82 Days on Okinawa

One American's Unforgettable Firsthand Account of the Pacific War's Greatest Battle

Robert L. Wise

• Publisher: William Morrow
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN: 9780062907455
• eBook ISBN: 9780062907462
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies
• Index: History

In "a gritty, first-person account" from an American officer in the Pacific theater battle, "one can hear Shaw's voice as if he were sitting beside you" ( Wall Street Journal).
On Easter Sunday, April 1, 1945, 1.5 million men gathered aboard 1,500 Allied ships off the coast of the Japanese island of Okinawa. The men were there to launch the largest amphibious assault on the Pacific Theater.
The first American officer ashore was then-Major Art Shaw (1920-2020), a unit commander in the U.S. Army's 361st Field Artillery Battalion of the 96th Infantry Division, nicknamed the Deadeyes. For the next three months, Shaw and his men served near the front lines of the Pacific's costliest battle, their artillery proving decisive against a phantom enemy who had entrenched itself in the rugged island.
Over eighty-two days, the Allies fought the Japanese army in a campaign that would claim more than 150,000 lives. When the final calculations were made, the Deadeyes were estimated to have killed 37,763 of the enemy. The 361st Field Artillery Battalion had played a crucial role in the victory. The campaign would be the last major battle of World War II and a key pivot point leading to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and to the Japanese surrender in August, two months after the siege's end.
Filled with extraordinary details, Shaw's gripping account gives lasting testimony to the bravery displayed by so many on the hills of Okinawa.
"Comprehensive and action-packed" — Publishers Weekly
"A vivid re-creation of a campaign so vicious that the soldiers involved rejoiced when they heard about Hiroshima." — Kirkus Reviews
"World War II aficionados will love this book." — Library Journal

1

Okinawa

You take landings for granted until you’ve been on a couple of them, and then Christmas is over. The first time around you think hitting the beach is like a football game. Lots of hurrahs and excitement because everyone will be alright when the contest is done. Maybe you write a letter home telling the ones you love that they were in your last thoughts if hitting the beach didn’t work out, but you know everything will be fine. You give it to a buddy to mail if you don’t make it. However, the second time around everything changes. After you’ve walked up a beach where a soldier is lying facedown in the sand with the ocean lapping at his feet, reality sets in. A rifle stuck in the beach with a helmet resting on the butt jars you to the core.

The second landing leaves you terrified and keenly aware you may be about to die. This time around you’ve written many more letters home. You give those letters to a number of buddies because you know a good number of you will end up in the sand. Your stomach aches and you fight nausea.

If you make it to a third landing, you are swallowed by the hard, cold facts. Most of you won’t walk past the edge of the water. You’ve written a bundle of letters and given one to everyone in sight. You know that your chances of survival are slim.

“Major Shaw,” Sergeant Arthur Bushboom called out. “Here’s some material from Intelligence that will tell you about the island.” The soldier shrugged. “Possibly a bunch of junk, but you’ll want to read it. You’ll need the dictionary of their native language. Might want to read it carefully. The papers give you an update.”

“Got anything else worth reading? A nice novel?”

The soldier laughed. “Are you kidding?” He walked on.

I was riding in an APA, a troop attack transport, that left Leyte with the officers while the entire battalion loaded onto an LST (landing ship, tank). You almost couldn’t sink one of those LST ships, so I figured my men should be riding in good shape. The salty smell of the ocean drifted across the deck when the waves rocked the ship. My mind was fixed on what might be ahead, but I glanced at the report I was holding.

None of us had heard of Okinawa. The island was no more than some obscure hunk of dirt stuck out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean as far as we were concerned. Intelligence said they had their own language called Ryukyuan, related to Japanese. Most natives under twenty couldn’t speak it unless they’d been raised by grandparents in a rural area.

Okinawa looked like a twisted-up snake sixty-seven miles long and from three to ten miles wide. The northern half of the island had rough, mountainous land that was militarily unimportant. We were coming in from the southern end, where most of the island’s residents lived. North of us was Kufus, where the Japanese trained kamikaze pilots, and even further north was Yokohama, where their main base was located. I was sure that along the way we’d be hearing from them.

I laid the communiqué down. There couldn’t have been a less promising area for a seaborne invasion than Okinawa. Coral reefs would be everywhere in front of the beaches, and the crumbling reefs would present a real danger. On the other side of the island, no beaches bordered the Pacific Ocean, making a landing suicidal. Consequently, we’d be coming in the back door from the East China Sea. Apparently, this area was lightly defended, and resistance should be marginal.

“All personnel be alert,” the microphone boomed. “We will be landing tomorrow morning at zero-eight-hundred hours. Be prepared.”

I looked at my watch. Time was running out.

* * *

Officers were running all over the ship. Hard to believe the day was Easter Sunday, April 1, 1945. A year earlier, the division had been part of a sunrise service. General Kane had given an eloquent address.

The date was the anniversary of the fall of Bataan. General MacArthur had called those blood-soaked ravines of Bataan our Holy Grail. He’d said, “We cannot lay down our arms, we must not hope for peace, we shall not even rest until we have recovered it and restored it to a more worthy hand.” Those soldiers who heard him would six months later spearhead MacArthur’s return to the Philippines and Bataan. They would hurl themselves against the enemy that had perpetrated the desecration of Bataan.

Now, with landing at Okinawa imminent, everyone needed to make final preparations. The LST boats would eventually be loading an entire battalion of three hundred to eight hundred men. If the tide stayed high, the LST could go all the way up the beach; if not, the men would load in ducks for a beach landing. Ducks were undersized amphibian boats that carried a much smaller number of men. Not much ammunition on the ducks: the ammo would come in later.

My artillery battalion would soon be scrambling down a sixty- to ninety-foot rope webbing to drop into landing boats if the LSTs couldn’t hit the shore. Each man would be loaded with everything he needed on his back when he cautiously climbed down from one rope hold to another. While he intended to end up on a landing craft, the boat could jerk five to ten feet up and down in a rough sea, making entry difficult. If he slipped and fell, the soldier would probably drown. The weather had been rough sailing in from Leyte, but on this Easter Sunday, the climate shifted. Couldn’t have been a lovelier day. Perfect for our task.

We would be coming in north of the town of Naha. An escarpment of steep, high cliffs stretched from Naha across the island to Yonabaru. The towering bluffs were rumored to essentially cut the island in half. We knew the Japanese were on top of them, but Intelligence said there wasn’t much below, where we were coming in.

The waves beating against the APA ship reminded me this would be the last time in a long time that I would be on our territory proper. Once I landed, I would be on Okinawa until it was over one way or the other. At least one enemy airborne division was known to be on Kyushu, and the waters were reported to be infested with suicide craft. What was left of the Imperial Fleet was reported to be up north. In the last few days, I had studied the maps long enough to know that winning Okinawa was the key to final victory. We had to endure.

* * *

I surveyed the island in front of us as I lined up to leave the APA ship. Okinawa looked serene from a distance. The ocean gently washing up on the beach with tropical trees swaying in the breeze might have made a great vacation sight if we weren’t in a deadly war.

“Hey, Major!” a soldier hollered to me. “Want a free ride in?”

I laughed. “You mean it won’t cost me a dime?”

“I’m a tank commander,” he said. “Gonna make an exception. Hop in my amphibious craft and you will be the first one ashore.”

“Sounds like my kind of deal,” I said, and climbed down the rope ladder. “I suppose I can sit anywhere,” I joked. “Since there are only two of us, shouldn’t be crowded.”

“Always wanted to come in first,” the tank commander said, “but never had the opportunity. Today, I’m going to fulfill my wish. Hang on.”

We shot through the waves like a racing craft. I hunkered down when the spray washed over us. As we got closer, I could see the tide was at least partially coming in if not all the way. Landing would be relatively easy.

Behind me I could see a few of the ducks circling. These smaller boats always made wide circles before they landed. As each boat followed the same pattern, they created substantial waves that made it easier for the ducks to get up the beach. Clearly, they were getting ready to follow us in.

The waves parted, and the wheels touched the ocean floor. Our craft plowed right up the beach until the tank commander pulled it to a halt. I jumped out.

“Congratulations,” he said. “Major Art Shaw, you did it. You’re the first man on Okinawa!”

“Well,” I said, “Intelligence has likely already been here. I imagine the amphibian boys maybe swam in earlier. Maybe somebody else. I’m among the first.”

The soldier laughed. “Yeah, technically maybe some other guys have rolled in. But you are the first 361st Field Artillery Battalion solider to set foot on Okinawa; the first actual fighting man. You still got congratulations coming your way.”

* * *

We started walking around the beach deciding where our troops and the artillery should be located. Intelligence said there wouldn’t be any enemy snipers around this end of the island, so we could be more casual than usual, but we still paid attention to what might be out there.

When nightfall came, we sat around a campfire and talked. The smell of burning wood and the crackle of branches popping reminded me of home. By morning, all the troops would be landing, and the war would be on. The Ninety-Sixth Infantry, called the Deadeyes, would be there along with eight divisions of army and marine infantry. The Seventh, Ninety-Sixth, First Marine, and Sixth Marine divisions would be in the assault.

The men sitting around the embers had differing views of our enemy. On one hand, the Japanese had to be respected. They’d die before they surrendered. Their training taught them that if capture was inevitable, they should commit hara-kiri as the honorable way to die. A Japanese soldier would stab himself in the stomach. As he fell forward, an aide would chop his head off. Gave us something to think about.

On the other hand, they seldom took prisoners. If one of our soldiers held his hands up in surrender, he’d be shot on the spot. An enemy soldier would have a man behind him with a machine gun on his back. The first man would drop while the second sprayed bullets at the people surrendering. To say that scenario didn’t sit well was the understatement of the day.

The enemy hid in “spider holes,” narrow, small foxholes that were well camouflaged. You could nearly step on them and never see what was right under your feet. Once you walked passed, they’d hop out and kill you. Then they’d jump back in the hole and wait for the next victim. No matter what anyone says, atrocities breed atrocities. At the same time, our boys weren’t raised with such desperate approaches. However, we had to take their tactics seriously or we’d end up getting killed.

By morning, the beaches were hopping and popping. Men were running everywhere, and the big machinery started coming ashore. At that point, the difficulties created by the coral slowed us down. The weight of bulldozers and large machinery made the coral crumble, and the vehicles would sink into the ocean. The beach was secure, but the coral wasn’t. The ordeal of getting the equipment onto the beach gripped everyone’s attention.

When the Deadeyes of the Ninety-Sixth Infantry surged ashore, they were taken with the thick grove of trees that bordered the beaches. I watched a soldier named Fred Long and his buddy walk into the shrubbery. They spotted an extremely large snake in a tree, which they shot. They pulled the huge snake by the tail back to their bivouac area, and some of the guys strung the reptile up on a pole. The snake measured eleven feet in length, but nobody knew what kind of serpent it was. The only thing that fit the description was a king cobra, but they were not indigenous to the Philippines. A soldier suggested that the monster could have come in when it was small with some unsuspecting shipment from elsewhere. Fascinating creature to behold.

Not long after this, Fred Long was walking through the jungle with a young native who showed up from somewhere. The local tapped Fred on the shoulder and motioned for him to be quiet. He slowly slipped Fred’s rifle from his shoulder and took aim into a tree. Long immediately thought a sniper had him in his sights, but when the native pulled the trigger, a huge lizard fell from the tree.

Long asked, “What are you going to do with that thing?”

The native said, “Eat it! You eat chicken, we eat lizard.”

Well, Dorothy, we certainly weren’t in Kansas anymore.

2

Surprises Ahead

You probably wonder why I haven’t mentioned my wife. The truth is the pace of the operation and the possibility of getting blown away pushed the most important thoughts right out of my mind. Sure, I thought of Joan, but the roar of kamikaze enemy diving at us kept my mind on the war.

Joan’s face floated in and out of my mind, but when we left the USA, we might as well have landed on another planet. San Francisco sank in the sunset and the Philippines came up with the morning sun. The world of my past faded like the evaporating fog. My past blurred into a distant yesterday.

Actually, I was a gunnery instructor at Fort Sill, Lawton, Oklahoma, when I first saw this blonde sitting with a couple of women in Gilbert’s Drug Store. They were talking, drinking Cokes, just killing time. I didn’t know it, but during the winter Joan Payne Terry was a student at Oklahoma College for Women at Chickasha, Oklahoma. She caught my eye, so I grabbed a napkin and scribbled, “You’re the most bored blonde I ever saw. What’s your name? —Artie Shaw (you know, the band director)”

I watched her reading my note. Without missing a beat, she started writing on the same napkin. When the waiter brought it back, I read, “None of your business, signed Dinah Shore.” I started laughing. The name of a famous popular singer made an intriguing response. I thoug...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Maps:
• Authors’ Note
• Prologue: Prelude to Battle
• 1: Okinawa
• 2: Surprises Ahead
• 3: Settling In
• 4: The Enemy Emerges
• 5: Coming Ashore
• 6: A Price to Be Paid
• 7: Sharpening the Focus
• 8: The Snakes Come Slithering In
• 9: Trudging On
• 10: The End of the Honeymoon
• 11: No Rest for the Weary
• 12: Dark Days
• 13: Tombstones Everywhere
• 14: Cactus Hill Coming Up
• 15: Cutting the Cactus
• 16: Time Out
• 17: Tragedy on the Ridge
• 18: Slaughter
• 19: The Struggle to Escape
• 20: Bravery Unequaled
• 21: Valor
• 22: No Letup in Sight
• 23: A Storm Unabated
• 24: Darkness Descends
• 25: In the Dead of Night
• 26: While No One Sleeps
• 27: What Next?
• Starting Over: The Next Phase
• Acknowledgments
• Index
• About the Authors
• Copyright
• About the Publisher