Rain and mud continued to plague the combatants. One survivor of this segment of the campaign described the battlefields as “a five-mile sea of mud.” As Private First Class Sledge recorded in the margins of his sodden New Testament, “Mud in camp on Pavuvu was a nuisance.... But mud on the battlefield is misery beyond description.” The 96th Division wearily reported the results of one day’s efforts under these conditions: “those on forward slope slid down; those on reverse slope slid back; otherwise no change.”
The Marines began to chafe at the heavy-handed controls of the Tenth Army, which seemed to stall with each encounter with a fresh Japanese outpost. General Buckner favored a massive application of firepower on every obstacle before committing troops in the open. Colonel Shapley, commanding the 4th Marines, took a different view. “I’m not too sure that sometimes when they whittle you away, 10–12 men a day, then maybe it would be better to take 100 losses a day if you could get out sooner.” Colonel Wilburt S. “Big Foot” Brown, a veteran artilleryman commanding the 11th Marines, and a legend in his own time, believed the Tenth Army relied too heavily on firepower. “We poured a tremendous amount of metal into those positions,” he said. “It seemed nothing could be living in that churning mass where the shells were falling and roaring, but when we next advanced the Japs would still be there and madder than ever.” Brown also lamented the overuse of star shells for night illumination: “I felt like we were the children of Israel in the wilderness—living under a pillar of fire by night and a cloud of smoke by day.”
Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 123507
Cleanliness is next to godliness, figures this Marine, as he stands knee-deep in water while shaving in the midst of a totally saturated and flooded bivouac area.
Such a heavy reliance on artillery support stressed the amphibious supply system. The Tenth Army’s demand for heavy ordnance grew to 3,000 tons of ammo per day; each round had to be delivered over the beach and distributed along the front. This factor reduced the availability of other supplies, including rations. Front-line troops, especially the Marines, began to go hungry. Again partial succor came from the friendly skies. Marine pilots flying General Motors Avenger torpedo-bombers of VMTB-232 executed 80 air drops of rations during the first three days of June alone. This worked well, thanks to the intrepid pilots, and thanks to the rigging skills of the Air Delivery Section, veterans of the former Marine parachute battalions.
Offshore from the final drive south, the ships of the fleet continued to withstand waves of kamikaze attacks. Earlier, on 17 May, Admiral Turner had declared an end to the amphibious assault phase. General Buckner thereafter reported directly to Admiral Spruance. Turner departed, leaving Vice Admiral Harry W. Hill in command of the huge amphibious force still supporting the Tenth Army. On 27 May, Admiral William F. “Bull” Halsey relieved Spruance. With that, the Fifth Fleet became the Third Fleet—same ships, same crews, different designation. Spruance and Turner began planning the next amphibious assault, the long-anticipated invasion of the Japanese home islands.
General Shepherd, appreciative of the vast amphibious resources still available on call, decided to interject tactical mobility and surprise into the sluggish campaign. In order for the 6th Marine Division to reach its intermediate objective of the Naha airfield, Shepherd first had to overwhelm the Oroku Peninsula. Shepherd could do this the hard way, attacking from the base of the peninsula and scratching seaward—or he could launch a shore-to-shore amphibious assault across the estuary to catch the defenders in their flank. “The Japanese expected us to force a crossing of the Kokuba,” he said, “I wanted to surprise them.” Convincing General Geiger of the wisdom of this approach was easy; getting General Buckner’s approval took longer. Abruptly Buckner agreed, but gave the 6th Division barely 36 hours to plan and execute a division-level amphibious assault.
Okinawa’s “Plum Rains” of May and June came close to immobilizing the U.S. Tenth Army’s drive south. Heroic efforts kept the front-line troops supported logistically.