The Final Storm - Jeff Shaara [86]
As the Japanese withdrew or were crushed by sheer strength of arms, the Marines continued to exceed their own timetables, pushing toward the northern tip of Okinawa far ahead of schedule. To the Marine commanders, who had feared the kind of casualty counts that had come on Iwo Jima, the lack of a stout Japanese effort was welcome.
On the Motobu Peninsula the job for the Fourth and Twenty-ninth Marine regiments had been costly. The enemy had seemed far more willing to offer a sharp struggle on a piece of land that was subject to ongoing bombardments from air and sea, as well as the relentless push by the Marines. The casualty counts had been somewhat severe, but by April 20 the peninsula was declared secure. The combat units who had taken punishment were allowed some rest and refitting, while the remainder of the Sixth Division and the bulk of the First continued driving north. Up the spine of the island, the Marines did their job, made a relentless push into whatever enemy they could find, or whatever resistance was thrown up in their paths.
Despite ongoing mop-up operations, the success in securing the Motobu Peninsula allowed General Buckner an opportunity to crow about a victory, and so crow he did. But the news that reached Nimitz was not all good. To the south the first two army divisions had been bolstered by their reserves, but all three were becoming bogged down against a far stronger Japanese effort. Though no one in the American command had been able to predict exactly what the Japanese strategy would be, it was increasingly apparent that General Ushijima had positioned his greatest defensive strength in the south, along the line that ran from Shuri Castle westward to the Okinawan coast. General Buckner painted an optimistic portrait, but Nimitz was hearing something very different from the naval commanders, particularly Admiral Turner, whose ships were bearing the brunt of the increasingly destructive kamikaze attacks. With the army’s casualties mounting on land, and Turner’s sailors beginning to absorb a horrifying pounding offshore, Nimitz could no longer accept Buckner’s assurances that everything was going according to Buckner’s planning. With obvious friction growing between army and navy commanders, Nimitz knew the time had come to see the situation for himself. He would go to Okinawa.
The kamikaze attacks had come continuously, though some were small in scale, sometimes a single aircraft. But it had become clear that there was a method to the Japanese tactics. Every seven to eight days now the attacks were launched toward the American fleet in a massive wave, hundreds of aircraft of every imaginable type ramming their way through the American defenses. The destruction was becoming astonishing, both on board the ships and to the Japanese pilots, almost none of whom survived. Throughout the war, naval casualties had been comparably light, even during the most brutal battles in the Coral Sea and at Leyte Gulf. But now the navy was absorbing losses they had never experienced, and though the most prized targets, the battleships and carriers, had taken some hits, it was the smaller escort and supply ships that were receiving the worst punishment. Dozens of American ships were being sent to the bottom, along with far too many crewmen. The losses were doubly horrifying because they had been so unexpected, and yet the Americans continued to be baffled by Japanese logic. If Tokyo had any expectation that their planes would either destroy the American fleet or drive them away from Okinawa, the tactics being used seemed gruesomely absurd. Radar and lookout stations monitored the incoming waves of Japanese planes, allowing gunners on board the American ships to prepare for the onslaught. The carrier aircraft could combat the incoming Japanese waves before the kamikaze pilots could even see their targets. With Japanese losses in aircraft numbering in the hundreds, the Americans had to wonder