The Forge of Hell: The Tragic Battle of Okinawa
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On the morning of March 29, when soldiers of the 306th Infantry Regiment arrived at the site of the mass suicide of Tokashiki (possibly Kinjo's), the lie was revealed to a group of survivors. According to witnesses, they found a small valley littered with more than 150 dead and dying Japanese, most of them civilians. The fathers systematically strangled every member of their family and then cut the abdomen with a knife or grenade. Under the blanket lay a father, two young children and two grandparents, "all strangled to death by cloth ropes." While U.S. soldiers and medics did everything they could to provide food and care to survivors, an elderly man who killed his daughter "cried with regret."
On March 25, the day before the first troops landed at Keramas, the softening of Okinawa itself began with long-range shelling of the southeast coast by the Amphibious Support Forces (TF 52) of Rear Admiral WHP Blandy. This is to cover the work of minesweepers and frogmen, whose job is to clear mines and underwater obstacles to the beach of Hagushi. From March 29, when the artillery of Rear Admiral ML Deyo's artillery and cover units (TF 54) of battleships, cruisers, destroyers and gunboats "closed the range" and used heavy artillery "to hit targets with greater efficiency". In the seven days leading up to the L-Day, naval guns will fire "more than 13,000 large-caliber shells (6 inches to 16 inches) of shore guns" totaling 5,162 tons of high explosives. The firepower was met with multiple strikes from aircraft carriers — mainly from Vice Admiral Mitchell's Fast Carrier Force (TF 58) — which targeted barracks, gun emplacements, airfields and small submarine bases with rockets, bombs and napalm.
Forced to endure this steel storm are most of Okinawa's civilians, who are still concentrated in the southern part of the island. Among them is 16-year-old Kikuko Miyagi, a boarder at the prestigious Okinawa Prefectural No. 1 Girls' High School in Asato, near Naha. She is one of 222 girls between the ages of 15 and 19 from high school and Okinawa Normal School who were recently selected to join the Himeyuri Student Corps† working as auxiliary nurses at the Okinawa Army Field Hospital, located underground, in a cave near the village of Haebaru, three miles southeast of Naha.
Like their male classmates — many of whom were recruited into the Predator Corps — Kikuko and her classmates have long been influenced by nationalist propaganda and are very patriotic. They learned how to use bamboo guns and Japanese halberds, conducted air defense exercises, and conducted a long march of forty miles to improve physical and mental health. Beginning in June 1944, they helped build the Oroku Airport as more and more classes were canceled. Their training as military nurses began in late 1944 and continued in early 1945. They also received an order "Combat Principles", which stated that each person must destroy ten enemies and one tank.
It was at this time that Kikuko went home to say goodbye to her parents. She promised them that she would "earn the Order of the Rising Sun of the eighth class and pay respects at the Yasukuni Shrine." This infuriated her father, a village teacher. "I didn't raise you," he shouted, "and die at 16!" ”
Kikuko was ashamed of her father's reaction, "thinking he was a traitor when he said such things". When she left home and went to the battlefield, she only had pride in her heart.
On March 23, she and her classmates were woken up in their dormitory, and the principal said to her, "It's time to show what you've trained and serve your country." "The military ordered me to join headquarters. You'll go with your teachers to the Army Field Hospital, where you'll do your best for our country.
That evening, 222 students and 18 teachers set off for the Haebaru Army Field Hospital. It consists of three surgical clinics – the first, the second and the third – hidden in caves at the foot of gently sloping hills. The cave was still being dug up, and it was covered with wooden supports filled with medical equipment, so the Ji Lily Group was recruited to help.
While they were working, the United States began bombing the island. In Kikuko's opinion, this is simply a rain of shells "for five or six days in a row." On March 29, as the artillery fire continued, a graduation ceremony was held for Himeyuri students in the "humble triangular barracks". They knelt together on the floor, barely visible to their faces in the flickering candlelight, and their principal said they had a responsibility to "work hard so as not to bring shame to First Girls' High School." Subsequently, they sang patriotic songs, including "Give Your Life for the Emperor, Wherever You Go," and a patriotic song called "Parting Song" composed by Kikuko's 23-year-old music teacher. She noted that it was "really great" and "not a battle song at all." They remembered it as they dug the shelter, especially the verse "We will meet again." As they walked back to the cave, they sang the song, "The echo of the explosion shook the earth." The next morning, "the triangular building no longer exists."
Another Okinawan who was almost killed by a U.S. shell was Yoshiko Sakumoto, a young schoolgirl who witnessed Naha's bombing. In January 1945, she and her family joined the escape force in the northern part of the island, now 14 years old, but too young to enlist. They rode in a horse-drawn carriage, and Yoshiko and her father pushed a carriage to push their belongings and find refuge in the village of Seragaki near Mount Onna in the center of the island. But her father returned to Naha every few weeks to shop for supplies and visit relatives, and Yoshiko followed him. They and two friends were returning from such a trip, driving along the county road south of Hagushi Beach, when Yoshiko looked out to sea and froze. The "sea," she recalled, "was crowded with a large number of boats stretching north from the Naha area." They surrounded our island. We can immediately tell that they are not Japanese ships.
When the boat opened fire on March 29, they continued and approached Kue near the town of Hokutan. "The shells flew over our heads," Yoshiko recalled, "making a 'whoosh' sound and then exploding with a bang. At the same time, the planes began dropping bombs. I could see machine guns firing from the plane.
They dropped their carriages and desperately searched for a place to hide. To their right is a sugar cane field; Beach to their left. Neither provides much cover. They dived under some bushes. But when the explosion approached and "small stones and dust" fell on them, they knew they had to flee to a safer place. "If we stay here," her father shouted in the chaos, "we will all be killed." "Let's run to the woods.
He pointed to a grove about thirty meters away. They set off, but more explosions forced them to the ground. "When we finally reached the woods," Yoshiko wrote, "we looked back and saw a huge hole, about the size of eight tatami mats, that had been blown open by a bomb. "There are some thatched huts and a small cement shed in the woods. The three rushed into the shed, leaving Yoshiko's father outside. A few seconds later, "a huge explosion lifted the shed and shook the ground." Yoshiko couldn't hear, worried that her eardrums had burst. She had wounds on her elbow and head. When the things were tied up, her father showed up and "pointed to a place behind the shed" where the shells had exploded. Yoshiko was stunned. She knew that a direct hit would kill them instantly.
They decided to return to Naha and seek refuge in the Mohs tomb of Hotani on a rocky hill. On the way, they passed the bodies of four Japanese soldiers. "One was by the sugar cane field," Yoshiko recalls, "and the second was on the side of the road, and two were by the bridge." "It's a chilling reminder of how close they are to death."
*Spread over the island, these plywood boats are 18 feet long and 5 feet wide, powered by a six-cylinder Chevrolet motor engine that produces eighty-five horsepower at twenty knots per hour. Each carried two 264-pound depth charges on a rack behind the pilot, detonated close to the target ship, and the fuse lasted 5 seconds.
(To be continued)