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April 1 to mid-June, 1945, we fought die-hard enemies well entrenched
in vast caves stocked with telephone switchboards, tanks, artillery,
and mortars. The enemy, while adopting European arms and military
organization, had completely rejected Western pluralism, freedom,
and tolerance as "weak" and "corrupt," and instead
fortified its military with the fanatical religion of "Bushido,"
a crackpot and deviant Buddhist fundamentalism that sought to marry
Emperor-worship with a medieval warrior code to produce a purportedly
unstoppable new type of high-tech samurai warrior. The fantatics'
goal was to rid the Pacific of Occidentals, and let China, Korea,
southeast Asia, and the Pacific Islands "join" an "Oriental"
alliance, orchestrated from Tokyo as an exploitive empire passed
off as the "Greater Co-Prosperity Sphere." Sound familiar?
American soldiers
were thousands of miles distant from our shores, closer to the enemy
mainland than to friendly bases. As an ally, we had only Britain
— who did her best, but could not offer much in our hour of
crisis. The enemy shanghaied local civilians into their army, filled
them full of lies about Americans, and turned them loose against
us either to charge as suicide bombers, or often to commit mass
suicide themselves. Soldiers hid in civilian houses, hospitals,
even tombs of the dead to avoid our bombers — which were never
successful in finding the Japanese high command, but hit a lot of
civilians trying. Fanatics like General Isamu Cho and Mitsuru Ushijima
boasted of no surrender, rejected all efforts at armistice, and
vowed to take as many Americans as possible with them. Crude propaganda
leaflets and radio broadcasts promised horrific deaths to Americans
and portrayed them as cowardly killers who would rape and murder
innocent civilians — over 100,000 natives of the island would
eventually be casualties. The Japanese leadership itself, in the
manner of ancient warlords, believed Americans were decadent and
soft. Indeed, without the overwhelming firepower of the United States
— purportedly to be neutralized on Okinawa by offensive suicide
attacks on ships, and the defense of caves and concrete bunkers
— the generals swore that few of the stinking Americans could
ever stand up to Japanese soldiers in battle.
Suicide bombers
were everywhere. Kamikazes ("The Divine Wind") dove unexpectedly
from cloud cover; eventually they would fly almost 2,000 sorties
and sink 34 American ships. They hit another 368 craft. The Japanese
unleashed previously unknown and quite bizarre new weapons to terrify
Americans, such as the human guided rocket (ohka), the crash
boat (Shinto), the suicide midget submarines (koryu
and kairyu), and the fukuryu or human mines.
The wounded
and dead were wired with explosives; holes in the ground opened
up to pour forth small squads of charging Japanese suicide machine-gunners
at the rear of American troops. Despite days of preliminary bombing,
it was soon discovered, to the Marines' dismay, that few defenders
on Okinawa were killed in their fortified and hidden bunkers. Meanwhile,
Japanese suicide gliders attacked Marine airfields while Kamikazes
from Japan dove onto carriers at sea. Americans met every challenge,
but victory proved costly — and far more deadly — than
planners had anticipated.
Nearly everything,
from bullets to toilet paper, had to be flown in. The weather was
cold at night, and during the day wet and muddy — the terrain
full of poisonous snakes, razor-sharp coral, and dense underbrush.
Hundreds of GIs suffered from exposure and tropical disease. Americans
at home, gladdened by news of the European armistice in early May,
gradually seemed to lose interest in the protracted fighting in
Okinawa. They were more worried about rumors of a wider war in which
millions of Americans would be asked to storm the Japanese mainland
at the end of the year.
When "Operation
Iceberg" was completed by June 22, 12,000 Americans were dead
— including the ranking American general in charge of the entire
operation, Simon Bolivar Buckner. Thirty-five thousand more were
wounded, along with 100,000 Japanese killed and another 100,000
civilian casualties.
What can we
learn from Okinawa? First, the good news: In less than three months
Americans captured the largest group of islands off the Japanese
mainland, destroyed an entire Japanese army, and obtained a base
of operations that would doom future enemy naval and air resistance
— and were ready to move on to the next objective of Japan
herself. American GIs and Marines — among those killed on May
19 at Sugar Loaf Hill was my namesake Victor Hanson of the 6th Marine
Division — fought brilliantly, and proved as savage and brave
as their desperate Japanese counterparts. And we should remember
that the Japanese on Okinawa were far fiercer adversaries than the
Taliban. Once the conquered Okinawans themselves learned the true
nature of American troops, they became friendly and many welcomed
liberation from the Japanese — there was almost no terror in
the aftermath of the American victory. Okinawa today enjoys democratic
government, as a part of the Japanese nation.
All that being
said, the strategy at Okinawa must stand also as an object lesson
of what not to do in war. The bombing, both from land-based
squadrons and carrier planes, was far too brief, and not effective
in penetrating thick fortifications. The ground commanders were
far too eager to precipitate operations, and used little imagination
in their approaches. Pockets of fortified resistance were not isolated
and repeatedly shelled and bombed, but instead almost immediately
stormed. And once the fighting turned hand-to-hand, General Buckner
rejected the advice of four seasoned subordinates who wished to
outflank the deadly Shuri-Yonabaru Line through amphibious landings
to the rear. Too much of the fighting on Okinawa resembled World
War I: on the ground, mass against mass, machine guns dueling with
rifles and mortars, the entrenched enemy gaining enormous advantages
against an open and exposed attacker. American soldiers had trouble
distinguishing hostiles from neutrals, especially when the fighting
reached settled areas.
One final ripple
from Okinawa? After the bloodletting, the American military was
reluctant ever again to fight such a Japanese-style battle, and
looked desperately for ways to avoid such mass carnage in the promised
invasion of Japan to come. The mainland, after all, offered a battlefield
ten times as large, with 20 times the numbers of combatants, in
the midst of millions more of armed civilians. And so American planners,
stunned by the tens of thousands of casualties at Okinawa, found
their answers at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Make no mistake
about it: Ground troops are necessary in Afghanistan — and
no doubt elsewhere, in the multifaceted campaigns to come. And we
Americans should not be shy in using thousands of them very soon.
But to avoid the carnage of Okinawa, let us at least give our planes
a little more time to hit the Taliban forces to cut off all their
supplies, and to ensure that their soldiers become hungry and cold
in the snow, before sending American troops into the battle. We
should ignore the passive-aggressive admonitions of our fretting
allies and the carping Muslim world over bombing during Ramadan,
and instead ensure that the enemy is further pulverized before our
conventional forces enter the fray. A few more days or even weeks
of bombing — as during the Gulf War — may enrage some
in the Middle East; but in the long run, patience will save American
lives, which are far more important than our enemies' feelings.
In historical terms, the strategy of continued attrition of adversaries
without loss of one's own assets is wise — not flawed, nor
cowardly.
With far more
accurate and deadly preliminary bombing than that of World War II,
our infantry can soon win on the ground — within a similar
three-month period, but without the losses of Okinawa. Frontal assaults
against entrenched Taliban lines should be avoided in favor of flank
attacks and envelopments, and a sustained propaganda program must
reach civilians to convince them to kill or at least to oppose those
hiding among them, rather than us. Street fighting in villages and
towns should be largely left to the resistance, who can use our
forward bases and firepower stationed outside the metropolitan centers
to regroup and reorganize.
Our military,
which knows a great deal about the ordeal of Okinawa, is planning
precisely this right now. But we, who do not, must give them some
time — and more of our composure and support.
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