General Shepherd knew he had defeated a competent foe. He counted the costs in his after-action summary of the Oroku operation:
During the 10 days’ fighting, almost 5000 Japanese were killed and nearly 200 taken prisoner. Thirty of our tanks were disabled, many by mines. One tank was destroyed by two direct hits from an 8-inch naval gun fired at point blank range. Finally, 1,608 Marines were killed or wounded.
When the 1st Marine Division reached the coast near Itoman it represented the first time in more than a month that the division had access to the sea. This helped relieve the Old Breed’s extended supply lines. “As we reached the shore we were helped a great deal by amphibian tractors that had come down the coast with supplies,” said Colonel Snedeker of the 7th Marines, “Otherwise we couldn’t get supplies overland.”
Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 125055
This Marine patrol scouts out the rugged terrain and enemy positions on the reverse slope of one of the hills in the path of the 1st Division’s southerly attack.
The more open country in the south gave General del Valle the opportunity to further refine the deployment of his tank-infantry teams. No unit in the Tenth Army surpassed the 1st Marine Division’s synchronization of these two supporting arms. Using tactical lessons painfully learned at Peleliu, the division never allowed its tanks to range beyond direct support of the accompanying infantry and artillery forward observers. As a result, the 1st Tank Battalion was the only armored unit in the battle not to lose a tank to Japanese suicide squads—even during the swirling close-quarters frays within Wana Draw. General del Valle, the consummate artilleryman, valued his attached Army 4.2-inch mortar battery. “The 4.2s were invaluable on Okinawa,” he said, “and that’s why my tanks had such good luck.” But good luck reflected a great deal of application. “We developed the tank-infantry team to a fare-thee-well in those swales—backed up by our 4.2-inch mortars.”
Colonel “Big Foot” Brown of the 11th Marines took this coordination several steps further as the campaign dragged along:
Working with LtCol “Jeb” Stuart of the 1st Tank Battalion, we developed a new method of protecting tanks and reducing vulnerability to the infantry in the assault. We’d place an artillery observer in one of the tanks with a radio to one of the 155mm howitzer battalions. We’d also use an aerial observer overhead. We used 75mm, both packs and LVT-As, which had airburst capabilities. If any Jap [suicider] showed anywhere we opened fire with the air bursts and kept a pattern of shell fragments pattering down around the tanks.