Map 1. Movements of the 6th Marine Division.
Map 2. Okinawa Shima. Area Captured by 6th Marine Division. 1 April-21 June.
1. ORIGIN
Last of the famous Marine divisions of World War II, the Sixth was activated on 7 September 1944 on Guadalcanal, the same island that the First Marine Division had landed on exactly twenty five months before. Although the Sixth Marine Division was new in name, the elements that composed it were, for the most part, as old as the war itself. From the First Provisional Brigade that had fought so notably on Guam came two regiments: the Fourth Marines and the Twenty Second Marines. The other regiment of the new division came from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, where it was organized, with the exception of its First Battalion, by Colonel Victor F. Bleasdale from handpicked officers and men.
In command of the new division was Major General Lemuel C. Shepherd, USMC, who had had a varied and colorful career in this war. He had trained the Ninth Marines, afterwards a part of the Third Marine Division, and was later Assistant Division Commander of the First Marine Division during the Gloucester operation in New Britain. When the landings on Guam were made in July of 1944, General Shepherd (then a Brigadier) was in command of the First Provisional Marine Brigade. His Brigade, consisting of the Fourth and Twenty Second Marines plus reinforcing elements, fought notably on Guam and received the Navy Unit Commendation for its excellent record.
The Assistant Division Commander was Brigadier General William T. Clement, USMC, another colorful figure. On the staff of Admiral Thomas Hart in the Philippines at the outbreak of the war, General Clement (then a Colonel) left Corregidor on a submarine. Later he served in London, and for a while was Commandant of the Marine Corps Schools at Quantico before returning to the Pacific.