POSTSCRIPT

Candor (There’s Tacitus, looking over my shoulder again!) compels me to say that, at the time I participated in the events described, I had very little understanding of the U.S. strategic and tactical decisions in the conduct of the war in the Pacific.

In retrospect, I was, at the time, like an ant in tall African grass, unaware of Mount Kilimanjaro in the distance. Passage of time hasn’t made me an expert, I realize, but, over the years I have had some reflections and thoughts, which I should like to offer.

THE VAST PACIFIC

The U.S. national will and purpose—to win—and the unbelievably immense industrial and mobilization strength on our side notwithstanding, the sober facts were that we were at war with a fanatically determined, brave enemy, and the theater of war where we would engage the enemy was the vast Pacific.

The Pacific is the world’s largest ocean, with an area of about 64 million square miles—greater than the total land mass (about 57 million square miles) of the entire world, and twice the area of the Atlantic, the next largest ocean.

Distances in the Pacific are typically in the thousands of miles. The distance from Boston to London—3,100 miles—is compared, e.g., with the following Pacific mileages:

San Francisco-Tokyo — 3,100 miles

San Francisco-Philippines — 7,000 miles

San Francisco-Australia — over 7,000 miles

Pearl Harbor-Tokyo — 3,800 miles

An additional dimension to the stupendous logistics problems which the U.S. faced and solved, as history would show, the U.S. provided, concurrently and not sequentially, armed forces and war supplies to widely-scattered theaters of war. The coined expression “arsenal of democracy” would prove to be an accurate description of the U.S. in WW II.

Japan—like the U.S.— had a seafaring tradition. We and they understood well the uses of seapower, and, the perils of the sea—not comprehended by others—were familiar to both nations. Japan, desperate for the natural wealth (such as oil and minerals) of the East Indies and the Asiatic coast, counted on the preoccupation of the U.S. in the European theater and other areas of war to permit them to seize the western end of the Pacific. They, like us, knew the vast reaches of the Pacific. They simply underestimated our strength.

Unlike the U.S. and Japan, The Third Reich, dominated by Adolf Hitler, would not show an understanding of the sea and its associated problems, such as tides and weather. After Hitler abandoned his plan to cross the English Channel from the Dutch and Belgian coasts, Winston Churchill, the war Prime Minister of Great Britain—another seafaring nation which had a deep understanding of seapower, would refer, contemptuously, to Hitler as “die Landratte”—the land rat. Propagandistic? Yes. Accurate? Yes. Hitler (not his naval staff had no understanding of the use of seapower. His knowledge of the use of seapower was based on his dim perception of amphibious operations, gained from observing practice river-crossings across placid, narrow streams and rivers. The expected terrors of the sea, currents, winds, waves, and fog, together with all the other dangers of the open sea, were not within his knowledge, therefore, did not exist, he ordained.

My experiences in the Pacific have given me a certain…bias: if the author of a military history of the Pacific war does not set out, early and in detail the special nature of war at sea, where the sea is an absolutely major factor in all operations, my confidence in the ability of the author to analyze and to inform is very small.

ARM-CHAIR STRATEGY

Were the Japanese negligent in their defense preparations at Kerama Retto? At Keise-Shima? Did sheer good luck favor our side? Over the years, I have pondered these questions without truly reaching a firm conclusion.

The Japanese, I now know, had been busily engaged in fortifying lonely is­ lands in the vast Pacific for perhaps 20 years before their attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.Their expansionist plans to dominate the western Pacific had been a long-standing national goal. Strongly fortified bases, very carefully prepared for both offensive and defensive purposes, spread out, in strict secrecy, from the Japanese homeland. As the U.S. island-hopping strategy and epic victories brought our forces inevitably closer to the Japanese home is­ lands, it must have been inescapably clear to our enemy that we would carry the war to their very shores.

Victories in the Philippines and at Iwo Jima gave a clear signal to the Japanese that the next major target had to be Okinawa-so close to the Japanese homeland. It could be reasonably expected that the Japanese would review all of their defense preparations with an even more critical eye, were all contingencies taken into account? What needed to be done that hadn’t been done before? With the U.S.in—for all purposes involving movement of troops and supplies to Okinawa—complete control of the sea and the skies, could anything be done at this time?

I was familiar, to some degree, with the high skills of our experienced, gift and dedicated planners. Whenever my ship was to participate in an invasion, I would receive a copy of the Top Secret invasion plan, covering, in unbelievable detail, every facet of the operation, with all factors having been fully analyzed.

For example, the invasion plans evidenced a thorough analysis and exploitation of the natural features of the Kerama Retto: deep water ran up to the edges of the shelving shores, thus providing—in the absence of floating drydocks—for the beaching and repair or salvage of the many ships-particularly destroyers- expected to be damaged by Kamikaze attacks; and, although the topographical features of these islands did not permit the construction of airfields, the several lengthy channels were to be used for seaplane operations and anchorages.

As I would appreciate, much later, the U.S. decision to occupy and exploit Keise-Shima was based on careful considerations of the risks if we landed in the area. The plan to occupy Keise- Shima was approved before our forces left the Philippines for Okinawa. With a deep knowledge of military history, our planners were aware that similar occupations of islands and islets close to the enemy’s mainland-all for the purpose of surprise and for use of such sites as gun emplacements to menace the mainland-had taken place, during our own Civil War, at Ship Island off Biloxi, Mississippi and on Port Royal Island, South Carolina, with successful results. And, as I had mentioned earlier, the Army artillery colonel riding my ship enroute to the occupation of Keise­Shima told me that our forces had, during WWII, made a daring landing on an island close to German-held shores in southern France, catching the Germans by surprise and living to tell about it.

As to Kerama Retto, I am inclined to believe that the Japanese were not negligent in its defense. They knew, from all of our operations to date, that we selected island targets that could and would become “stationary aircraft carriers”, from which we could launch aircraft, once the island targets were taken.

Kerama did not fill the bill: because of its physical features, no airfields could be built, so, for this important reason, it could not, they doubtless reasoned, be a target. Referring to the SCENARIO, which I had laid out earlier, what self-respecting Cape Codder would conclude that some island off-shore would ever be the target, with the main beaches of Cape Cod so enticingly close at hand? Martha’s Vineyard—what did that have to offer, with Falmouth and Hyannis available? It could well be that the invasion of the Kerama Retto—rather than of Okinawa—caught the Japanese by surprise, as well as our stepped-up schedule for actions in that area, Their plans to ,use the fleet of suicide boats was evidence of careful planning on their part for the defense of Okinawa, The failure (lucky for us!) to bring the pilots of these suicide boats to Kerama Retto could be attributed to the total command of the air and sea enjoyed by our side, our fleet had been ranging up and down the Okinawan coast before the invasion of Kerama Retto not only for bombardment purposes, but also to intercept and sink any enemy seagoing traffic.

Concerning Keise-Shima, I am somewhat persuaded that the Japanese were at fault in not having established—years or months before the expected invasion of Okinawa—the artillery coordinates for immediate and accurate fire by their coast defense guns against any U.S. force attempting to land on these islets. Perhaps my ship survived our “suicide” mission in occupying the Keise-Shima because Japanese planners had not read and digested the history of our Civil War: and had not been briefed by their friends, the Germans, about our tricks in southern France. Speaking for myself, I am delighted that the Japanese reading lists for their military were not all- inclusive; and that these Axis partners had not kept up on their correspondence with each other about tricks being pulled by the sneaky U.S. forces.

NOTE:

By coincidence (and sloth!) I have finished this account just a few days after March 17th—a date having dual significance for Bostonians (and, certainly, for me as a South Boston native), commemorating the feast day of St. Patrick and also the evacuation of Boston by the British in 1776.

The military hero who brought about this evacuation was, of course, General George Washington.

General Washington would, I am confident, not only have approved the plan to occupy Keise-Shima but would probably have been the author of it!

Like the planners of the Keise-Shima operation, Washington capitalized on the obvious, he knew that South Boston, which is essentially flat, has a hill, Dorchester Heights, which has an elevation of 150′ above sealevel. He saw that the British troops had apparently ignored these heights in their occupation of Boston. He figured that, if he could seize and fortify these heights, the British forces (including their fleet in Boston Harbor) could be made vulnerable to cannonfire from this relatively high elevation.

When fortifications—with cannon brought from Ft. Ticonderoga by General Henry Knox’s troops—began, the British, awakening to the danger to their forces, planned an amphibious landing at the base of the heights, from their ships in Dorchester Bay.

During our landing operations at Keise-Shima we were fortunate— as I said earlier—in having those gallant destroyers and cruisers engage the enemy’s attention by drawing fire away from us, thus permitting the operation to be completed safely. In similar fashion, our forces were also lucky in 1776: a violent 3-day northeast storm prevented the British from landing at the foot of Dorchester Heights, thus enabling Washington’s forces to complete the fortifications.

When the storm subsided, and the British saw the strongly entrenched forces on Dorchester Heights, they not only abandoned the amphibious landing, but evacuated Boston, taking their troops and Tory sympathizers aboard their fleet, which sailed from Boston on March 17, 1776.

It is difficult for me to truly comprehend that my experiences as skipper of a small Navy ship off Okinawa during that first week—I was, at the time, 27 years old—took place 40 years ago—4 decades! I am aware, though, that, by writing now, for the first time, about events that happened so very long ago, I have gained, in some obscure way which I cannot accurately describe, a new degree of…I’ll call it peace, exorcising some of the dark memories of the terrible times off Okinawa.

Finally, I would learn later that our first seven days off Okinawa coincided with Holy Week: the invasion of Kerama Retto took place on March 26—Palm Sunday; the meeting aboard the destroyer, when we were briefed on our “suicide mission” at Keise-Shima was on March 30—Good Friday; the occupation of Keise-Shima was on March 3l—Holy Saturday; and the invasion of the main island of Okinawa fell on April 1—Easter Sunday morning.