Marines in World War II Commemorative Series By Colonel Joseph H. Alexander U.S. Marine Corps (Ret)...

by Colonel Joseph H. Alexander, USMC (Ret) Daybreak on 29 May 1945 found the 1st Marine Division beginning its fifth consecutive week of frontal assault as part of the U.S. Tenth Army’s grinding offensive against the Japanese defenses centered on Shuri Castle in southern Okinawa. Operation Iceberg, the campaign to seize Okinawa, was now two months old—and badly bogged down. The exhilarating, fast-paced opening of the campaign had been replaced by week after week of costly, exhausting, attrition

Major General Pedro A. del Valle, USMC, commanded the 1st Marine Division. Del Valle was 51, a native of San Juan, Puerto Rico, and a 1915 graduate of the Naval Academy. He commanded the Marine Detachment on board the battleship Texas in the North Atlantic during World War I. Subsequent years of sea duty and expeditionary campaigns in the Caribbean and Central America provided del Valle a vision of how Marines might better serve the Navy and their country in war. In 1931 Brigadier General Randol

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 123072 [Sidebar ( page 10 ):] Marines and Army infantry faced strong opposition from more than 100,000 troops of Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima’s Thirty-second Army , although American intelligence initially estimated Ushijima’s strength at only 60,000 to 70,000. Most of the Thirty-second Army’s reinforcing organizations had traveled to Okinawa from previous posts in China, Manchuria, and Japan. The first to arrive was the 9th Infantry Division , a crack v

Operation Iceberg got off to a roaring start. The few Japanese still in the vicinity of the main assault at first light on L-Day, 1 April 1945, could immediately sense the wisdom of General Ushijima in conceding the landing to the Americans. The enormous armada, assembled from ports all over the Pacific Ocean, had concentrated on schedule off Okinawa’s southwest coast and stood coiled to project its 182,000-man landing force over the beach. This would be the ultimate forcible entry, the epitome

On a less formal basis, the Army frequently lent logistical support to the Marines as the campaign struggled south through the endless rains. Even the fourth revision of the Marine division’s table of organization did not provide sufficient transport assets to support such a protracted campaign executed at increasing distances from the force beachhead. A shortfall in amphibious cargo ships assigned to the Marines further reduced the number of organic tracked and wheeled logistics vehicles availa

Air Liaison Parties accompanied the front-line divisions and served to request close air support and direct (but not control —the front was too narrow) aircraft to the target. Coordination of lower-echelon air requests became the province of three Marine Landing Force Air Support Control Units, one representing Tenth Army to the fleet commander, the others each responsive to the Army XXIV Corps and IIIAC. This technique further refined the experiments Colonel Megee had begun at Iwo Jima. In most

General Geiger insisted that his LVT-As be trained in advance as field artillery. This was done, but the opportunity for direct fire support to the assault waves fizzled on L-Day when the Japanese chose not to defend the Hagushi beaches. Lieutenant Colonel Louis Metzger commanded the 1st Armored Amphibian Battalion and supported the 6th Marine Division up and down the length of the island. Metzger’s LVT-As fired 19,000 rounds of 75mm shells in an artillery support role after L-Day. The Marines m

Both tank battalions fielded Shermans configured with dozer blades, invaluable assets in the cave fighting to come, but—surprisingly—neither outfit deployed with flame tanks. Despite rave reports of the success of the USN Mark I turret-mounted flame system installed in eight Shermans in the battle of Iwo Jima, there would be no massive retrofit program for the Okinawa-bound Marine tank units. Instead, all flame tanks on Okinawa were provided courtesy of the U.S. Army’s 713th Armored Flamethrower

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 126987 [Sidebar ( page 52 ):] The Secretary of the Navy awarded Presidential Unit Citations to the 1st and 6th Marine Divisions, the 2d Marine Aircraft Wing, and Marine Observation Squadron Three (VMO-3) for “extraordinary heroism in action against enemy Japanese forces during the invasion of Okinawa.” Marine Observation Squadron Six also received the award as a specified attached unit to the 6th Marine Division. On an individual basis, 23 servicemen received t

The Washington National Records Center in Suitland, Maryland, holds primary documents of the Okinawa campaign. The III Amphibious Corps After Action Report provides the best overview, while reports of infantry battalions contain vivid day-by-day accounts. The Marine Corps Oral History Collection contains 36 interviews with Okinawa veterans, among them Lemuel C. Shepherd, Jr.; Pedro A. del Valle; Alan Shapley; Edward W. Snedeker; and Wilburt S. Brown. The Marine Corps Historical Center also holds

Colonel Joseph H. Alexander, USMC (Ret), served 29 years on active duty as an assault amphibian officer, including two tours in Vietnam and service as Chief of Staff, 3d Marine Division, in the Western Pacific. He is a distinguished graduate of the Naval War College and holds degrees in history from North Carolina, Jacksonville, and Georgetown. Colonel Alexander, an independent historian in Asheville, North Carolina, wrote Closing In: Marines in the Seizure of Iwo Jima and Across the Reef: The M