War Stories II (72 page)

On 12 April, a major loss had occurred far from the battlefield on Okinawa. Word was communicated from the War Department in Washington that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was dead of a massive stroke after
serving twelve years in office. Many of the young men fighting could remember no other president than FDR. Not many of them knew anything at all about their new commander in chief, Harry S. Truman.

Six days later, war correspondent Ernie Pyle headed to the front lines with GIs from the 77th Division. When Pyle joined the fight in the Pacific in early April, he had sought to become acquainted with the Marines. He wrote that their battles in the Pacific had been so brutal, and the Marines' reputation so fierce, that he was almost afraid of them. But after meeting the Marines in person he wrote that, “they have fears, and qualms and hatred for the war the same as anybody else. They want to go home as badly as any soldier I've ever met.”

Pyle tried to understand the minds of the Marines he had chosen to follow. He found them to be young, polite, and compassionate. They bowed to civilians on the roads and did what they could to help them. They were Americans, after all. Pyle finally concluded that, “the Marines do not thirst for battles. I've read and heard enough about them to have no doubts whatever about the things they can do when they have to. They are okay for my money, in battle and out.”

Pyle's dedication to getting his story in the heat of battle led him directly into machine gun crossfire on 18 April on the island of Ie Shima. He was with an American officer when a Japanese machine gun opened up on their vehicle. Both men jumped out of the vehicle and headed for a nearby ditch. But Pyle raised his head too soon, and enemy bullets from the machine gun pierced his head just below the brim of his helmet. He was killed instantly, and was later buried on the island.

The inclement weather reduced visibility and cut down on Allied aircraft assaults and recon. But it also helped to keep the kamikaze away. Yet without the recon to improve their handmade maps, the Americans had badly underestimated that only 50,000 to 65,000 Japanese troops were on the island. In truth, there were almost twice that many hiding in the maze of tunnels and caves.

One American general remarked to his superiors, “It's going to be really tough.... I see no way to get them out except by blasting them out yard by yard.”

Okinawa's torrential rains, mudslides, poisonous snakes, mosquitoes, and disease only added to the hell experienced by the American troops. While on Okinawa, the Marines and soldiers also had to endure the constant stench of rotting human flesh.

Nevertheless, in almost three weeks, on 21 April, the soldiers and Marines had put an end to resistance at the northern end of Okinawa. The Japanese defensive line was finally breached on 28 April. General Buckner's troops attacked the two flanks of the enemy forces and fought ferociously against the Japanese soldiers, whose fortifications were beginning to weaken.

The battle for the rest of the island would continue through the end of June. Before hostilities were over, more than half a million Americans of the 5th Fleet and the 10th Army would be involved.

There would be more casualties right up to the last day of battle on Okinawa. Private First Class Herman “Buff ” Buffington, an Army infantryman, had been lucky before shrapnel hit him on that last day.

In Europe, things had happened rapidly. On 28 April, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was captured and killed, and his body was hung in the street by Italian partisans while the Allies were taking Venice.

Two days later, Adolf Hitler committed suicide in his Berlin bunker while Soviet troops entered the city, and a week later an unconditional surrender of German troops to Allied forces was announced. These events brought about the official end of the war in Europe.

Three days after V-E Day, General Buckner launched an attack against the Japanese Shuri Castle line, bringing about the fiercest fighting yet on Okinawa. General Ushijima asked Tokyo to send more reinforcements and supplies, but he was refused. Tokyo could not spare any more troops, and had already begun to plan how to deploy all remaining soldiers to protect the Home Islands from an American invasion.

On 20 May, the Japanese had begun their withdrawal from China, getting ready for the inevitable invasion of Japan. Ushijima knew now that it was over. After two months of brutal combat, incurring over 50,000 American casualties, the soldiers and Marines of the 10th Army secured the Shuri Castle line.

Japanese Premier Suzuki announced to the people of Japan that the entire nation “will fight to the very end” rather than accept unconditional surrender. But the Japanese people had to be aware of the obvious.

On 11 June, General Buckner sent a message to General Ushijima to surrender. The Japanese leader dismissed it with great disdain—surrender meant endless shame.

Corporal Mel Heckt was at Shuri Castle as part of the 4th Marine Regiment, made up almost entirely of Marine Raiders. He was a squad leader when his replacement company was sent in to help take Shuri Castle and the rest of the Oroku Peninsula. By the time the combat ended, Heckt had
been promoted to platoon leader, a job for a sergeant, simply because the Marines' heavy casualties had used up all of the sergeants.