Battle of Okinawa...

I know that battle cost the US nearly 11,000 dead,(land & sea forces combined) the Japanese almost 120,000 dead,(including over 1,000 Kamikaze pilots) & over 150,000 Okinawan civilians were killed.

Japanese commander Gen. Ushijima knew he couldn't defend the whole island, as its flat areas were open to naval gunfire & tank assaults. Thus, he chose to fortify the south of the island, which is shaped like an arrowhead. He had time to make his defenses tough as possible, & his troops were well-armed & supplied, with plenty of artillery. he had a cave complex almost on the order of that at Iwo Jima, with plenty of food & water. This hilly, craggy area was resistant to bombing & naval gunfire.

Many of us know the history of that battle. The Marines & soldiers battered away at the tough Japanese defenses, only slowly cracking them; the battle took 82 days. Near the end of the battle, the US commander, Gen. Buckner was fragged & died when a Japanese shell struck a rock near where he was standing.

Gen. Stilwell, famed for his command in the Chinese theater, was critical of Buckner's handling of the fight. he believed an amphibious landing behind the Japanese lines in the south could've been accomplished, but Stilwell didn't know there were 2 strong Japanese divisions near the only landing beach in the south, placed there in case a landing was tried, and the sea was too shallow & full of reefs there to allow for rapid & plentiful supplying of the troops, plus, Japanese artillery was p[re-sighted on the whole area. But Buckner could've utilized more naval bombardment, bombing, & strafing runs by naval forces, instead of his straightforward attempts to storm the defenses. But finally, the vastly-superior US forces wore down & destroyed the Japanese.

I'm hoping some of you who know more about that battle than I do can tell us why Buckner didn't simply cordon off that southern area, as the rest of the island was completely overrun, including the two airfields on it. There could be no airfield built by the Japanese in the south.

So, why didn't they continue MacArthur's & Nimitz' strategy of "island-hopping", bypassing strong Japanese forces on islands & parts of larger islands our forces didn't consider essential? We used that strategy on New Britain, isolating & cordoning off a large Japanese force in the town of Rabaul, among other Japanese units we bypassed.

Anyone know why this wouldn't've worked on Okinawa ?

 

MacArthur roundly criticized the navy for insisting on completely conquering the Japanese on Okinawa, both during & after the fight. But I think the navy could well have had legitimate reasons. They knew the Japanese had a significant amount of heavy artillery, & they were beginning to appreciate the fact that Japanese artillery was accurate & powerful. They coulda shelled at least one of the airfields we were using, as well as any installation on the southern third of the island, as well as ships 15 miles or closer offshore. It woulda taken at least a whole army to have cordoned them off, & the enemy woulda constantly shelled it & woulda sought to advance & attack when they could. The enemy would certainly not have simply huddled down & waited for us to come at them. And it woulda required many of our ships to remain on station near Okinawa, making them easy for kamikazes to find.