Such a commitment to innovation led to greatly improved support to the foot-slogging infantry. As one rifle battalion commander remarked, “It was not uncommon for a battleship, tanks, artillery, and aircraft to be supporting the efforts of a platoon of infantry during the reduction of the Shuri position.”
Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 12446
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Marine Tanks at Okinawa
The Sherman M-4 medium tank employed by the seven Army and Marine Corps tank battalions on Okinawa would prove to be a decisive weapon—but only when closely coordinated with accompanying infantry. The Japanese intended to separate the two components by fire and audacity. “The enemy’s strength lies in his tanks,” declared Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima before the invasion. Anti-tank training received the highest priority within his Thirty-second Army. These urgent preparations proved successful on 19 April when the Japanese knocked out 22 of 30 Sherman tanks of the 27th Division, many by suicide demolitionists.
The Marines fared better in this regard, having learned in earlier campaigns to integrate infantry and artillery as a close, protective overwatch to their accompanying tanks, keeping the “human bullet” suicide squads at bay. Although enemy guns and mines took their toll of the Shermans, only a single Marine tank sustained damage from a Japanese suicide foray.
Lieutenant Colonel Arthur J. Stuart commanded the 1st Tank Battalion during the Okinawa campaign. The unit had fought with distinction at Peleliu a half-year earlier, despite shipping shortfalls which kept a third of its tanks out of the fight. Stuart insisted on retaining the battalion’s older M-4A2 Shermans because he believed the twin General Motors diesel engines were safer in combat. General del Valle agreed: “The tanks were not so easily set on fire and blown up under enemy fire.”
By contrast, Lieutenant Colonel Robert L. Denig’s 6th Tank Battalion preferred the newer M-4A3 model Shermans. Denig’s tankers liked the greater horsepower provided by the water-cooled Ford V-8 engine and considered the reversion to gasoline from diesel an acceptable risk. The 6th Tank Battalion would face its greatest challenge against Admiral Minoru Ota’s mines and naval guns on Oroku Peninsula.
The Sherman tank, much maligned in the European theater for its shortcomings against the heavier German Tigers, seemed ideal for island fighting in the Pacific. By Okinawa, however, the Sherman’s limitations became evident. The 75mm gun proved too light against some of Ushijima’s fortifications; on these occasions the new M-7 self-propelled 105mm gun worked better. And the Sherman was never known for its armor protection. At 33 tons, its strength lay more in mobility and reliability. But as Japanese antitank weapons and mines reached the height of lethality at Okinawa, the Sherman’s thin-skinned weak points (1.5-inch armor on the sides and rear, for example) became a cause for concern. Marine tank crews had resorted to sheathing the sides of their vehicles with lumber as a foil to hand-lobbed Japanese magnetic mines as early as the Marshalls campaign. By the time of Okinawa, Marine Shermans were festooned with spot-welded track blocks, wire mesh, sandbags, and clusters of large nails—all designed to enhance armor protection.