoto
, meaning various islands or group of islands;
gunto
or
retto,
a group of islands;
shima
or
jima,
an island; or
ie,
an islet—this narrative will use the general English words for the same.

Japanese warplanes were divided into feminine names for bombers and masculine ones for fighters.

This means “regiment,” not division. In American military parlance a regiment formed by three battalions is known by its “arm.” Thus the First Regiment of the First Marine Division is called “First Marines,” or the Seventh Regiment of the First Cavalry Division “Seventh Cavalry.” Too often historians with no military experience mistake these designations to mean division, a much larger formation that—whether infantry, cavalry, or Marine—is usually formed by three “line” regiments and an artillery regiment with other special troops.

This comment in no way is intended to demean these gallant GIs—or anyone who has looked upon the horrid Medusa face of battle—but appears only because it might be asked why other nicknames are mentioned but not the Ninety-sixth’s.

This incident, reported by George McMillan in The Old Breed, his history of the First Marine Division in World War II, does not ring true. Marines are trained to keep their weapons on safety lock even during an invasion, and not to unlock them until a firefight is about to erupt or until receipt of enemy fire. “Let one go” is also untypical. “Got his gun off” is the proper slang. I can remember a corporal I learned to despise from Guadalcanal onward running toward the beach at Peleliu with terror on his face and holding his right hand aloft with the trigger finger missing and spouting carmine. My only comfort watching him sprint for the safety of the Battalion Aid Station on the beach was that his missing member would always remind him of his cowardice. So I doubt this episode—from the pen of a headquarters sergeant—and mention it only to show how absolutely unopposed the Okinawa invasion actually was at its beginning.

Here is perhaps the most moving of all the phenomena of the war: the self-sacrifice of noble and brave young American fighting men who smothered enemy grenades with their bodies to save their buddies. Yet, discussing this once with a group of teachers, I had just begun to quote Jesus Christ’s dictum “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends,” when one of them angrily interrupted me. “Nonsense!” he cried in scorn. “Who would do such a crazy thing?” Glaring at me, he asked with heavy sarcasm, “Would you?” I replied, “I might. But never to save someone like you.”

Official and early American estimates of 7,800 Japanese planes lost during the Okinawa Campaign—either in combat or under enemy air raids—were much too high. A more conservative and probably more accurate figure of 3,000 was later made by the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey.

This account of Ushijima and Cho’s final moments came from Ushijima’s cook Tetsuo Nakamuta, who was a witness.