The Naval Battle of Okinawa

[Music] it is June 22nd 2020 and 75 years ago today the nearly three month long Battle of Okinawa was drawing to a close after organized Japanese resistance had collapsed the day before just four days earlier on the 18th Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner junior commander of the US 10th army had been killed by Japanese artillery the highest-ranking officer of the United States military to be killed as a result of enemy fire in the Second World War the Battle of Okinawa was the largest and deadliest of the Pacific campaign was extraordinary and tragic in many ways but it's largely thought of as a land battle by that point in the war the Japanese Navy had been nearly decimated their only brief attempt to try to intervene in this battle was destroyed long before it came within side of an enemy ship and yet in all the annals of Valor that we take from the Battle of Okinawa one fact seems to slip through that the United States Navy took more casualties in the Battle of Okinawa than either the army or the Marines in fact by some measures the Battle of Okinawa was the deadliest battle in the history of the United States Navy the naval Battle of Okinawa deserves to be remembered at four hundred sixty-three square miles the island of Okinawa is the largest of the Okinawa islands of the riyuku chain it's considered one of the five main islands of Japan although it is the smallest and least populated of those the riyuku chain lies between Japan and Taiwan and Okinawa is some four hundred miles south of the main island of Kyushu and three hundred miles north of Taiwan in 1945 the estimated population of the island was approximately 300,000 Okinawa was the final step and the Allied island-hopping campaign in the Pacific okay now as airfields in Anchorage would be the staging area for what was expected to be the climactic showdown of the war operation downfall the Allied invasion of the Japanese home islands estimates of the Japanese garrison range between seven six into 86,000 the garrison had been ordered to defend until the last well there is no realistic thought that the island could be held the idea was to dry out the battle making his long and deadly as possible to convince the Allies that an invasion of the home islands would come at enormous cost even the few in the Japanese military would become convinced that the war was lost saw the defense as a matter of Honor regardless to the cost in lives of both military personnel and civilians arrayed against this force were some 183 thousand combat troops and nearly 500,000 total personnel the u.s. 10th army the unique hybrid force comprised of four US Army divisions and three divisions of the United States Marine Corps supporting those troops owes what has been described as the most powerful naval force in history combat ships included sixteen fleet aircraft carriers six light aircraft carriers 22 escort carriers 20 battleships 38 cruisers 146 destroyers and 45 destroyer escorts as well as hundreds of amphibious assault and support vessels given the state to the Imperial Japanese Navy the force was almost ridiculous in size and computed so much firepower that the battle itself became known as the typhoon of Steel but the greatest risk to the fleet protecting the 500,000 men of the invasion force was not the ships of the Japanese Navy but the Divine Wind the suicide attacks of the Japanese kamikaze Okinawa was within range of land-based planes from both the home islands in Taiwan and the Japanese with launched nearly 1500 planes bent on self-destruction their contribution to the typhoon of Steel the risk was well recognized by the Allies in the Armada included a brief Task Force with five British fleet carriers unlike the American fleet carriers the British fleet carriers had armored decks which gave them room for fewer aircraft but protected them from the damage of the kamikaze planes the British force included ships of the navies of Australia Canada and New Zealand the invasion of the main island was scheduled for April 1st but the Navy was taking casualties long before that on march 19th the essex-class carriers s Franklin nicknamed the big band was sent within 50 miles of the Japanese home islands closer than any other US carrier came during the war the purpose was an attack on the remnants of the Japanese fleet in preparation for the invasion of Okinawa after the raid the Japanese dive bomber managed to follow the attacking planes back to the carrier plane dropped from the clouds before the anti-aircraft guns could respond striking the carrier with two 550 pound bombs the carrier was preparing for another strike at the time and explosions started to a night fuel and ordnance on the planes on the flight deck and in the hangar deck followed by tea ammunition from the ship's guns and the ready lockers in all Franklin suffered 126 secondary explosions despite fires and catastrophic damage wrote efforts on the part of her crew and the ship's assisting her saved the stricken ship and what has been described as one of the most epic feats of damage control in naval history earning Big Ben a second nickname the ship that wouldn't die by morning Franklin was under her own power again Franklin had taken more casualties than any ship in US naval history that survived for the heroic effort to save the ship members of Franklin's ship company and Air Group would ultimately be awarded two medals of Honor 19 Navy crosses 22 Silver Stars 116 Bronze Stars and 235 letters of commendation one of the medals of Honor went to Lieutenant Commander Joseph Timothy o Callaghan a Jesuit priest and ships chaplain who despite wounds from explosions not only ministered to the wounded and conducted last rites for the dying but also organized firefighting and rescue crews and helped to jettison or host a munitions at risk of explosion he was the first chaplain and US Navy history to be awarded the nation's highest award for valor but the Franklin was only the beginning the destroyer USS Halligan was sunk by a mine on March 26 and the minesweeper USS Skylark was sunk by mines on the 28th other ships including the battleship Nevada the heavy cruiser Indianapolis and the destroyers O'Brian and Halsey Powell were severely damaged by kamikaze attacks and the invasion hadn't even yet begun opposition was surprisingly light when soldiers of the US 23rd Army Corps and Marines of the 3rd amphibious Corps hit the beaches on April 1st the Japanese commander Lieutenant General Mitsuru Lucia Jima had realized that beach defenses would likely be destroyed in the pre invasion bombardment and had prepared a defensive line to trap the Americans it was a deadly trap and the battle would be fought Ridge to Ridge a great cost on both sides and see the Navy continued to take losses from sporadic air attacks the fleet lost destroyers landing ships and attack transports they start carrier USS Wake Island had a 16 foot by 45 foot hole blown in her below the waterline by kamikaze that narrowly missed the ship but exploded next to her then Nevada was hit again to say blowing her number 2 turret but this is all just a prelude the Japanese had amassed a massive number of planes in southern Japan and Taiwan on April 6 the Japanese launched their first massive kamikaze attack called cuckoo XI or floating chrysanthemum between April 6th and 7th 355 planes came in swarm suicide attacks on the fleet the attacks often fell hardest on the ships of the radar picket destroyer two-story escorts mending the outer ring of defenses there to warn the fleet of incoming attacks the inexperienced Japanese pilots often attack the first ship they saw and the destroyers and escorts were less able to withstand the attacks the effects were devastating despite concentrated anti-aircraft fire and fighter cover the kamikazes came in such numbers that some inevitably slipped through a flight of between 40 and 50 planes attacked the destroyers Bush and Qasim Young Bush was struck amidships in the district calhoun came to its rescue but was itself hit when another 15 planes attacked more planes struck as the crews distally worked to save their ships but in the end both destroyers were lost the Cass and young picked up survivors Cassin young would later be damaged twice by kamikazes in May the Destroyers Newcomb Lutz Morris Bennett destroyer minesweepers Rodman and Emmons destroyer escort wither and battleship USS Maryland were all damaged badly enough that they would be out of action for the rest of the war several other ships received damage and casualties on the seventh the Japanese Navy made it's only sortie of the battle a desperate attempt to bring the super battleship yamato into the fray the ships were discovered almost immediately by your sub brains and the attack was repulsed by an air attack the Yamato the largest battleship ever built was swarmed by multiple waves of aircraft and took hits from at least a dozen torpedoes and several bombs before her forward magazine exploded the great ship sank without getting within 200 miles of the Battle of Okinawa but the kamikazes had done with the ships of the Japanese Navy could not as a battleground on on land the floating chrysanthemums continued on April 16th the destroyer USS laughy came under an 80-minute attack by 22 planes despite shooting down at least eight aircraft laughs he was hit by four bombs and six kamikaze crashes her surface search and air search radars were put out of action her aft 5-inch turret of one of her quad forty millimeter batteries were destroyed she was going down by the stern doing a bomb hit and a rudder was jammed 26 degrees over with virtually everything after the aft stack engulfed in aviation gasoline fires but when an officer suggested that they might have to abandon ship her captain commander Frederic Becton said I'll never abandon ship as long as a single gun will fire astoundingly the crew managed to get the damage under control and saved the ship which survived for post-war service and snow preserved as a floating Museum in South Carolina the shore minesweeper USS Erin Ward and destroyer USS little came under a similar mass attack on May 3rd low clouds gave the attackers cover limited the ability to defend with anti-aircraft fire little took four kamikaze hits in four minutes with the engine from the last plane ripping through the ship and exploding her boilers breaking her keel she sank in just 12 minutes with a loss of 31 crew killed despite being hit several times a Fleming kamikaze struck the earrin Ward starting an aviation fuel fire jamming her rudder at reducing her speed another attacker hid her stack well another doctor bomb exploded close enough to disable her engine leaving her dead in the water a sitting duck allowing two more kamikazes to struck despite the loss of 42 crew and extensive damage and fires as night fell the crew managed to get the fires under control and she was taken under tow her exceptional damage control effort commander-in-chief of the Pacific area Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz later said we all admire a ship that can't be linked another wave of under 50 planes attacked on May 11th despite an air battle with u.s. planes several made it through attacking the Destroyers Hugh W handling and Evans despite multiple hits both ships survived downing 23 enemy aircraft the Hugh W Headley earned the record for the most enemy aircraft downed in a single engagement earning the vessel a Presidential Unit Citation but the swarms were not the only risk the same day the Hugh W Hadley and Evans were attacked a handful of planes snuck through the radar screen and targeted the fleet carrier USS Bunker Hill the first it's bomb unto the flight dead before plowing into a group of armed and fueled aircraft awaiting takeoff the second struck within a minute dropping a bomb that crashed who threw the hangar deck while the plane struck just short of the island a third plane came quickly but was shot down by anti-aircraft fire like the Franklin the Bunker Hill was rocked by secondary explosions in aviation fuel fires the first bomb had exploded outside the pilots ready room killing several pilots and crew while many more died on the flight deck a young torpedo bomber tail gunner named Paul L Newman likely would have been in that area where many men of his squadron died but his pilot had come down with an earache before the crew was supposed to relocate to the Bunker Hill and so he missed the battle after the war he went on to star in motion pictures like the hustler and Cool Hand Luke in all 93 crew the Bunker Hill died in the explosions fires and efforts to save the ship the ship was saved but the war was over before repairs could be finished the kamikaze attacks continued even as the troops on the ground slowly took the enemy's fortified positions the destroyer William D Porter famous for having accidentally fired the torpedo at the USS Iowa while President Roosevelt was on board was sunk by kamikaze on June 10th the plane missed but his bomb exploded in the water broke the Destroyers keel destroyer USS Twigg was some kind you in 16th the kamikaze torpedo bomber had hit it with its torpedo before crashing into the ship exploding her magazine the last mass attack of 45 planes started On June 21st the seaplane tender USS Curtis was heavily damaged killing 24 of her crew with state afloat her perhaps most famous crewmember lieutenant Henry Fonda had been reassigned to a position on land before the battle and so missed the attack a landing ship medium was sunk and other ships included the store escort USS Halloran were damaged the same day Lieutenant General Gousha Jima committed seppuku and last organized resistance on the island came to an end the battle on the island was declared over On June 22nd but the kamikazes were not done a lending ship tank LST 534 was struck by a kamikaze and sunk the 82 day Battle of Okinawa came at a terrible cost virtually the entire Japanese garrison was annihilated as well as an estimated one-third to one-half of the island's civilian population many of whom committed suicide the u.s. suffered more than 12,000 killed in action with the Navy losses 4970 exceeding those of the army or the Marines depending upon the measure it was the deadliest battle in the 244 year history of the United States Navy because of the nature of kamikaze damaged the Navy's number killed exceeded the number wounded and many of those wounded suffered burns from the aviation fuel fires a stunning 368 Allied ships were damaged and 36 sunk despite losing the island and their own terrible losses the Japanese defenders of Okinawa made their point and the historians argue that it was the losses in the Battle of Okinawa that convinced the Americans to use atomic bombs on Japan as an alternative to the terrible casualties they thought they would have taken if they were forced to invade the Japanese home islands the impact that the Battle of Okinawa had on the end of the war is still a matter of discussion among historians there's not a lot of discussion of a naval Battle of Okinawa with the exception of the failed attack on April 7th the Japanese Navy played hardly a role at all in the battle and yet in the Battle of Okinawa the US Navy faced challenges on a scale they had never seen before the thousands of acts of bravery to save ships that had taken terrible damage braving the fire and smoke to rescue comrades to fight the fires to stay at your guns to defend your ship mark the Battle of Okinawa as perhaps the US Navy's finest hour I hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guys where it's snippets of forgotten history between 10 and 15 minutes long and if you did enjoy please go ahead and click that thumbs up button if you have any questions or comments or suggestions for future episodes please write those in the comment section I will be happy to personally respond be sure to follow the history guy on Facebook 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Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 460,987

Rating: 4.9637141 out of 5

Keywords: history, the history guy, history guy, world war II, Pacific campaign, US Navy, battle of okinawa, wwii, us history

Id: UT0CojSRhYg

Length: 15min 22sec (922 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 22 2020