OKINAWA — APRIL 1

At about 0530 we rot underway from Kerama Retto, heading east in the morning twilight toward Keise-Shima. Our assignment for the invasion was to arrive off Keise-Shima at 0630 and take on board a group of high-level Army staff, headed up by an Army General. The general and his staff would control the operations of the 155mm guns landed the day before on Keise-Shima.

I remember vividly how the general, to whom I offered my chair on the bridge, as he and his personnel began to orient themselves with our ship’s facilities said to me, “What is that delicious aroma?” I replied, “Sir, that’s coming from our galley, where my cook (a gifted, phlegmatic North Dakotan named Ray Kjelland, who baked not only fine meals but also surprised us-in good weather and bad-with delicious bread, rolls, and pastries; and who was held in far greater awe than the captain-a ranking that disturbed me not.) is preparing the noon meal: roast turkey, with all the fixin’s, topped off not only by freshly baked apple pie but apple pie with cheese!” I then added quickly, “General, if you are able to knock off for noon meal, you and your staff are most welcome to join us.” The general looked at me-he wasn’t very old for that exalted rank- and smiled. “I’d sure like to.”, he said. As the aroma of the cooking birds permeated the entire topside of the ship, I saw a reflective look on his lean face. I was sure that he was balancing in his mind the probable field rations available ashore from the Army versus the gourmet meal aboard our ship.

NOTES:

1. It turned out that the general never did return to my ship to take me up on this prandial offer.  
2. It would occur to me years later that the roast turkey meal served aboard my ship on D-Day at Okinawa would symbolize—for me— the gigantic logistical capability of the U.S. It almost defies the imagination to realize that, while the war in Europe was still in progress-our forces had crossed the Rhine about 2 weeks before the Okinawa invasion—the planning and mounting of this major invasion in the Pacific would not overtax our national resources. One could have reasonably expected that short rations or field rations would be supplied to the ships participating in the opening day of the invasion, rather than the magnificent food that was provided, not only to major warships carrying top brass officers but to small ships like mine. I am confident that, had the Japanese discovered that turkey would be on all our menus that day, it would have served to confound and demoralize them. Transporting of troops, ammo, and materials of war were the expected normal attributes of mounting a major invasion thousands of miles from the U.S. mainland, but—turkey!

H-HOUR — OKINAWA

As the sun rose, our ship had neared Keise-Shima. The Army general riding my ship began to communicate battle orders to the artillery forces which had landed on Keise-Shima the day before. Everything had gone well with this group, which had endured the lonely night on these islets. Their luck had held: a few shells landed nearby, without injury or damage to them. And a torpedo— very probably launched from an enemy submarine—had run up on the beach without detonating.

We had arrived at our assigned station close off the beaches of Keise-Shima and were standing by for whatever additional orders might be given to us. I had a chance to scan the horizon and to look toward the beaches of Okinawa, lying 6 miles to our east. I was dumbfounded to see—as far as my eyes could reach the most enormous number of ships and vessels I had ever before witnessed: battleships, cruisers, transports, auxiliary ships, amphibious craft—a naval panoply of every imaginable type of hull. And there were so many destroyers that to count them would be meaningless. What I was seeing was the gigantic armada of 1,500 ships committed to the invasion. I learned later that the transports were carrying over 300,000 troops—enemy troop strength on Okinawa being estimated at over 250,000.

H-Hour, if memory serves, was set for 0800, about an hour away. By now, it seemed that every ship, from the battlewagons to the LS s with their deadly racks of rocket ammo, were firing on the Okinawan coast. The noise was so unbelievable that, after a short time, it became part of the background. I remembered reading, years before, the typical phrase used by writers to describe the noise of massive gunfire: “the din of battle”: Now I knew what that phrase sought to convey.

As a result of the huge volumes of ammo being thrown against their targets on the coast, the visibility—on what had been a clear morning, with an al­ most windless condition—began to deteriorate rapidly. A light blue haze began to spread over the skies, obscuring surface objects and the Okinawan coastline. The distinctive smell of cordite permeated the area.

At this moment, a terrible crack was heard, coming from the Long Toms on Keise-Shima, firing their first salvo. The noise was deafening, coming so close to our ship. I had been close aboard a destroyer firing its authoritative 5″25’s, which gave a sharp, loud noise; and, I had passed directly beneath the fire of a capital ship hurling its 16″ main batteries—with the shells being visible and looking, for all the world, like slow freight trains flying in the sky—but, I must confess, the noise created by these 155m guns was like something I had never before experienced. I must state, that I was very, very relieved that this weapon was on our side! Within—it seemed—seconds the awesome fire of the 155s resumed, blotting out all other sensory perceptions on the parts of those of us nearby. The volume of fire coming from these 155s continued unabated, and I recalled the words of the Army artillery officer that the Germans thought that the U.S. had some kind of automatic weapons available—how else could one explain, reasoned these battle-hardened German troops, the unbelievable rate of fire?

Meanwhile, the Army general and his staff left our ship, using an LCI to take them to some preordained command position ashore, at Keise-Shima, or, perhaps, elsewhere. We continued to remain on station off the Keise-Shima throughout the long day. The highlight of this first day was the wonderful turkey dinner, served at noon meal. All hands turned to as valiant trenchermen consuming the entree and all of the fixin’s, including cranberry sauce, olives and celery. Dessert was as promised to that Army general1freshly baked apple pie with slices of cheese to top off a superb meal. War is hell for certain people at some fixed point in time. We knew that the U.S. troops now ashore on Okinawa’s bloody beaches were facing injury and death; and that their meals-if indeed they had time to eat—were spartan combat rations, quite in contrast to our lavish fare. This realization did not interfere in the slightest with our appetites. Now, this is not to sound unfeeling about the brave dogfaces on the beaches-they had our silent prayers, however awkwardly framed. Life must go on, and our crew happened to be aboard ship and not on the beaches. We would have gladly shared with the troops if they were in physical reach. (At Palau, after the initial fighting on the beaches had subsided, our ship, which was on an inner patrol screen about 1 mile off the shore, would periodically spot small amphibious craft, piloted by marines, “drift” out toward us. The gyrenes would gesture to us that they had broken down, and we would close these craft and heave over a tow line, preparing to low them in close to the beach. We’d then ask whether they wanted some chow and ciggies. They’d nod in assent, and, after receiving the offerings, as we were rapidly nearing the shore, they’d manage to start up their “faulty” engines and shove off back to the beach. It was a standing rule of the game that neither side showed anything other than poker faces during these episodes.)

The reader might well wonder about the somewhat extensive coverage which I have given to the food served aboard ship. Far more experienced Navy skippers than I, with the full support of the naval establishment, recognized the high importance of food aboard ship—contributing very significantly to the morale of the crew. The importance of food on small ships, where the crowded conditions aboard could have an adverse effect on discipline and morale, cannot be overstated.

The day wore on, and by now the activities of ship and boat movements had settled down somewhat, as the thousands of troops and mountains of supplies were put ashore on Okinawa. Continuous gunfire from the 155’s on Keise-Shima and thousands of rounds fired onto the inner sections of the island of Okinawa had increased the pall of light-blue smoke continuing to envelop the entire sea area, from the shoreline of Okinawa outwards for (as I found out later when we headed west back to the Kerama Retto) a distance of about 10 miles. Lack of wind throughout the day had caused this condition to persist. Curiously, the exposure throughout the entire day to this smoke cover did not seem to manifest itself by, e.g., running or smarting eyes or by coughing on the part of our crew.

About 1600 signals were passed to prepare for night retirement by the majority of the ships laying to off Okinawa. The threat of Kamikazes coming in at dusk and during the night against the innumerable targets presented by so many vessels bunched together was considered to be real. Accordingly, the Navy would use, this first night and on subsequent nights, the following procedure: at a set time—about 2 full hours before sunset—all ships involved would be ready, steam up and anchor details ready to haul in the hook, to get underway exactly at the time specified. Groups of ships would then fan out to the south and east in radial lines, i.e., one group might proceed on base course of 180 degrees true; another group would be assigned to travel on a base course of 160 decrees true, and so on, such that by nightfall all groups would be over the horizon about 20 or more miles away from Okinawa, and, be­ cause the respective groups had used different base courses, they would also be 20 or more miles away from one another. This maneuver, called, aptly, “night retirement”, removed the ships from the invasion beach areas, where, if they had stayed overnight, they would have been tempting targets for the Kamikazes: and greatly reduced the chances of Kamikazes of finding them after dark, and, it was calculated, the Kamikazes might find one group but not the others. Courses and speeds of the night retirement groups were calculated to bring the groups back to Okinawa by morning twilight, for resumption of duties off Okinawa.

And, well before the groups of ships would depart from Okinawa on their night retirement, the white-hulled hospital ships would get underway on their own night retirement—separate from the combatant ships—and sail alone. (about a month later, my ship would have an experience with a hospital ship: we were close to the beach at Okinawa, and, about 1600, spotted a small craft, which was heading toward us, its crew frantically waving their arms at us. When we drew close to them, a Pharmacist’s Mate in the small craft called up to us that he had two seriously wounded infantrymen aboard: that these men had to be delivered to the hospital ship right away; that the hospital ship was getting underway for night retirement and was not near enough for the small craft to catch up with its slow speed. We took the two wounded men aboard and began to head for the hospital ship, now making knots. My crew were trying to comfort these men, as they lay in stretchers, and one of my crewmen beF.an to offer a lit cigarette to one of them, but was informed by our own Pharmacist’s Mate that the poor man had a serious chest wound and could not smoke. I was busy on the bridge, trying to coax flank speed (for our ship:14 knots) as we trailed the hospital ship. The hospital ship ignored our visual signals to slow, that we had two seriously wounded men aboard, requiring expert medical attention, and that we could not match their superior speed. I had looked at these wounded men and I thought, looking at their chalk-white faces and at their bloody bandages, that they would not survive the night if not given professional attention. The range between my ship and the hospital ship began to increase. I made a command decision and cut in our voice radio, identifying us, stating the problem and advising, command afloat that 1 could not assume responsibility for these wounded men if the hospital ship didn’t slow for us to approach them. In about five minutes, the hospital ship’s wake lessened, and then we saw a motor whaleboat from the hospital ship being lowered into the water. The whaleboat approached us, came alongside, and the two wounded men were safely lowered into that boat, which proceeded at once to head back to its ship.

This is not to portray the hospital ship’s command group as unfeeling. They knew that a short number of months before, a U.S. naval hospital ship had sailed away on night retirement on its own, far away from the combat ships. As was the then practice, the hospital ship was proceeding during hours of darkness with all navigation and other lights fully lit, together with the brilliantly lit red crosses shown on both sides of the ship and also topside. The hospital ship was attacked by Japanese aircraft, suffering serious casualties. After that terrible incident, all hospital ships sailed without lights at night. Much later, I would ponder whether the hospital ship, which had not wanted to stop for the two wounded men aboard my ship, was not, perhaps, weighing up the odds of treating two men—and, perhaps, saving their lives—but placing the hospital ship, its gifted staff, patients, and crew in peril by slowing its departure from Okinawa that late afternoon.

At last, the ships to be involved in night retirement were ready to depart. This did not include my ship, which w s ordered to proceed to the Kerama Retto and anchor overnight, together with some other vessels. As evening twilight commenced, my ship headed back to Kerama Retto. We anchored in one of the coves and prepared to spend the night. As darkness came, and evening meal was over, we began to pick up radio warnings from command afloat about imminent suicide raids, expected to take place very shortly—large numbers of enemy planes having been reported by our—I use the word again, with reverence—gallant destroyers on ultra-lonely radar picket duty 50 to 75 miles north of us and in the direct line of flight of Kamikazes flying south from their homeland.

That night was a horror for all forces at or near the Kerama Retto and Okinawa. Commencing at about 2000, the first wave of Kamikazes was in our vicinity and seeking targets of opportunity.

The ships, including my command, ordered to anchor in the Kerama Retto overnight were all small craft, with minuscule fire power. Command afloat ordered our vessels not to open fire if air raids occurred in our anchorage, the concern being that, if we did open fire with our 40s and 20s, the firepower would not be sufficient to ward off air attacks, even if we removed all tracer rounds—they would, with their fiery trajectories, attract positive attack from the enemy. So, we were forced to sweat out the night, with darkened ships, hoping that we would last out this night.

As I recall, there were 119 separate air raids over our vicinity during the night. The suiciders were apparently ignoring our anchorage in Kerama Retto and concentrating on the beach areas on Okinawa. We were very relieved to see morning twilight: the Kamikazes usually knocked off their attacks—at least in this early stage of the invasion-before daylight so as not to be spotted and attacked by our carrier planes.

Thus passed our first day and night off Okinawa.