Possumblog

June 21, 1945

Okinawa Surrenders.

On June 21, 1945, Japanese troops surrendered the Pacific Island of Okinawa to the United States after one of the longest and bloodiest battles of World War II. Having recovered the South Pacific islands from Japanese control, the United States was ready next to launch an onslaught on the Japanese mainland.

In September 1940, Japan allied itself with Germany and Italy to form the Axis powers and established a base in French Indochina. One year later, Japan moved troops to southern French Indochina and was poised to move against the Netherlands Indies, seeking to acquire an oil source.

When the United States, Britain, and the Netherlands placed an embargo on oil exports to Japan, Japan responded quickly with the attack against the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor. In rapid succession the Japanese military forces with their superior force, occupied the Philippines, the Netherlands Indies, Malaya, Singapore, and invaded Burma and Thailand. Japan had achieved its goal of complete control of the South Pacific. [...]

Ah, so it was all about OIIIIIL, eh? And obviously, we brought the war on ourselves by not respecting the needs of the Japanese. Oh, sure, that little escapade into Manchuria (and Peking, and Shanghai, and Nanking, and French Indo-China, and Burma) was naughty, but, hey, that reckless cowboy FDR was dead set on dragging us into a war to make his oil buddies richer.

Ahem. Anyway, the fight for Okinawa was one of the bloodiest and toughest engagements the United States has ever fought.

[...] Okinawa was the last critical outpost the United States needed to reclaim before launching an attack on the Japanese home islands. As in the progressive invasion of the other Pacific Islands, the U.S. began the onslaught with a series of air attacks on Okinawa and islands nearby, during the months from October 1944 to March 1945.

From this time until the end of the war, the Japanese responded with an intense and desperate effort, increasing the kamikaze attacks on American ships and other targets and introducing to these suicide missions a new weapon, the baka, a piloted missile. In these guided missiles, the pilot reached more than 600 miles per hour in his final dive, crashing into his target with more than a ton of explosives built into the nose of the aircraft. During the battle of Okinawa alone, the kamikaze pilots were directly responsible for the death of almost 5,000 American soldiers in 355 air raids. [...]

The ship my father sailed home on after the war, the USS Hancock CV-19, was struck by two kamikaze attacks, one during operations supporting the Okinawa invasion.

[...] On June 21, Lieutenant General Ushijima Mitsuru surrendered Okinawa to the United States. The next day he committed suicide. The United States had taken the island with the loss of 12,000 American lives and 100,000 Japanese lives. Still Japan refused to concede that the Second World War was in effect over. The ultimate surrender of Japan to the Allies would be, according to Japanese cultural norms, an unthinkable dishonor. [...]

Of course, it's really impossible to say for sure, but I think if you look at the history, it's safe to say the world would be a far worse place had this "cultural norm," or the one that had festered in Germany, been allowed free rein. Same goes for any sort of "cultural norm" today that preaches that all infidels must die.

It might also be worth noting that to this day, sixty years on, we STILL have Marines, soldiers, airmen, and sailors stationed there.

Posted by Terry Oglesby at June 21, 2005 10:32 AM