Operation ICEBERG: How the Strategic Influenced the

Tactics of LTG Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr. at Okinawa

By

Evan John Isaac

A thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty of

Auburn University
in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the Degree of
Master of History

Auburn, Alabama
December 12, 2015

Approved by

Mark Sheftall, Chair, Associate Professor of History

David Carter, Associate Professor of History
Keith Hebert, Assistant Professor of History
 Abstract

The Okinawan campaign was World War II’s last major offensive

operation. Selected as the last position for which to organize the invasion of

Japan, the scale and intensity of combat led to critical accounts from journalists

accustomed to the war’s smaller amphibious operations in 1943 and 1944. This

criticism carried forward to later historical analysis of the operation’s ground

commander, Army Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr. Labeled as

inexperienced and an Army partisan, Buckner was identified as a major

contributor to the campaign’s high casualty numbers. This historical analysis has

failed to address the impacts of decisions on early war strategy and their impacts

to three key strategic factors: a massive shortage of service units, a critical deficit

in shipping, and the expansion of strategic bombing in the Pacific. This thesis

examines the role that these strategic factors played in influencing the tactical

decision making of General Buckner at Okinawa.

ii
 Table of Contents

Abstract……………………………………………………………………….....……….ii

List of Figures…......…………………………………………...…………………….…iv

Introduction……………………………………………………………………………....1

Chapter 1: Okinawa in the Strategic Context, 1941-1945…………………….…..12

Chapter 2: Service Troop in Short Supply..………………………………………...33

Chapter 3: Shipping Shortages in a Global War…...………………………………53

Chapter 4: Arnold, LeMay, Halsey, and the Strategic Bombing Campaign.........73

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...92

Bibliography………………………………………………………………………..…101

iii
 List of Figures

Figure 1: Central Pacific Organization for ICEBERG, January, 1945..................25

Figure 2: Pacific Theater Organization, January, 1945……………………………26

Figure 3: Airfield Sites, Okinawa and Ie Shima, June 1945………………………81

iv
 Introduction

In a syndicated column published on June 6, 1945, journalist David

Lawrence blasted the conduct of the final battle of World War II, claiming that

“mistakes appear to have made the Okinawa1 affair a worse example of military

incompetence than Pearl Harbor”, and that the battle was “the worst setback we

have suffered in the Pacific.”2 Lawrence’s comments were squarely aimed at

Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr., commander of the Tenth United

States Army and the Ryukyus Force, the ground and joint headquarters

responsible for directing the Okinawa campaign. His forces battled difficult

terrain, poor weather, and a fanatical Japanese defense of the island on the

doorstep of Japan. The resulting American casualties shocked the press, who

were unused to witnessing battles of this scale in the Pacific.

Admiral Chester Nimitz, Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet

(CINCPAC) and Pacific Ocean Areas (CINCPOA), and Buckner’s immediate

superior, offered a strong rebuke of Lawrence in a column published on June 17,

1945. He stated that Buckner’s “military and tactical decisions were his own, but

they had my concurrence and that of the senior naval commanders concerned.”

1
This thesis utilizes place names as utilized in primary sources. The Ryukyus (Nansei Shoto to the
Japanese) designates the entire island chain extending south of Kyushu, of which Okinawa is the largest.
The Ryukyus and Okinawa are used interchangeably, unless otherwise noted. Formosa is the modern
Taiwan/Chinese Taipei. The Bonins (Ogasawara Gunto to the Japanese) stretch for 1,000 miles south of
Tokyo, Iwo Jima is the largest island in the chain.

2
David Lawrence, “Okinawa,” The Evening Independent, St. Petersburg, FL, 6 June 1945, 4.

1
Nimitz also addressed the significant terrain and supply problems that prohibited

additional amphibious landings.3 He went on to blame inter-service and personal

rivalries for influencing the press to criticize the U.S. commanders’ performance

in the battle.

Nonetheless, a number of prominent historians subsequently echoed

criticism similar to that of Lawrence in their more recent analyses of the Okinawa

campaign. Allan Millet and Williamson Murray’s A War to Be Won: Fighting the

Second World War concluded that Buckner’s “flawed generalship contributed to

the slaughter” on Okinawa.4 This conclusion ignored Nimitz’s high opinion of

Buckner’s competence and ability to command a multi-service organization.

Buckner described in his journal that Nimitz selected him for command partly out

of appreciation for his delicate handling of a board of inquiry into an earlier Army-

Marine controversy at Saipan.5

Strategic Theory and Doctrine

Both the media portrayal and later analysis by military historians highlight

a traditional problem in historical analysis of military campaigns: focusing on the

tactical decision-making while ignoring the influence of the strategic context

3
“Nimitz Defends Okinawa Campaign,” New York Times, June 17, 1945, 3.

4
Allan R. Millett and Williamson Murray, A War to Be Won: Fighting the Second World War (Cambridge:
Belknap Press, 2000), 512.

5
Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr. and Joseph Stilwell, Seven Stars: The Okinawa Battle Diaries of Simon Bolivar
Buckner, Jr. and Joseph Stilwell, ed. Nicholas E. Sarantakes (College Station: Texas A&M University Press,
2004), 17. Buckner served as president of the board of inquiry into the relief of Major General Ralph
Smith, commander of the Army’s 77th Infantry Division, by Marine Lieutenant General Holland Smith
during the Battle of Saipan. Buckner’s diary entry of October 7, 1944 claims that only after questioning of
his inter-service views did Nimitz select Buckner for command of ICEBERG.

2
shaping those decisions. Okinawa provides a particularly illustrative case study

of how strategic factors limit the range options available to tactical decision

makers. However, Okinawa has to this point seldom been analyzed through this

lens.

This thesis utilizes the prominent military historian Peter Paret’s definition

of strategy: “the use of armed force to achieve the military objectives” of the war

as a whole, and “by extension, the political purpose of the war.”6 In the Pacific

war, strategic practitioners included the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who formulated

strategy, and theater commanders such as General Douglas MacArthur and

Nimitz, who executed it. By contrast, subordinate commanders such as Buckner,

even though he oversaw a large-scale operation, remained tactical practitioners.

Martin van Creveld’s definition of the tactical level of war, that “the use of

available military means in order to win battles,” provides a firm foundation.7

However, any definition of strategy and tactics should also include a discussion

of operations, defined as a coordinated series of simultaneous or sequential

battles.

Operation OVERLORD provides an example of the concepts in practice.

At the strategic level, the operation was the first in a series of campaigns

designed to take Allied forces from Normandy to the defeat of Germany. The

6
Peter Paret, Introduction to Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1986), ed. Peter Paret, 3.

7
Martin van Creveld, “Napoleon and the Dawn of Operational Warfare,” in The Evolution of Operational
Art (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), eds. Martin van Creveld and John A. Olsen, 8.

3
operational aspect of OVERLORD consisted of a series of battles beginning with

the D-Day landings and ending with the struggle against the stubborn hedgerow

defenses of the German Army. These battles involved tactical decision-making

and methods, such as the airborne drops and amphibious landings carried out in

the initial Allied invasion of Normandy.

A model for understanding the strategic level of war involves three

interconnected concepts: ends, ways, and means. Ends are defined as the set

of conditions that must be accomplished for victory, that is, the end state of a

conflict as determined by senior military and civilian leaders.8 A nation achieves

the end state through the application of ways. These can take the form of

military, diplomatic, or economic actions, either singly or any combination of the

three.9 Strategic bombing, blockade, and invasion were three ways available to

achieve the end of the unconditional surrender of Japan. The final piece of the

strategic puzzle consists of the means, the most important element of the

equation. At its most basic it comprises the capabilities of a nation, for military

ways it consists of the total manpower and material.10 Manpower consists of

ground and air fighting units and ship crews. The nation’s military capabilities

include the equipment and logistics necessary to organize, deploy, and fight.

8
John A. Olsen, introduction to The Practice of Strategy: From Alexander the Great to the Present, eds.
John A. Olsen and Colin Gray (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 3.

9
Olsen, Practice of Strategy, 3.

10
Ibid.

4
Available “means” restricts the “ways”, and this in turn may dictate achievable

ends.

Though it seems the easiest piece of the framework, each word carries

enormous importance to the strategy-making process. In the case of the war

against Japan, two phrases from the Joint Chiefs’ mission statement,

“unremitting pressure” and “unconditional surrender,” dictated the strategy of the

final year. The former required the use of all service forces: naval, air, and land,

to continuously engage the enemy. Combining this with the second term adds

numerous possible combinations of ways and means. Air, land and naval power

each offered solutions, colored by each service branch’s commitment to certain

strategic practices discussed below, to reach the end state.

Factors related to the grand strategic demands of the Pacific Theater as a

whole, and even of the global U.S. effort against the Axis powers, shaped

Buckner’s battle plans and conduct of the campaign on Okinawa. The most

significant of these factors included the shortage of cargo and assault shipping,

lack of service troops, and the competing demands of the strategic air war

against Japan. Previous assessments and histories of the Okinawa campaign

have almost universally overlooked the crucial role played by these

considerations in circumscribing Buckner’s options when it came to the fight for

the island.

The campaign for Okinawa was launched on April 1, 1945. Centrally

located between the Marianas Islands and Japan, Okinawa and other islands in

the Ryukyus offered terrain suitable for the mass construction of air and naval

5
bases required to conduct the invasion of Japan. By far the largest land

operation in the Central Pacific Campaign, seven Army and Marine divisions

fought a determined Japanese garrison of over 110,000 personnel. At sea the

U.S. Navy battled continuous kamikaze attacks, with a loss of over 5,000 killed

and 7,000 wounded. After three months of combat Tenth Army casualties were

7,300 killed and 31,000 wounded. The price was much steeper on the other

side, as 107,000 Japanese defenders were killed.11 Okinawa also claimed the

highest ranking American combat casualty of the war when Japanese artillery fire

killed Buckner in the last stages of combat on the island, depriving him of any

chance to defend his own legacy.12

Military service histories provided the first in-depth analysis of the

Okinawa campaign. Leading the way in 1947, the U.S. Army Historical Division’s

Okinawa: The Last Battle served as the most important secondary source for

later works. All four authors had first-hand experience serving as embedded

historians during the execution of the campaign, and their work comprises one

volume of the U.S. Army Historical Division’s seventy-nine volume collection from

World War II, the “Green Book Series.” The Last Battle only briefly addressed the

strategic before proceeding to provide an in-depth tactical history of the Okinawa

campaign. Other works in the series focused on the strategic level, but narrowed

11
Appleman, Roy E., et al, Okinawa: The Last Battle (Washington, D.C.: Historical Division, Dept. of the
Army, 1948), 490; Murray and Millett, 514.

12
Ibid, 461. Buckner died of wounds received on June 18, 1945. He had been personally observing an
attack by the 2nd Marine Division when he was struck in the chest by shrapnel from Japanese artillery.

6
in scope to individual topics including global grand strategy, theater level

logistics, and strategic bombing.

Numerous historians have addressed Okinawa at the tactical level. In

1955 Chas Nichols and Henry Shaw penned the official Marine Corps history of

the campaign, Okinawa: Victory in the Pacific. Subsequent prominent accounts

include Gerald Astor’s Operation Iceberg and Robert Leckie’s Okinawa: the Last

Battle of World War II. Millet and Murray’s A War to Be Won stands out among

works addressing the entire Pacific theater by its singular attention to critiquing

the leadership of Buckner

What is missing from all of these histories is an attempt to tie decisions

made by Buckner to the overall strategic situation in the Pacific. Prominent

histories of the campaign have echoed the comments of Lawrence, only judging

leadership through the lens of the tactical. Leckie focused primarily on the

tactical level and based his criticism of the campaign as a whole on the high

number of Navy casualties. He devoted an entire chapter, “Minatoga: An

Opportunity Lost,” to criticize Buckner’s failure to utilize his Marine units for a

second landing at Minatoga, behind Japanese defenses on Okinawa.13 Leckie

speculated that Buckner wanted Army units to receive the bulk of the honor for

defeating the Japanese and deliberately delayed employing III Amphibious Corps

13
Though not addressed in this thesis, Navy Department documents undermine the claims of Lawrence
and later historical critics of Buckner for not attempting a secondary landing at Minatoga. Captain A.E.
Becker, chief of the Pacific subsection in the Chief of Naval Operation’s War Plans Division reviewed all
information available and determined that the beaches at Minatoga were not well suited for amphibious
operations.

7
in southern Okinawa.14 Millet and Murray, while addressing the war as a whole,

also focused on casualties in the campaign as the sole determinant in critiquing

Buckner’s leadership. Iwo Jima’s 28,000 Marine casualties against 21,000

defenders, proportionally greater than Okinawa’s 38,000 casualties when faced

with 110,000 defenders, did not receive similar criticism. Neither work addressed

strategic limitations to tactical operations at Okinawa.15

A headquarters at the army level of formation became a requirement as

the Central Pacific campaign moved beyond operations against small island

outposts to the larger landmasses closer to Japan. Pacific commanders initially

selected Formosa as the objective of an operation, codenamed CAUSEWAY,

which would have been Buckner’s first command at the head of Tenth Army.

His mixed force of Army and Marine divisions was to seize this key position in

Japan’s defensive perimeter. After months of planning, the Joint Chiefs of Staff

cancelled CAUSEWAY due to shortages in required service troops, a decision in

which Buckner played a key role.16

The Joint Chiefs of Staff then selected the Ryukyus Islands, including

Okinawa, for Tenth Army’s next objective. Smaller in size than Formosa, they

offered the same advantages as Formosa: terrain suitable for both air and naval

facilities and a location from which Army Air Force bombers could strike Japan.

14
Leckie, Robert, Okinawa: The Last Battle of World War II (New York: Viking, 1995), 155.

15
Leckie, Okinawa, 160; Millet and Murray, A War to Be Won, 512; Gerald Astor, Operation Iceberg: The
Invasion and Conquest of Okinawa in World War II (New York: Donald Fine, 1995), 1.

16
Appleman, Okinawa, 4, 25.

8
The capture of the Ryukyus, in an operation eventually codenamed ICEBERG,

would establish the final assault position for invasion of the Japanese Home

Islands. Following the atomic bombing and surrender of Japan this operation

instead became for the U.S. the last major battle of World War II, and one of its

costliest.

Strategic Practice in the Pacific Theater, 1941-1944

Strategic practice has different vantage points ranging from branch of

service, to experience and education, which produce different interpretations on

which ways and means best accomplish the ends. Alfred Thayer Mahan’s

dominant place in U.S. naval theory pushed the concept of victory solely through

sea control. Mahan believed that the control of commerce would ensure victory

against an opponent dependent on oceangoing trade. Ground invasion would be

unnecessary if the Navy had the power to dominate key shipping lanes.17

The Army remained divided between two vastly different strategic

doctrines, one focusing on ground operations and one on the relatively new

realm of air power. With the preponderance of its forces associated with ground

combat, the dominant military theory can be traced from Napoleonic era theorist

Antoine Jomini through updates by the lesser known Emory Upton and Elihu

Root. Occupation of the enemy’s home territory served as the only means to

17
Alfred T. Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783, Public Domain, 8, 26-27,
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13529/13529-h/13529-h.htm.

9
achieve victory.18 Army Air Corps leaders, a minority within the Army as a whole,

were primarily influenced by Italian air theorist Giulio Douhet and American

aviation pioneer Billy Mitchell. Their concept that victory would best be achieved

through the massing of air power, led to strategic bombing campaigns in both

theaters of the war.19 Significantly, air power theory concerned the navy as well,

where those focused on creating doctrine for warfare at sea sat astride Mahan

and Douhet. Aviation would assist the main battle fleet in establishing sea

control, but was also capable of continuous air strikes against the enemy

homeland, thus giving carrier based aircraft both a tactical and strategic

capability.20

Decisions in war strategy closely followed these theoretical concepts. All

strategic ways would require advanced bases to achieve the ends. The Navy

would need bases from which it deploy surface, submarine, and air forces

against Japanese shipping corridors. The Army Air Forces also required

advanced bases, but for the purpose of placing heavy bombers in range of the

enemy’s industrial heart. Finally, the Army would require staging areas from

which to mount a ground invasion force for Japan.

18
John L. Romjue, American Army Doctrine for the Post-Cold War (Washington D.C.: U.S. Army Center of
Military History, 1997), 11-13.

19
Curtis LeMay, et al, Strategic Air Warfare: An Interview with Generals Curtis E. LeMay, Leon W. Johnson,
David A. Burchinal, and Jack J. Catton, eds. Richard A. Kohn and Joseph P. Harahan (Washington, D.C.:
Office of Air Force History, U.S. Air Force, 1988), 28, http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uiug.30112002117478.

20
Thomas C. Hone, “Replacing Battleships with Carriers in the Pacific in World War II,” Naval War College
Review, Vol. 66, No. 1 (2013), 56-57.

10
 Military service doctrine played a significant role in determining United

States strategy at the onset of World War II. It continued as a point of debate

and contention until the final stages of the war. The addition of grand

personalities like Generals Douglas MacArthur and Hap Arnold, and Admiral

“Bull” Halsey, added further complexity to the planning and execution of strategy

in the war against Japan. When Buckner assumed command of Tenth Army in

June, 1944, his future operations were inextricably tied to the interaction of these

elements.

11
 Chapter 1: Okinawa in the Strategic Context, 1941-1945

Many strategic factors played a role in setting the stage for Operation

ICEBERG., but all shared a common component: logistics. The splitting of the

Pacific into two commands led to competing demands for resources. Though the

U.S. military was able to support both theaters through 1943, the next two years

stretched the limits of the country’s industrial power and force generation

capability.

In a similar fashion, divergent views on how to achieve strategic objectives

led to additional competition for troops, shipping, and logistics. They also helped

determine intermediate objectives on the path to Japan. Strategic bombing,

which ramped up operations starting in mid-1944, required Nimitz to secure

several islands in the Marianas specifically for their suitability as B-29 bases.

Twentieth century American military strategy reflects the dominant role of

logistics. All military ways and means share a dependency on supply lines

stretching from the scene of action to the homeland. General Omar Bradley,

commander of the U.S. 12th Army Group in World War II and post-war Army

Chief of Staff, frequently stated that military “amateurs talk tactics, professionals

talk logistics.”1 During World War II, U.S. offensive strategy often expended

1
Richard Shireff, “Conducting Joint Operations,” in The Oxford Handbook of War, eds. Julian Lindley-
French and Yves Boyer (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2012), 376. For a naval perspective, ADM

12
significant effort to target both enemy production and movement of material.

Strategic bombing in both theaters focused primarily on industrial areas, and

submarine warfare in the Pacific aimed to cut off Japan from its raw material

sources in Southeast Asia.2 During the prelude to D-Day U.S. airpower

devastated French railways to cut off both reinforcements and logistics from

reaching Normandy. Late in World War II the biggest impediment to U.S.

logistics came not from the enemy, but from distance.

Prior to World War II, the 1916 punitive expedition in northern Mexico was

the last time the U.S. carried out a land-only campaign. The First World War

required extensive sea, and to some extent air transport, to support military

efforts. The geographical scope of World War II stretched even the vast logistical

resources of the United States, exemplifying a military strategy problem more

recently coined as the “tyranny of distance.”3 According to this concept, the

amount of logistics required to exert power grows exponentially as the distance

from the borders of a nation increases. This leads to larger and larger supply

chains that consume a majority of the material before it reaches front-line military

forces.4 What’s described as the “tooth-to-tail” ratio measures the corresponding

Hyman Rickover stated the “bitter experience in war has taught the maxim that the art of war is the art of
the logistically feasible.” Quoted from The Logistics of War, eds. Andrew W. Hunt, James C. Rainey, and
Beth Scott (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air Force Logistics Management Agency, 2000), 168.

2
LeMay, Strategic Air Warfare, 47, 54.

3
Military theorists borrowed this phrase from the title of a 1966 book by Geoffrey Blainey, The Tyranny of
Distance: How Distance Shaped Australia’s History.

4
Lester W. Grau and Jacob W. Kipp, “Bridging the Pacific: The Tyranny of Time and Distance,” Military
Review (July-August 2000), 71.

13
effect on personnel requirements. U.S. ground forces in World War II operated

at a typical ratio of 1:4, or four support personnel per armed combatant.5

The Pacific war dwarfed the European theater in size and distance

between forces, further skewing the tooth-to-tail ratio. Supply vessels required

seventeen days to travel from Pearl Harbor to Okinawa and twenty-six days to

journey from San Francisco.6 In comparison, ports in Europe could be reached

in less than two weeks from East Coast ports. U.S. West Coast port capacity

also proved insufficient, forcing a portion of Pacific logistics through ports on the

Atlantic and Gulf Coasts.7 Increasingly hardened Japanese defenses at Iwo

Jima and Okinawa added to the supply chain problems. Massive expenditures of

ammunition proved the only option to destroy cave and concrete positions. Major

General Ben Hodge, commander of the XXIV Army Corps at Okinawa, referred

to the battle as “90% logistics and 10% fighting.”8

The United States began a series of operations in the spring of 1945

intended to isolate Japan and provide positions from which to force their

surrender. Indecision by the Joint Chiefs of Staff through mid-1943 continued to

frustrate strategic planning efforts to defeat Japan. The split of the Pacific Ocean

5
John J. McGrath, The Other End of the Spear: The Tooth-to-Tail Ratio (T3R) in Modern Military Operations
(Ft. Leavenworth: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2007), 18.

6
Samuel Eliot Morrison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II Vol. XIV: Victory in the
Pacific 1945 (Edison, NJ: Castle Books, 1960), 165.

7
Sarantakes, Introduction to Seven Stars, 5

8
Major General Ben Hodges, April 12, 1945 interview with LTC Stevens, Army Historical Division, untitled
notes, 1-26 April 1945, 10th Army Operations Reports 1940-48, Box 2441, Entry (EN) 427, Army Adjutant
Generals Office, Record Group (RG) 407, National Archives College Park (NACP).

14
into two theater commands, the Southwest Pacific Area under General Douglas

MacArthur and the Pacific Ocean Area under Admiral Chester Nimitz, served as

the primary culprit. Service chiefs Marshall and King each lobbied for their own

officers to receive overall command in the Pacific.

To keep the peace President Roosevelt urged maintaining the status quo,

dooming any chance of a Pacific unity of effort similar to General Dwight

Eisenhower’s European Theater of Operations.9 According to Edwin Hoyt, the

division of the theater resulted in a disruption of ten years’ worth of U.S. Navy

pre-war planning that envisioned a direct push across the Pacific to China. While

Nimitz and King continued with this plan in the Central Pacific, MacArthur’s

campaign progressed through a ground forces heavy southerly route that would

have been bypassed by the Navy.10 Ronald Spector argued that the dual

campaigns, while portrayed as a safe and sensible strategy, nearly led to

disaster. Each theater had come close to massive setbacks, for Nimitz at

Bougainville in 1943 and for MacArthur at Biak in 1944.11

Decisions made by the two theater commanders frequently interfered with

the operations of their counterparts, making any strategic planning difficult. Both

theater commanders, like their service chiefs, jockeyed for designation of their

9
Ed Cray, General of the Army: George C. Marshall Soldier and Statesman (New York: W.W. Norton and
Company, 1990), 377-79.

10
Edwin P. Hoyt, How They Won the War in the Pacific: Nimitz and His Admirals (Guilford, CT: Lyons Press,
2012), 295.

11
Ronald Spector, Eagle Against the Sun: The American War Against Japan (New York: Free Press, 1985),
3.

15
area of operations as the decisive effort to defeat Japan. To keep the peace

between the two public heroes of the Pacific, a plan for merging their command

structures awaited victory on Okinawa, when MacArthur would assume

command of all Army forces and Nimitz all Navy forces.12

Strategic Endgame, 1944-1945

Beyond the competition between theater commanders Nimitz and

MacArthur, senior leaders of the military expressed support of the Joint Chiefs’

strategic vision, but promoted strategic planning that favored their own service in

ways that were at odds with the Joint Chiefs’ vision. At the Joint Chiefs of Staff

level, all strategic communications after August 1944 included a two-step

process to win the war. Step one involved “lowering Japanese ability and will to

resist by establishing sea and air blockades, conducting intensive air

bombardment, and destroying Japanese air and naval strength.” Step two called

for victory through “invading and seizing objectives in the industrial heart of

Japan.”13 Competition between the services for primacy on operational ways

contributed to a reduction in military effectiveness during the waning months of

the war.

12
Wesley F. Craven and John L. Cate, Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. V: From Matterhorn to
Nagasaki, June 1944 to August 1945 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), 531-32.

13
U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), Joint Strategic Survey Committee 119, “Report on Operations Against
Japan Subsequent to Formosa,” Records of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Records of the JCS), Part 1: Pacific
Theater (PT), Pacific Ocean Area (POA) Reel 9, (Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1983),
August 30, 1944, 119.

16
 Army Air Force leaders continued to hold the belief that strategic bombing

alone would induce surrender. General Hap Arnold and his senior B-29

commander in the Central Pacific, Major General Curtis LeMay14, believed that

heavy bombing of Japanese cities provided the option that would be the most

cost effective and result in the fewest American casualties.15 They continued to

push for a massive expansion of very long range (VLR) bombers, several times

deliberately exceeding Joint Chiefs authorized unit numbers, a move that

competed for personnel, logistics, and shipping with forces required to take and

hold Japanese possessions. On the naval side, Admiral Earnest King, Chief of

Naval Operations, served as lead advocate for a tight blockade of the Japanese

Home Islands to choke off access to necessary civilian and military supplies.

This option received little support as a means to end the war, but still resulted in

extensive submarine and air interdiction of Japanese shipping lanes.16

A third and final approach favored by Marshall, and both Nimitz and

MacArthur, argued that only through the invasion of Kyushu, and Honshu if

necessary, would Japan surrender.17 Months of B-29 firebombing attacks

14
Army Air Forces LTG Millard Harmon (later MG Willis Hale and LTG Barney GIles) on paper served as
Deputy Commander of Arnold’s Twentieth Air Force and the Pacific Theater’s senior strategic bomber
commander. In reality LeMay, commander of XXI Bomber Command, served as the theater’s primary
advocate and operational commander of the strategic bombing campaign against Japan.

15
LeMay, Strategic Air Warfare, 59, 62. LeMay was asked if “you were trying to defeat Japan specifically
by means of strategic air power, and there were no ifs, ands, or buts about it?” LeMay responded with a
curt “that’s right”; Herman S. Wolk, Cataclysm: General Hap Arnold and the Defeat of Japan (Denton, TX:
University of North Texas Press, 2010), 66-69.

16
Ernest J. King and Walter M. Whitehill, Fleet Admiral King: A Naval Record (New York: W.W. Norton &
Co, 1952), 437-41, 529-30; Hoyt, How They Won the War in the Pacific, 486.

17
Wolk, Cataclysm, 72-73; William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur, 1880-1964
(Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1978), 431.

17
inflicted civilian casualties far exceeding the carnage in Germany, but did not

diminish the will of the Japanese military to fight.18 Instead, resistance actually

increased as the U.S. moved closer to Japan, undermining the premise of the

Navy and Army’s indirect approach strategies. Bombing and blockade appeared

to require a timeline that extended beyond the limits of a war weary U.S. nation.

Combined with uncertainty regarding the results of the Manhattan Project, the

Joint Chiefs of Staff concluded that Japan would likely surrender only in the event

of physical occupation. Even so, this shift in strategic ways did not slow the

growth of the bombing campaign. It continued until the end of the war, requiring

a significant share of Pacific theater resources.

Pre-war planning had included the seizure of Formosa as a necessary

step to victory in a war against Japan. After regaining the initiative from early

Japanese victories, the 1939 Rainbow II plan, developed by the Joint Army-Navy

Board, assumed initial victories by Japan, but envisioned regaining the initiative

through recapturing the Philippines. The islands would then serve as a base for

attacks against Japanese forces on the Chinese coast and Formosa.19 The lack

of an updated strategic plan during the early war years left Formosa as a de-

facto objective. In 1943 this materialized as Operation CAUSEWAY, intended for

execution in Nimitz’s Central Pacific campaign during spring 1945. Designed to

seize only a portion of Formosa, those areas best suited for airfields and naval

18
LeMay, Strategic Air Warfare, 58.

19
Edward S. Miller, War Plan Orange: The U.S. Strategy to Defeat Japan, 1897-1945 (Annapolis: Naval
Institute Press, 1991), 257-58.

18
facilities, CAUSEWAY would sever Japan from its supply bases and forces in

Southeast Asia. It would also serve as a base for operations on the coast of

China and the Japanese Home Islands. Strategic bombers based in the

Marianas and China would have flight distances to Japan cut in half, as well as

added protection from long-range fighter escorts.

A series of strategic factors in late 1944-early 1945 quickly led U.S.

leaders to alter plans regarding Formosa. The invasion of Leyte in October 1944

fulfilled MacArthur’s promise to return to the Philippines and provided an

advanced base for the planned attack on Formosa. But MacArthur requested an

additional operation to seize the island of Luzon and liberate Manila, a

requirement not accounted for in long-range plans.20 War Department planners

pointed out that until Germany was defeated, troop availability precluded

simultaneous major operations in both the Southwest and Central Pacific

theaters. MacArthur’s Luzon invasion would overlap the planned timeline for

CAUSEWAY.21

Senior leaders of the Army Air Force called into question initial

assumptions by CAUSEWAY planners that Army aircraft could reach Formosa

from central Philippine airbases. Without land-based air support, an invasion of

Formosa would have faced significant Japanese air power from the island itself,

20
Hoyt, How They Won the War in the Pacific, 353.

21
War Department, Operations Division, SS 282 MISC, Comparison of Operation “Central Luzon” Based on
Revised RENO V and Operation CAUSEWAY Based on GRANITE II, (undated), 1; SS 282 MISC, Discussion of
Assumption that war in Europe ends by 15 NOV 44, 1 September, 1944, 2, Box 366, Entry 421, Office of
Director of Plans and Operations, TS, ABC Correspondence, 1940-1948, War Department General and
Special Staffs, RG 165, NACP.

19
mainland China, and the southern Home Islands. Naval aviation was insufficient

to gain air superiority. Other voices called into question the entire premise

behind the Formosa operation.22

When assessing the range of operations available after CAUSEWAY the

Joint Staff Planners concluded that the seizure of Formosa was unnecessary for

the invasion of Japan, as the Ryukyus would still have to be occupied.23 With

this in mind senior leaders soon came to the conclusion that the strategic

premise for CAUSEWAY no longer existed: the East China Sea could be severed

by air and naval forces operating from the Philippines and any subsequent

invasion of China would lengthen, rather than shorten, the war.

Most importantly, Buckner identified a critical shortage of combat and

service troops available for Operation CAUSEWAY. Initial requirements for the

limited occupation were 414,000 personnel, with an additional 150,000 troops

needed for the seizure of the nearby island of Amoy.24 U.S. Army Major General

Edmond Leavey, Nimitz’s assistant chief of staff for logistics, wrote in an internal

memo on August 26, 1944, that “Army Service Troops for CAUSEWAY over and

above what is already in the Pacific Ocean Areas are going to be practically

22
Clayton K.S. Chun, Leyte, 1944: Return to the Philippines (Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing, 2015), 7.

23
JCS, enclosure to JCS 924, “Operations Against Japan Subsequent to FORMOSA,” Records of the JCS, Part
I: 1942-1945, The Pacific Theater, Pacific Ocean Areas (Reel 9), June 30, 1944.

24
HQ, Tenth Army, CMDR Tenth Army to CINCPOA, Forces – CAUSEWAY – GRANITE II, August 17, 1944,
17, Box 71, Tenth U.S. Army A.G. Section Operational Reports and Plans, 1944-1945, U.S. Army Commands
1942-1945, RG 338, NACP.

20
impossible to find.”25 Upon reexamination of CAUSEWAY, senior planners

determined that the entire island must be taken.26 Estimates from the Army’s

War Plans Division identified a shortfall of 132,000 combat troops and 300,000

service troops to occupy all of Formosa, well beyond the quantity of troops

available, even given the May, 1945 defeat of Germany.27

Operation ICEBERG Emerges

After realizing Operation CAUSEWAY lacked the resources for execution,

particularly in light of MacArthur’s success in adding Luzon to the Philippine

Campaign objectives, Nimitz and the Joint Chiefs shifted direction to occupation

of islands in the Ryukyu and Bonin chains. Iwo Jima, largest of the volcanic

Bonins, offered a base for long-range fighter aircraft escorts to Marianas-based

B-29s. The island’s small size also allowed the operation to occur

simultaneously with the invasion of Luzon. The Ryukyus offered both naval

anchorages and a large tactical and strategic airfield capacity half the distance of

that from the Marianas to Japan. U.S. military planners estimated enemy forces

in the Ryukyus to be considerably lower than those on Formosa, which would

significantly reduce the U.S. forces required for combat and support. This made

25
HQ, CINCPOA, Assistant Chief of Staff, Logistics to 46, Service Troops for CAUSEWAY, August 23, 1944, 1,
Box 71, Tenth Army A.G., RG 338, NACP.

26
Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), War Plans Division, VADM D.B. Duncan to VADM Charles
Cooke, Future Operations in the Pacific, Box 68, Strategic Plans, War Department (Series III), Office of the
Chief of Naval Operations, RG 38, NACP.

27
War Department, Operations Division, SS 282 Misc, Comparison of Operation “Central Luzon” Based on
Revised RENO V and Operation CAUSEWAY Based on GRANITE II, 2-3, Box 366, Entry 421, Office of
Director of Plans and Operations, TS “ABC Correspondence 1940-48, RG 165, NACP

21
the Ryukyus operation seem more feasible than CAUSEWAY, but the

requirements were still large enough to delay the operation until the conclusion of

the Luzon and Iwo Jima campaigns.28 Japan was given additional time to

reinforce Okinawa and prepare defenses, increasing both casualties and strain to

the U.S. logistics system.

Nimitz’s selection to command ICEBERG, Lieutenant General Simon

Bolivar Buckner Jr., took command of the Tenth U.S. Army with limited combat

experience. Buckner was the son of Confederate Lieutenant General, and later

governor of Kentucky, Simon Bolivar Buckner. He spent two years at the Virginia

Military Institute before his father secured an appointment directly from President

Theodore Roosevelt to the United States Military Academy at West Point.

Buckner graduated in 1908 and had an uneventful career over the next 30 years.

During World War I he served in a stateside training position until transferring to

aviation, but the war ended before he completed flight training.29

Most of Buckner’s assignments in the 1920s and 1930s were spent in the

academic circles of the Army. During that time Buckner distinguished himself as

a student at the Command and General Staff College and the Army War College,

earning instructor positions at both institutions immediately after graduation from

the courses. He also served as West Point’s Commandant of Cadets, helping to

28
War Department, Operations Division, SS 282, 2-3.

29
Sarantakes, Introduction to Seven Stars, 10-11.

22
shape a cohort of officers that included General Matthew Ridgeway, future

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

During these assignments Buckner gained a reputation for strict

adherence to doctrine, discipline, and maintaining physical fitness. He drove his

own staff hard, at one point drawing the ire of older officers by running them

through obstacle courses on Oahu. Shortly after the U.S. entered World War II,

then-Colonel Buckner received an appointment to command all Army forces in

Alaska, and a corresponding promotion to brigadier general. Three years later

Buckner’s successful management of an increasingly larger force, including

command of joint Army and Navy forces, led to his promotion to lieutenant

general and selection to form the new Tenth Army.30

Buckner’s new Operation ICEBERG, though not conceived to be on the

scale of CAUSEWAY, nevertheless dwarfed the Normandy landings in size and

complexity. Just moving the combat units into assault positions required

precisely-sequenced shipping operations. The three Army divisions and corps

headquarters embarked from the Philippines, the three Marine divisions set out

from Pacific islands geographically distant from one another, and Tenth Army

headquarters departed from Hawaii. Over 1,300 vessels took part in L-day

(landing day).31 This complex arrangement was nearly undone by MacArthur’s

30
Sarantakes, Introduction to Seven Stars, 10-11; Buckner and Stilwell, Seven Stars, 18.

31
HQ, Tenth Army, Tenth Army Action Report: Report of Operations in the Ryukyus Campaign 26 March
1945 to 30 June 1945 (Action Report Ryukyus), September 3, 1945, 5-0-5, 7-III-1, Box 2440, Entry 421, RG
407, NACP.

23
refusal to release units allocated for ICEBERG from operations on Leyte in time

to refit and load shipping.

Plans for the operation were premised on a considerable underestimation

of the number of enemy forces on the island. Intelligence reports identified a

garrison of between 48,000 and 70,000 defenders, when in reality the number

was over 117,000.32 Timetables for occupation of the islands and construction of

airfields and ports, critical to maintaining the Kyushu and Honshu invasion dates,

failed to take into account that the Japanese would staunchly defend the

mountainous southern half of Okinawa, rather than concentrate on contesting the

initial landing, as had been expected. Post-battle analysis claimed a total of

110,000 Japanese and Okinawans killed in action, only 7,000 were captured.

The additional time required to defeat the Japanese disrupted planned shipping

schedules and increased logistics consumption exacerbated service troop

shortages.

A final factor making ICEBERG a particularly complicated operation, at

both the tactical and strategic level, relates to the complexity of its command

structure. Amphibious doctrine called for command to reside with the Navy until

sufficient forces and logistics ashore allowed a ground force commander to

assume command authority. At Okinawa the overall senior command for the

32
HQ, CINCPOA, ICEBERG, CINCPOA Staff Study, Serial 000131, October 25, 1944, 8, Box 71, Entry 421, RG
338, NACP.; JCS, Joint Staff Planners, “Operations Against Japan Subsequent to Formosa,” Records of the
JCS, Part 1: PT, POA, June 30, 1944, 100; Appleman, Okinawa, 490. In an interview two weeks before the
invasion Buckner still held to an estimation of 65,000 Japanese defenders. 21 MAR 45 interview of LTG
Buckner by SGT Burns, Army Historical Division, 10th Army Operations Reports, 1940-48, 110-0.3-110-
0.013, Box 71, Entry 427, RG 338, NACP.

24
amphibious phase belonged to Admiral Raymond Spruance, 5th Fleet

commander. Responsibility for the landing force, both ground and naval forces,

fell to Task Force 51 commander Vice Admiral Richmond Turner. Buckner’s

Tenth Army, designated as Expeditionary Troops, Task Force 56, fell under

Turner’s command.33

Figure 1: Central Pacific Organization for ICEBERG, January, 1945

Source: Appleman, Okinawa, 22.

Once Turner gave the order, Buckner’s headquarters transformed from

solely ground combat control to assume command of all United States forces in

the vicinity of the islands, designated as Ryukyus Force. With this change

33
Appleman, Okinawa, 20-23.

25
Buckner reported directly to Nimitz, removing 5th Fleet from the chain of

command. Spruance, and later Admiral “Bull” Halsey, retained significant

responsibilities in support of ICEBERG, but also took on additional command

duties related to preparation for the invasion of Japan.34

Figure 2: Pacific Theater Organization, January, 1945

Source: Appleman, Okinawa, 20.

During both the planning and initial execution of ICEBERG Nimitz

frequently corresponded directly with Buckner, bypassing two chain of command

levels. This relationship reflected the interconnectedness of operational

execution and future planning. Through mid-April Spruance served as primary

34
Appleman, Okinawa, 23.

26
conduit for current operations discussions. Nimitz dealt directly with Buckner on

any issues that affected operations beyond Spruance and Turner’s direct

command of ICEBERG.

Buckner’s role in the cancellation of CAUSEWAY foreshadowed the

issues that he wrestled with during ICEBERG. His requests for service troops

were still not met, but the deficit was not large enough to stop the operation.

Buckner’s command executed the dual responsibilities of clearing the Ryukyus of

Japanese defenders and of building a massive operational base for the invasion

of Kyushu. Upon the establishment of a beachhead and assumption of joint

command from Turner, Buckner operated one level below the theater

commander and just two levels below the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

While Buckner and his staff were still planning for Operation CAUSEWAY,

the Japanese 32nd Army was reinforcing Okinawa, Tenth Army’s ultimate

objective. The final bastion of Japan’s crumbling defensive perimeter, the terrain

of Okinawa was well suited for defense, with the southern half of the island

dominated by rolling hills and east to west running ravines. The 32nd Army’s

commander, Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima, established a series of

defensive lines by tunneling into the soft coral and limestone hills, creating vast

underground complexes for his over 100,000 troops. Rather than face

devastating naval gunfire trying to defend the beaches, the Japanese waited on

high ground for U.S., protected from the low-angle fire of naval guns. Defensive

positions were well stocked for extended operations, allowing soldiers to remain

27
under cover and limit exposure to the massive amount of firepower available to

the invasion force.35

Major action commenced at Okinawa on April 1, 1945, with over 1,300

ships in the invasion force. On landing day, naval gunfire from battleships and

other combatant vessels were concentrated on possible enemy positions

overlooking the invasion beaches. Expecting heavy initial resistance from the

Japanese similar to Iwo Jima, 2 Army and 2 Marine divisions landed abreast at

Hagushi on the west coast. With the Japanese avoiding an early confrontation,

U.S. forces quickly drove across to the east coast. Continuing to execute based

off the original ICEBERG plan, the III Marine Amphibious Corps turned north

while the XXIV Army Corps moved south. The Marines advanced 84 miles to

occupy the northern half of Okinawa, only opposed by 2,500 Japanese

defenders, completing the task on April 18.36

While Tenth Army enjoyed a relatively easy first week of operations, the

Japanese unleashed their last remaining air and naval forces in a desperate

attack to cripple the U.S. fleet. The battleship Yamato, the largest battleship ever

built, departed Japan on April 6 on a one-way voyage to Okinawa. But Yamato

and her escorts never reached their destination, the entire fleet was destroyed by

relentless air attacks launched from U.S. carriers.37 The Japanese air arm was

much more successful in their mission. Hundreds of kamikaze aircraft attacked

35
Leckie, Okinawa, 6-7.

36
Appleman, Okinawa, 68-69, 75-76.

37
Leckie, Okinawa, 92, 95.

28
U.S. combat and cargo vessels throughout Operation ICEBERG. Though

ultimately unsuccessful in preventing the loss of Okinawa, the kamikaze sunk 34

U.S. ships and damaged 364 more. Total losses for the U.S. Navy were close to

that of the ground forces, with nearly 5,000 killed and 4,800 wounded.38

The first of ICEBERG’s Phase II missions, an amphibious operation to

bypass Japanese defenses and seize the northern Motubu Peninsula, was no

longer required due to the Marine’s speedy advance. The second objective of

Phase II, the nearby island of Ie Shima, was also secured earlier than planned.

After the first week of limited resistance on Okinawa, Buckner ordered the Army’s

77th Infantry Division to seize the Ie Shima on April 16. After several days of hard

fighting, during which famed war correspondent Ernie Pyle was killed, the island

was declared to be secured on April 21.39

To the south the XXIV Corps faced similar light opposition from April 4 to

April 8. But they soon hit the main line of Japanese positions, built into fortified

caves of the hilly terrain of southern Okinawa and centered on the ancient Shuri

Castle. Later analysis would show that the defenders of Okinawa had the

highest concentration of artillery encountered during the Pacific War. With both

of the corps divisions heavily engaged, Buckner ordered the reserve 27th Infantry

38
Appleman, Okinawa, 473.

39
Ibid, 148-49, 163, 181.

29
Division into action. Even three divisions were not enough to crack the stout

defenses.40

With casualties mounting, Buckner began a piecemeal commitment of III

Amphibious Corps from its positions in the north. Marine formations relieved

worn-out units of the XXIV Corps at the end of April. After completing its task at

Ie Shima, the 77th Infantry Division was also thrust into the fight against the Shuri

defenses.41 Author E.B. Sledge was a member of the 1st Marine Division at

Okinawa. In his World War II memoirs Sledge titled the chapter covering the

division’s commitment to the southern front: “Into the Abyss.”42 As his unit

moved in to take over positions from the Army’s 27th Infantry Division Sledge

described the chaos unfolding:

We ran and dodged as fast as we could to a place on a low gentle

slope of the ridge and flung ourselves panting onto the dirt.
Marines were running and crawling into position as soldiers
streamed past us, trying desperately to get out alive. The yells for
corpsmen and stretcher bearers began to be heard. Even though I
was occupied with my own safety, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for
the battle-weary troops being relieved and trying not to get killed
during those few critical minutes as they scrambled back out of the
positions under fire.43

Buckner was forced to resort to tactics utilized in earlier battles, most

recently by the Marine Corps on Iwo Jima. Personally described by the general

40
Appleman, Okinawa, 91, 104, 113

41
Astor, Operation ICEBERG, 278, 281.

42
Sledge, E.B., With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1981), 205.

43
Ibid, 206.

30
as the ‘blowtorch and corkscrew’ method, flamethrower tanks and direct cannon

fire, the ‘blowtorch,’ suppressed enemy fire. This allowed infantry and engineers,

the ‘corkscrew,’ to use explosives and gasoline to seal or clear caves. It was a

brutal, deadly affair that required each individual fighting position to be reduced

one by one. As all positions were mutually supported, casualties on the exposed

‘corkscrew’ teams were extremely high.44

Even with all available units committed to the southern front, Buckner’s

Tenth Army required two months to break through the Shuri Line, finally

achieving success on May 29. It would take another three weeks of heavy

combat to secure the remainder of Okinawa, which was declared to be secured

on June 21, three days after Buckner’s death. The next day, General Ushijima

and his chief of staff, having failed in their mission, committed suicide.45

Front-line combat units bore the brunt of ground casualties. Amongst the

over 7,000 dead and 32,000 wounded ground troops were Sledge and many of

his comrades. In Sledge’s infantry company, only 23 out of 65 veterans of the

earlier Battle of Peleliu came through Okinawa unscathed. Tenth Army also

suffered from over 13,000 non-battle losses, a significant portion coming from

“combat fatigue,” a condition now classified as post-traumatic stress.46 Given the

44
Sarantakes, Introduction to Seven Stars, 6; Appleman, Okinawa, 256.

45
Astor, Operation ICEBERG, 404, 428, 431.

46
Sledge, With the Old Breed, 317; Astor, Operation ICEBERG, 403.

31
brutal nature of the fighting at Okinawa, it was natural for Buckner’s subordinates

to offer suggestions for how to speed up the defeat of the Japanese.

When observing Buckner’s operational and tactical problems only from the

narrow perspective of Okinawa, they appear easy to overcome for the U.S.

military juggernaut. However, facing the combination of years of strategic

indecision in the Pacific, a protracted campaign in Europe, and tight timelines for

the invasion of Japan, Buckner’s decision making at Okinawa was constrained by

the strategic situation in the Pacific. These constraints, either specified by higher

commands or a result of the general war situation, limited tactical freedom of

action. Though Nimitz’s defense of Buckner highlighted terrain difficulties and

inter-service rivalry, neither factor explains the roots of the general’s tactics at

Okinawa. A deeper look into three strategic factors: service troop shortages, lack

of shipping, and support to strategic bombing, identifies how they ultimately

shaped the outcome of Operation ICEBERG.

32
 Chapter 2: Service Troops in Short Supply

In November 1944, a Pearl Harbor conference room was the scene of a

debate between men whose organizations consisted of hundreds of thousands to

millions of military personnel. The assembled senior staff officers of CINCPOA,

USAFPOA, Tenth Army and other commands were desperately trying to address

a severe shortage of the service units required for Operation ICEBERG. The

Pacific Theater had already been stripped of every available units for the

upcoming offensive so the conferees looked to curtail lower priority missions.

After a lengthy discussion of the causes of the shortage, Rear Admiral McMorris,

Nimitz’s logistics officer, suggested reducing services in Hawaii, proclaiming that

“some of the Engineer activities could be cut off…we have to get engineers from

somewhere.” Various engineer activities in Hawaii were examined , but by the

end of the tabulation Colonel Marston, the USAFPOA G-4, frustratingly drew the

frustrating conclusion that any such moves would be a “drop in the bucket” and

that “we have a deficiency of some 40,000 troops and what we are talking about,

will give us two to three hundred men.”1

Decisions made in 1941 and 1942 that calculated the numbers of U.S.

troops thought to be required to win World War II had set the nation on a course

1
HQ, CINCPOA, Minutes of Conference between Staff Representatives of CINCPOA, COMGENPOA,
COMGENAAFPOA, and COMGEN10THARMY on 24 November, 1944, November 24, 1944, 12-14, 16, 18,
Box 71, Entry 421, RG 338, NACP.

33
for the types of dilemmas faced by the planners of Operation ICEBERG in 1945.

The Army’s 1941 Victory Plan set a requirement for 8,500,000 personnel,

including 215 combat divisions, to win a two-front war.2 Largely based on a

timeline that included a landing in France in 1943, pre-war supplying of the Allies

with already limited U.S. material slowed the growth of Army units and doomed

any large scale invasion prior to 1944. Instead the U.S., under pressure from its

Soviet allies, settled for the fall 1943 Operation TORCH in North Africa. Once

committed to Mediterranean Theater, further Allied landings at Sicily and Salerno

continued to drain combat units and logistics from the build-up for a cross-

channel invasion of France.3

A faulty assumption that the war in Europe would be concluded by the end

of 1944, thus allowing a shift of resources to the Pacific, hampered strategic

planning for the final campaigns against Japan. The Pacific Theater was placed

in this position in large part due to the decision to prioritize the defeat of Germany

over Japan. President Roosevelt and the Joint Chiefs made this decision based

on two considerations. First, that Great Britain and the Soviet Union would not

be victorious without U.S. assistance. Second, that U.S. economic interests

were tied more to Europe than Asia.4

2
Charles E. Kirkpatrick, An Unknown Future and a Doubtful Present: Writing the Victory Plan of 1941
(Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 2010), 81, 98,
http://www.history.army.mil/catalog/pubs/93/93-10.html.

3
Ibid, 102.

4
Louis Morton, “Germany First: The Basic Concept of Allied Strategy in World War II,” in Command
Decisions, ed. Kent Greenfield (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 1960), 40-42,
http://www.history.army.mil/books/70-7_01.htm.

34
 With the war against Germany extending into 1945, caps on military end

strength proved too low for a global war stretching into 1945 and beyond. While

the number of combat divisions required was less than half of the 215 projected,

the opposite occurred for support units. Post-war analysis shows that a 15,000

soldier combat division actually required 45,000 service troops for support, not

the Victory Plan’s 15,000. MacArthur’s campaign in the Southwest Pacific and

extensive operations in the Mediterranean were not part of pre-war projections,

further increasing the demand for service troops for logistics support.5 The

situation became increasingly critical as the war against Germany extended well

beyond the post-Normandy estimation of military planners. In the Pacific,

Operation CAUSEWAY served as the first strategic casualty of pre-war failure to

accurately estimate necessary manpower.

Both the Navy and the Army faced crippling personnel challenges after

President Roosevelt in early 1945 denied their requests for any increases to

overall end strength. The Chief of the Bureau of Naval Personnel, Vice Admiral

Randall Jacobs, shared his frustration with his service’s personnel situation in a

March 14, 1945, letter to Admiral King. Jacobs complained that “this Bureau is

now receiving answers from the Chief of Naval Operations disapproving requests

for increases ashore on the ground that no activity can be reduced to provide the

equivalent savings.” He went on to blame the naval aviation program for

exceeding its personnel authorizations. Jacobs warned that “we will be required

5
Kirkpatrick, Victory Plan¸ 106.

35
to decide what shall be done and what must be slowed up for the rest of the war

(underlined in original) with the realization that the greatest shortage is of

personnel and not material.”6 Eight days later Jacobs’ deputy, Rear Admiral L.E.

Denfield, provided King with the projected enlisted shore based personnel

shortfalls: 37,000 on June 30, 1945, and 95,000 on June 30, 1946.7

Army shortages were just as acute. Early decisions on service force

structure did not match the strategic conditions of the Pacific, resulting in a

skewed ratio between combat and service personnel. The Victory Plan was

based on projected European requirements, which was estimated to be a one-to-

one ratio of service to combat personnel within the combat theater.8 This proved

grossly misbalanced for Pacific operations as the war entered 1945, where

extended supply lines required significantly more service troops. In order to

support ICEBERG, commands from across the Pacific had shipping allocations

reduced, and some currently employed service units were pulled from duties to

participate in the operation. A study by the War Department’s Operations

Division identified shortages for Phase I of ICEBERG, though not enough to stop

6
Navy Department, Bureau of Naval Personnel, Chief Bureau of Naval Personnel to CIC U.S. Fleet and
CNO, The Personnel Situation, March, 14, 1945, 1, Box 68, Strategic Plans, War Plans Division (Series III),
RG 38, NACP.

7
Ibid, From BuPers to CNO, Advanced Base Enlisted Personnel Requirements – Report On, April 22, 1945,
1.

8
Kirkpatrick, Victory Plan, 95-96.

36
execution. Planners doubted that the later phases of the operation would be

possible as no further service troops were available, even within the U.S.9

In Europe combat divisions were engaged in fighting continuously after the

Normandy landings. The scale of combat was massive. In late 1944 the U.S.

Army had 44 divisions engaged in the European Theater, compared to 21 in the

Pacific.10 New divisions were constantly fed into combat after D-Day. The

expansion of the battle front after the breakout from Normandy forced General

Dwight Eisenhower to commit units directly into the front lines rather than

relieving worn out units. The number of divisions peaked by the end of the year,

with General Eisenhower forced to rotate crippled divisions to quieter areas of

the front line. From the Battle off the Bulge to the defeat of Germany individual

replacements, rather than unit-sized replacements, were the lifeblood of the

theater, with divisions averaging 100 percent casualties every 3 months of

combat.11

Service units in Europe were only required to open a small number of

ports. The most significant logistics problem occurred in the months following the

breakout from Normandy when a shortage of trucks prevented sustainment of the

Allies rapidly advancing armies. This was eventually solved by the repair and

9
War Department, Operations Division, Memo for Chief, Strategy and Policy Group, OPD, Forces and
Resources for ICEBERG, January 8, 1945, 1-2, Box 465, Entry 421, RG 165, NACP.

10
Maurice Matloff, “The 90-Division Gamble” in Command Decisions, 379,
http://www.history.army.mil/books/70-7_15.htm.

11
Kirkpatrick, Victory Plan, 112.

37
rehabilitation of French rail lines and the capture of ports in Belgium, the

Netherlands, and western and southern France. By the time of the Battle of the

Bulge rear area service units were providing individual infantry replacements.

Commanders were so “desperate” for replacements that they allowed African-

American soldiers to serve in previously segregated units.12

The geography of the Pacific Theater led to a situation related to the

availability of service troops that was the opposite of the one in Europe. Supply

lines stretched across much greater distances, and dozens of bases had to be

developed on a large number of assorted islands, atolls and small landmasses in

order to organize logistics. At the same time, until the campaigns in the

Philippines in the second half of 1944 most Pacific operations required only a

handful of divisions. Amphibious operations took a proportionally heavy casualty

toll on combat units (though absolute numbers of casualties were much smaller

than operations in Europe), but after completion they were provided the

necessary time to receive replacements, train, and rehearse for the next

objective. A constant rotation of divisions was maintained, particularly in

operations against the smaller island targets of the Central Pacific campaign.

Service units did not have such a luxury. Utilized in both combat and

post-combat development, they had to cope with a theater largely devoid of any

existing infrastructure. Construction of base facilities became the single largest

impediment to theater logistics. After a six-week tour of most of the Pacific in fall

12
Ulysses Lee, The Employment of Negro Troops, CMH Pub 11-4 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing
Office, 1966), 688-91, http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/11-4/chapter22.htm.

38
1944, Major General W.A. Wood, senior Army representative on the Joint

Logistics Committee, identified construction as the single greatest contributor to

logistics problems. Vast road, airfield and port projects were required at nearly

every Pacific base, and these continued for months after combat had ceased.13

As combat leapfrogged forward, hundreds of thousands of service personnel

remained behind to complete base development, maintain and repair equipment,

and manage the growing logistics lines.14

Senior American leadership struggled with solutions to the Pacific’s

service troop shortages. While combat divisions would not deploy from the U.S.

until deemed sufficiently trained, the same was not true for service units. Many

were deployed prior to completing collective training programs at their home

station.15 The newly formed Island Command lacked the training required to

control shore operations. Buckner requested an experienced unit from the

European Theater, the Army’s 1st Engineer Special Brigade, to handle the

responsibility in the Ryukyus.16 Amphibious training was also often neglected.

Tenth Army’s post-ICEBERG analysis identified this as the primary cause for the

13
JCS, Joint Logistics Committee (JLC), “Minutes of J.L.C. 93rd Meeting,,” Records of the JCS, Part 1: 1942-
45, Meetings, JLC (Reel 7), December 15, 1944, 3

14
War Department, Operations Division, SS 314, Information on Broad Strategy to be Used Against Japan,
September 30, 1944, 7-8, Box 368, Entry 421, RG 165, NACP.

15
Appleman, Okinawa, 39-40.

16
Lida Mayo, The Ordnance Department: On Beachhead and Battlefront (Washington, D.C.: Government
Printing Office, 1991), 449, http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/beachhd_btlefrnt/index.html.

39
majority of drowning victims belonging to service units, citing their lack of

experience with lifesaving equipment.17

Another proposed solution to the service troop shortage was the

conversion of combat units to service units, a topic that was hotly debated.

Though U.S. Army Colonel T.S. Riggs favored bringing the service troop

shortages to the attention of the Joint Chiefs, he did not agree with a Joint War

Plans Committee recommendation to cannibalize combat units to address the

shortfalls. Riggs cited the morale issues of reassigning combat trained and

experienced soldiers to rear area assignments as one area of concern, but the

primary reason he opposed the conversion was the inefficiency of employing

already trained personnel in another capacity.18

The massive mechanization of the United States military, initiated in 1940

as the nation organized for anticipated participation in World War II, resulted in a

huge number of specialized jobs that required months of technical training.19

Regardless of the negative aspects of converting combat units into service units,

over ten thousand personnel from infantry, armor and artillery units in the Pacific

17
J.H. Howe, HQ, Army Ground Forces, Observers Report – Okinawa, May 5, 1945, 11,
http://cgsc.cdmhost.com/cdm/ref/collection/p4013coll8/id/586.

18
JCS, JLC, “Minutes of the 93rd Meeting of the Joint Logistics Committee,” Records of the JCS, Part 1:
1942-45, Meetings, JLC, December 15, 1944, 7.

19
Kirkpatrick, Victory Plan, 89, 96-97.

40
Ocean Area experienced this transformation. Most were placed in general labor

jobs, though some received intensive short term training for technical positions.20

As previously noted, U.S. planning for the invasion of Formosa assumed

troop availability would be sufficient once Germany was defeated, an outcome

that was initially forecast for the end of 1944. Buckner estimated to Nimitz on

September 26, 1944, that he would require 414,000 personnel to seize Formosa

and another 151,000 to take the nearby island of Amoy. Buckner highlighted

several critical unit types that were in short supply: “approximately 85% of

technical supply units are not available. Of the forty-five (45) QM service

companies (labor) required in the initial landing operation… only two (2) have

been reported as available.” Buckner also claimed a deficit of 49,000 engineers,

the single largest shortage of any unit type.21

Without these critical supporting units the entire capability of carrying out

CAUESWAY disappeared. Supplies would remain on ships or stuck on beaches,

road and airfield construction would lag behind demand, and Formosa would be

unavailable as a mounting point for proposed subsequent operations against

China, the Ryukyus, or southern Japan.

It was often the case that even when service units reached the Pacific

theater they arrived to find less-than-optimum conditions for the performance of

20
W .N. Todd, Jr., HQ, Army Ground Forces, Observer’s Report- Okinawa Operations, May 1, 1945, 8,
http://cgsc.cdmhost.com/u?/p4013coll8,587; HQ, CINCPOA, Minutes of Conference 24 November 1944,
November 24, 1944, 11, Box 71, Entry 421, RG 338, NACP.

21
Office of the CG Tenth Army to CINCPOA, Feasibility of CAUSEWAY Operation, September 26, 1944, Box
71, Entry 421, RG 338, NACP.

41
their duties. War Department policy required commanders to provide material

requirements to Army Service Forces 90 days before units deployed forward

from the United States. Due to urgent short-notice requests from the theater,

most units received travel orders less than 30 days before deployment to the

Pacific. Upon arrival and execution of their duties, equipment degraded quickly

in the humid climate. Until supply requests caught up, essential equipment was

often ‘deadlined,’ a military term for being declared non-operational.22

Even as the Okinawa invasion began, the service troop shortages that had

led to the cancellation of CAUSEWAY remained unresolved, but pressure to end

the war as quickly as possible did not allow for a pause in operations. On April

15, 1945 the G-4 section of U.S. Army Forces, Pacific Ocean Area (USAFPOA)

reported that there were no available service units in the Central Pacific Area.

Consolidation of South Pacific bases aimed to free up some units, but General

MacArthur’s South West Pacific Area (SWPA) command had first to pass on

them before they became available to USAFPOA.23

Lack of service forces affected all Pacific operations, including those of the

strategic air campaign. General LeMay recalled in a post-war interview that

Army Air Force leaders had to enlist volunteers from Marine Corps units in the

22
HQ U.S. Army Forces Pacific Ocean Areas (USAFPOA), G-4 Section, G-4 Periodic Report, U.S. Army Forces
Pacific Ocean Areas, for Quarter Ended 30 September 1945, undated, 7-8,
http://cgsc.cdmhost.com/cdm/ref/collection/p4013coll8/id/1744.

23
HQ USAFPOA, G-4 Section, G-4 Periodic Report, U.S. Army Forces Pacific Ocean Areas, for Quarter Ended
31 March 1945, April 15, 1945, 4,
http://cgsc.cdmhost.com/cdm/ref/collection/p4013coll8/id/1765.

42
Marianas to assist in moving bombs to the B-29 flight lines.24 In May 1945 the

Army Air Force tried to push ahead plans, without Joint Chiefs approval, to

station by the winter of 1945-46 twelve B-29 groups in Central Luzon. McArthur

wrote to Marshall that he lacked the engineer capacity for any additional facilities

in the Philippines and might not have enough to even complete current projects.

All available units had been stripped across the Pacific to foot the bill for

ICEBERG.25

These drastic measures were still not sufficient for planned construction

on Okinawa and Ie Shima. On May 12, 1945, Nimitz thanked King and the other

Joint Chiefs for providing additional fighter-bomber groups for ICEBERG, but

informed them that “the pressing need at the present time is for Army

construction and service troops to prepare fields and support Army Air Forces.”26

Five days later Nimitz again wrote to King with a warning that MacArthur would

try to gain control over Naval Construction Battalions in order to alleviate Army

engineer shortages during preparations for OLYMPIC, the invasion of Japan. He

urged King to speed up the deployment of Army units in order to preserve

Seabees for naval construction needs.27

24
LeMay, Strategic Air Warfare, 59.

25
Chester W. Nimitz, Command Summary of Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz (Graybook), 7 December 1941 –
31 August 1945, Vol. 6. (Newport, RI: United States Naval War College, 2013), “04 1308 May 45,
MACARTHUR to CHIEF OF STAFF ARMY INFO COMAF20 and CINCPOA ADV” (Yellow, Nimitz Only),
https://usnwcarchive.org/items/show/849.

26
Ibid, “12 0220 May 45, CINCPOA ADV to COMINCH, FOR JOINT CHIEFS of STAFF” (Yellow, Nimitz Only).

27
Ibid, “17 0841 May 45, CINCPOA ADV to COMINCH” (Yellow, Nimitz Only).

43
 Buckner’s early establishment of an Island Command aided both the

planning and execution of development projects, but shortages in qualified staff

officers reduced its effectiveness. In December, 1944, Buckner wrote to

Richardson that “skilled commander and key personnel for coordination and

command all shore activities considered essential and…not yet found available in

this theater.”28 The cancellation of ICEBERG Phase III (detailed later in this

chapter) greatly expanded the scale of planned projects and the ballooning of

additional units overwhelmed the Island Command staff. Units and material

planned to build air facilities on the smaller island objectives of Phase III were

instead diverted to Okinawa and Ie Shima.

Shortages included more than just operational units, it extended into both

coordinating headquarters elements and the provision of logistics staff officers.

The former is addressed in Chapter 3. Buckner and Wallace were forced to

address the latter through requests for an emergency augmentation to the Island

Command staff to handle the increased span of responsibilities, a process that

would take significant time for the military services to address.29 In the first

weeks of ICEBERG the commander of construction troops, Navy Commodore

Bissett, issued orders directly to individual brigades and battalions. The number

of units was so great that a single headquarters could not effectively control

operations. Another request was made for an engineer group headquarters to

28
HQ, Tenth Army, BUCKNER to Richardson, Redeployment Engineer Special Brigade, December 3, 1944,
Box 15,Commander Amphibious Forces Pacific Fleet Blue 160, Entry P61, RG 313, NACP.

29
Nimitz, Graybook, Vol. 6, “COMGEN 10 to CINPOA ADV, 29 1012 APR 45” (Yellow, Nimitz Only).

44
serve as a subordinate command and control element for the dozens of engineer

units.30

Phase III of ICEBERG had been considered an essential step in bridging

the distance between Okinawa and Japan. Primarily selected as fighter-bomber

bases, the smaller island objectives had been assigned to V Amphibious Corps

for occupation after Okinawa had been secured. Due to extended combat at Iwo

Jima this was changed to III Amphibious Corps.31

Already aware of the precarious manpower issues of 1945, senior military

leaders quickly lost interest in executing this final phase of ICEBERG. Just as

was the case with Operation CAUSEWAY, Buckner’s estimation of forces played

a role in influencing the cancellation decision for ICEBERG Phase III. With

airfield and port development on the islands already seized projected to continue

until November, no engineers could be spared from either Okinawa or Ie Shima.

Buckner requested an additional thirteen engineer construction and five engineer

general service battalions for Phase III. Forwarding the information to Nimitz,

LTG Richardson recommended the allocation of only six construction and zero

general service battalions, as no other units were available in the Pacific or from

the U.S.32

30
HQ, Tenth Army, Office of the Chief of Staff Journal, Entry of April 25, 1945, 15, HQ Tenth Army Office of
Chief of Staff Journals, Box 1, Entry 421, RG 338, NACP.

31
John H. Bradley, Thomas B. Buell, and Jack W. Dice, The Second World War: Asia and the Pacific
(Singapore: Square One Publishers, 2002), 243.

32
HQ, USAFPOA, COMGENPOA to CINCPOA, Troop Requirements and Availabilities, Phase III, ICEBERG,
March 3, 1945, 1, 370.5-371, Box 24, Tenth U.S. Army Decimal Files 1944-1945, Entry P 50416, RG 338,
NACP.

45
 Rather than stretch service troops even more thinly, U.S. commanders

decided to cancel ICEBERG Phase III and instead expand planned facilities on

Okinawa and Ie Shima. Buckner, Halsey, MacArthur, and Nimitz all agreed to

the move. Consolidating activities to the two main islands reduced the total

number of service units required, though it placed an additional strain on the port

capacities of the two islands.33

Buckner, well versed in massive engineering projects during his time in

Alaska, recognized the central role that engineers played in accomplishing the

overall goals of ICEBERG. Only 70 percent of the engineer units requested by

Tenth Army were available for the operation.34 Given this shortfall, Buckner paid

special attention to their employment. In the operation order for ICEBERG,

Buckner maintained strict personal control over engineer unit operations,

ordering that any changes to their missions required his explicit approval.35

More than two months into ICEBERG Buckner’s personal control of

engineers remained unchanged. In June Army Air Forces units requested

authorization to construct eight small shelters for crash trucks, the service’s term

for fire trucks, on Okinawan airfields. Nimitz required that any changes to base

33
Nimitz, Graybook, Vol. 6, “COMPHIBPAC to CINCPAC ADV 31 0455 MAY 45” (Yellow, Nimitz Only);
“COM5THFLT to CINCPAC ADV 01 0112 JUN 45” (Yellow, Nimitz Only); “CINCPAC ADV to COMINCH 01
1201 JUN 45” (Yellow, Nimitz Only).

34
HQ, Tenth Army, Action Report Ryukyus, 11-XI-2.

35
HQ, Tenth Army, “Annex 11: Engineer Plan,” to Tentative Operation Order 1-45: ICEBERG, January 6,
1945, 1. Box 2441, Entry 427, RG 407, NACP.

46
development plans to go through his deputy commander, Vice Admiral J.H.

Towers, for approval. Even the smallest scale project, such as the Okinawan

airfield shelters, faced the prospect of denial until after the start of OLYMPIC, and

then it would still be dependent on material and labor availability.36

The demand for service troops across the Pacific had a negative effect on

preparation for ICEBERG. Many were only released from their duties just two

weeks or even days before departing for the Ryukyus, leaving no time to conduct

pre-operation training.37 Tenth Army’s combat formations had extensive

amphibious experience and were not adversely effected by a lack of training

time. The same was not true of service units. Unable to conduct refresher

training on both their primary mission and the tasks associated with amphibious

operations, service units struggled to get men and equipment offloaded as they

arrived in the Ryukyus.

The experience of soldier William Dobbs reflected the entire range of

problems brought about by troop shortages. An experienced cargo handler

assigned to the Army’s 206th Port Company, Dobbs and his fellow soldiers were

repeatedly parceled out to assist other units that fell behind schedule unloading

ships off Okinawa.38 These untrained units became the starting point for a

36
HQ, CINCPOA, Letter from DEPCINCPAC, Requests for Additions to Base Development Plans, April 26,
1945, 1-2, Box 24, Entry P 50416, RG 338, NACP; HQ, CINCPOA, CINCPOA to CG Tenth Army, Subject:
Amendment to Base Development Plan OKINAWA and IE SHIMA, to Provide Shelters for Cardex Crash
Trucks and Equipment, June 10, 1945, Box 24, Entry P 50416, RG 338, NACP.

37
HQ, Tenth Army, Action Report Ryukyus, 4-0-1.
.
38
William H. Dobbs, War Journey: Witness to the Last Campaign of World War II (Bennington, VT:
Merriam Press, 2012), 91-93.

47
vicious circle of events that compounded logistics problems. Delays in unloading

prevented the start of construction to improve port facilities, further backing up

logistics movement and placing additional burdens on cargo-handling units. It

exposed stationary cargo vessels to kamikaze attacks, leading to the loss of

essential material and personnel, and delayed incoming shipping waves by

increasing the time required for each round trip.39

At the outset of the Okinawa campaign, Buckner and his staff understood

well the logistical difficulties that lay ahead. Three primary missions were

assigned to Tenth Army. The first, the installation of service elements, was

necessary to enable the other two: development of airfields and expansion of

port facilities. All three missions faced serious challenges during ICEBERG.40

Just getting service units to the islands proved a daunting task. Assault shipping

was barely sufficient to lift all combat elements in the first wave. Critical

construction units originally scheduled to land in the first days of ICEBERG were

forced to wait for the initial assault shipping vessels to disembark troops and

cargo and then return so that they could be loaded. The vast majority of service

units arrived with later Island Command shipping waves that were subject to

unloading delays due to port capacity problems.41

39
Appleman, Okinawa, 79-81, 170.

40
HQ, Tenth Army, Tenth Army Tentative Operations Order 1-45: ICEBERG, 1.

41
Appleman, Okinawa, 39; U.S. Navy, Building the Navy’s Bases in World War II: History of the Bureau of
Yards and Docks and the Civil Engineer Corps, 1941-1946, Vol. 2 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing
Office, 1947), 399.

48
 Island Command’s task organization of June 30, 1945, puts into focus the

scope of construction efforts. Between Okinawa and Ie Shima MG Wallace,

commander of Island Command, had been assigned forty engineer battalions

and numerous smaller engineer elements. All but a handful, mainly combat

engineers, were allocated to naval and airfield development. The Army’s

commitment to expanding strategic bombing had overstretched the service’s

capacity to keep up with the growth. During ICEBERG a large number of the

Army’s Aviation Engineer Construction battalions were still occupied building B-

29 airfields in the Marianas Islands. Nearly two-thirds of Buckner’s construction

engineers had to be provided by the Navy, though most the projects were in

support of Army Air Force facilities.42 The doubling of planned airstrips on

Okinawa and Ie Shima after the cancellation of ICEBERG Phase III complete the

mission.

A post-campaign analysis of beach unloading operations stated that a

service unit increase of 50 percent was necessary to maintain the required rate

of cargo downloading.43 This shortfall was recognized soon after the invasion

commenced. A XXIV Corps staff officer succinctly identified the primary culprits:

an acute lack of labor and a glut of command and control elements. The latter

included Navy Beach Parties, corps and army level elements, and the Island

Command.44 Conditions at the beaches forced much of the unloading to be done

42
HQ, Tenth Army, Action Report Ryukyus, 2-II-22 to 2-II-23, 2-IV-2 to 2-IV-3.

43
Ibid, 10-IV-2.

44
War Department, LTC Stevens Interview with MAJ McStay, XXIV Corps, untitled notes, 1-26 APR 45,
April 20, 1945, Box 2441, Entry 427, RG 407, NACP.

49
through manual labor by stevedores. A task usually assigned to hired island

natives, the Japanese impressment of Okinawan males forced U.S. military

personnel into the role. With both combat and service units heavily occupied, the

1st Engineer Special Brigade resorted to using 700 soldiers from anti-aircraft and

armor units during the first two weeks of the operation.45

Two months into ICEBERG port and beach unloading capacity had only

marginally improved. Cancellation of Phase III had also increased monthly cargo

requirements to over 1,000,000 tons per month. Major General Wallace,

commander of ISCOM, requested from Buckner an additional eight port

companies, eight amphibious truck companies, two Navy truck battalions, and

five Navy base companies.46 While these units were essential to the long-term

development goals, little could be done to address capacity during the final

weeks of heavy combat.

Not listed as a major objective, the construction of road networks was an

essential implied task for Tenth Army that would facilitate both development and

combat operations. The earliest staff studies had warned that road construction

was critical, stating that “a complete rebuilding of the Okinawa Jima road net will

be necessary.”47 Not built to handle mass military traffic, the road networks

45
Mayo, Ordnance Department, 461.

46
HQ, Island Command Okinawa, Wallace to Buckner, Additional Units and Equipment for Port Facilities
Cargo Handling, May 28, 1945, 1, Entry P 50416, RG 338, NACP.

47
HQ, CINCPOA, “Annex B: Logistics” to ICEBERG, CINCPOA Staff Study, October 25, 1944, 36.

50
supplying ground combat forces became impassable after a period of heavy rain

in May. Buckner ordered all available engineer units, including aviation

construction battalions, to focus on reopening them. Nimitz allowed deviation

from base development tasks if absolutely necessary, a policy that Buckner only

resorted to on this one occasion. After making the decision, Buckner noted in his

journal that he would “probably be taken to task for this by higher HQ” but

concluded that “it is the right thing to do.”48

The shortage of service troops would serve as an important factor, both at

the tactical and strategic level, in Buckner’s decision against a second landing.

The typical ratio of combat troops to support troops in World War II was 1:4, and

even greater in the Pacific. Decisions early in the war on combat to support

ratios led to a critical shortage of service units. A landing force of just one

division of 15,000 troops would require, conservatively, 30,000 rear echelon

troops to logistically support the new front. While some of these forces would

already be allocated to the potential landing division(s), the majority of the

manpower would need to be pulled from other tasks, including airfield

construction, to build another logistics hub at Minatoga, the proposed location for

the assault. As evidenced by the communications from the Pentagon and

Nimitz’s headquarters, the rest of the theater had already been stripped of all

available service troops to support ICEBERG. Strategic bombing commitments

48
Buckner and Stilwell, Seven Stars, 65.

51
and MacArthur’s Luzon invasion had both contributed to the theater-wide

deficit.49

Buckner also faced a growing backlog of unloaded shipping. Any

additional reduction in personnel to support the Minatoga landing would come at

a cost of further delays in assembling the men and resources required to support

the strategic priority of base development. His only deviation from this mission

occurred when road conditions put combat forces in danger of being cut off from

Okinawa’s logistics base. Having occupied nearly all planned base sites within

the first two weeks of ICEBEG, Buckner’s methodical advance to victory offered

the lowest strategic risk.

49
John J. McGrath, The Other End of the Spear: The Tooth-to-Tail Ratio (T3R) in Modern Military
Operations (Ft. Leavenworth: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2007), 18.

52
 Chapter 3: Shipping Shortages in a Global War

As the war entered its final year the United States, even with its industrial

might, could not keep up with the increased demand for shipping, particularly in

the Pacific. The full consequences of the “tyranny of distance” were finally being

felt. Driven by early war urgency, the U.S. military had largely conducted

logistics without regard to long-term consequences. Buckner recognized the

threat that inadequate logistics posed to the Okinawa invasion and took steps to

address it. On February 16, 1945, he issued a command memo addressing the

conservation of supplies that asserted “the lack of supply discipline within all

ranks of the Armed Forces of the United States is a matter of general knowledge,

and is fast acquiring the state of a public scandal.” Buckner threatened

disciplinary action for any intentional over-request of supplies. He predicted his

own future difficulties related specifically to shipping when he concluded that

“lack of shipping capacity, plus vast areas to be served and supply lines of

unprecedented length, make conservation of supplies mandatory if our assault

upon the Japanese Empire is to continue.”1

Shipping, more than any other factor, dictated how amphibious operations

were planned and executed. Availability of the necessary numbers and types of

1
HQ, Tenth Army, Simon B. Buckner to All Units Assigned or Attached to Tenth Army, Conservation of
Supplies and Equipment, February 16, 1945, HQ, CG to 300.6, Box 12, Entry 427, RG 338, NACP.

53
shipping ultimately determined both the size and composition of a landing force

and the ability to support it logistically. Beginning in mid-1944 the first doubts

surfaced over the feasibility of long-range planning in the Pacific in light of

shipping shortages. War Department strategists argued that proposed options

for moving ahead with the scheduled invasion of Formosa, Operation

CAUSEWAY, were not possible due to a lack of attack cargo ships (AKA) and

attack transports (APA).2 These two classes of ships were so vital to the war that

the Joint Logistics Committee recommended they share, with B-29 production

and Manhattan Project construction, the highest priority for civilian manpower.3

At a Pearl Harbor planning conference for ICEBERG months before the invasion,

Admiral Turner told the assembled leaders and key staff that “this operation will

take a long time due to the logistics problem.” Turner based this estimation on

two shipping related factors: distance to supply points at Saipan and Guam and

the effect of beach conditions on unloading operations.4 Both factors added

significant time to shipping round trips.

While leaders in the Pacific theater grasped the approaching problems in

shipping and logistics, planners at the Joint Chiefs of Staff saw little reason for

pessimism. The Joint Warfare Plans Committee (JWPC) released their Ryukyus

2
War Department, Operations Division, Strategy Section Paper 282/8, Future Operations in the Pacific,
July 11, 1944, 4, Box 366, Entry 421, RG 165, NACP.

3
JCS, JLC, “Joint Logistics Committee Minutes of the 68th Meeting,” Records of the JCS, Part 1: 1942-45,
Meetings, JLC, August 11, 1944, 3.

4
HQ, Tenth Army, Notes from Conference 1 NOV 44, held at Headquarters Amphibious Forces Pacific Fleet,
November 3, 1944, 3-5, Box 14, Commander Amphibious Forces Pacific Fleet Blue 160, Entry P61, RG 133,
NACP.

54
plan during the same time period as Turner’s Pearl Harbor conference. The

JWPC felt that the “logistics problems involved are similar to those already

mastered in our island warfare against JAPAN.”5 This generalization ignored the

fact that distances to West Coast ports, from which most ICEBRG logistics would

depart, had nearly doubled from earlier operations. Total personnel

requirements were also twice the size of Iwo Jima and many more times greater

than other Central Pacific objectives.

Not until January, 1945 did the Joint Staff comprehend the magnitude of

the problem. During the February Conference at Yalta their conclusions on

shipping shortages was included in a paper presented by the Combined Military

Transportation Committee and the Combined Shipping Adjustment Board to the

Combined Chiefs of Staff.6 The document laid out British and American ship

shortages for the months of March through June. The American deficit in the

Pacific theater averaged forty-two ships per month. The highest mark, fifty-one

for March, corresponded with the most critical month for assembling ICEBERG

forces and supplies. British and American shortages in Europe were nearly as

pronounced. Based on this data the committees advised that “the shipping

5
JCS, Joint War Plans Committee (JWPC), Plan for the Seizure of the Ryukyus,” November 11, 1944, 27,
http://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p4013coll8/id/3044.

6
The Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCS) consisted of the senior military leadership of the United States and
Great Britain. The Joint Chiefs of Staff served as the American members. The British were represented by
the First Sea Lord of the Admiralty, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, and Chief of the Air Staff. The CCS
directed the overall Allied strategy during World War II, including joint decisions on logistics matters.

55
position is tight and that deficits approach unmanageable proportions, particularly

in the Pacific.7

Few options remained to mitigate overall shipping shortfalls. U.S. ports

had reached the maximum capacity available for birthing spaces and cargo

storage areas. Conditions were also poor in forward areas, which suffered from

a chronic shortage of port companies to manage the transfer of cargo. The

military services were forced to deploy additional port units before they were fully

trained, resulting in a significant drop in efficiency. A twenty percent reduction in

logistics allocations had already been implemented to account for these port

capacity issues. In January the Joint Chiefs warned against a further seven

percent cut to all military programs proposed by the Combined Chiefs of Staff.

In their estimation the reductions would “eliminate or delay” planned operations

and “slow down the war and make it necessary to revise strategic concepts.”8

A huge variety of vessels made up U.S. naval forces, but they primarily fell

into two categories: assault and cargo. The former included the smallest landing

craft up to those capable of landing tanks directly on hostile shores. Ships

designed or retrofitted to carry landing craft, combat-load supplies, that were

7
Combined Chiefs of Staff, “Over-all Review of Cargo Shipping: Report by the Combined Military
Transportation Committee and the Combined Shipping Adjustment Board”, Enclosure to “C.C.S. 746/10,
Combined Chiefs of Staff Over-all Review of Cargo Shipping,” February 2, 1945, Papers and Minutes of
Meetings Argonaut Conference, 55,
http://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p4013coll8/id/3687. ARGONAUT was the codename
for the Yalta Conference.

8
JCS, “Appendix B: Discussion”, to “J.C.S. 1205/4: Overall Review of Cargo Shipping,” Records of the JCS,
Strategic Issues, Shipping, January 30, 1945, 52-53; Ibid, , JCS, JLC, “Minutes of J.L.C. 93rd Meeting,” Part 1:
Meetings, JLC, December 15, 1944, 7.

56
armed for protection and could provide fire support to assault troops, were also

part of the assault fleet. Ship classes like the AKA and APA, mid-war

modifications to bulk cargo ships, were deemed essential to the conduct of

amphibious operations.

Amongst the numerous varieties of assault shipping, the Landing Ship,

Tank (LST) became the linchpin of Pacific operations. LSTs played a role not

only in initial combat landings, but later performed critical duties supplying forces

over the beach when port facilities were unavailable. Plans for ICEBERG called

for Okinawa’s only major port, Naha, to handle many of the logistics

requirements, but just as occurred in Europe after the D-Day landings at

Normandy, expectations did not meet reality.9 Buckner assumed some risk at

Naha in order to land forces closer to Kadena and Yontan Airfields, which were

urgently required in order to begin the in-flow of Tenth Army’s land-based aircraft.

The port’s proximity to the primary Japanese defensive lines delayed the

occupation of Naha, and even then facilities there required months of

rehabilitation to reach full cargo capacity, which proved too late to be of use

during combat operations.10

Standard cargo vessels made up the bulk of the logistics fleet. These

linked front-line combat units to the immense supply lines stretching across the

vast Pacific to the United States. Lacking the ability to unload directly on the

9
HQ, CINCPOA, “Appendix B” to ICEBERG, CINCPOA Staff Study, 29.

10
Nimitz, Graybook, Vol. 6, “COMGEN 10 to CINCPOA PEARL 31 1715 MAY 45” (Green).

57
beach, these ships had to utilize either permanent or temporary docking facilities

and were used primarily to supply rear-area bases and the later echelons of

amphibious operations. Cargo shortfalls had first started to develop during the

growth of the strategic bombing campaign in mid-1944. The addition of twelve

Very Long Range bombing groups to the Marianas (addressed in Chapter 4)

required thirty-one additional cargo (AK) and transport (AP) vessels be added to

Pacific shipping requirements.11 This single decision point accounted for three-

fourths of the theater shortages projected by the Combined Chiefs of Staff for

early 1945, another consequence of Joint Chiefs of Staff decisions to accelerate

strategic bombing.

Numerous specialty vessel types performed specific functions, including

the transport of fuel, ammunition, and refrigerated food. They also became a

singular point of failure. Availability of petroleum tankers became a major

concern of planners even earlier than assault shipping. Expansion of Army Air

Forces operations in the Pacific stretched resources to the limits. In May, 1944,

the Central Pacific only had five weeks of reserve aviation gas on hand. The

Joint Logistics Committee warned that “reserves are so low now that unless

action is taken promptly to obtain additional tankers for that area, the

continuance of approved operations will be seriously affected.” Just weeks before

11
Office of the CNO, Memo For ADM King, From D.B. Duncan, ACOS (Plans), Logistics Implications of VLR
Bombing Program, May 22, 1944, 1, Box 68, Strategic Plans, War Plans Division (Series III), RG 38, NACP.

58
the Normandy landings the committee recommended the reduction of tankers

allocated for Britain in order to increase ships available in the Pacific.12

The tanker issue had not been resolved by the time of ICEBERG. Land-

based aviation units served a critical role in supporting Tenth Army’s advance.

As airfields became operational, a growing number of Marine and Army Air

Forces units moved in. The delayed arrival of three tankers carrying aviation

gasoline in late April led to reduced flight hours during a period of heavy fighting

against the Japanese Shuri Line defenses, coinciding with the first discussions

about making a second amphibious landing.13

Ammunition supply was another concern of commanders at Okinawa, and

their worries began early in the planning process and grew quickly once action

commenced. In a December 1944 report, the Tenth Army G-4 disagreed with the

Joint Staff study of ICEBERG’s estimated rate of ammunition expenditure.14

Offensive warfare, particularly against an entrenched enemy, required enormous

amounts of munitions.15 Three ammunition ships from the Central Pacific were

supposed to supply XXIV Corps for ICEBERG. Instead, two of the three ships’

12
JCS, JLC, “Enclosure A” to J.C.S. 822/1, “Tanker Availability For Theater Logistic Support, Report by the
Joint Logistics Committee,” Records of the JCS, Strategic Issues, Shipping, May 5, 1944, 8, 11.

13
HQ Tenth Army, G-4 Section, G-4 Report No. 33, 28 April 45, G-4 Reports: 12 APR to 16 MAY, Box 2481,
Entry 427, RG 407, NACP.

14
HQ Tenth Army, G-4 Section, Logistics Implications, ICEBERG, December 27, 1944, 1, Box 2441, Entry
427, RG 407, NACP.

15
Sarantakes, Introduction to Seven Stars, 6; Appleman, Okinawa, 256.

59
loads were expended by the corps during combat on Luzon, and the third was

diverted to other SWPA units.16

Once action commenced, commanders’ concerns were quickly validated.

In the first week two fully loaded ammunition ships were destroyed in Japanese

air attacks.17 Within ten days XXIV Corps was critically short of mortar and

artillery ammunition, having fired over 84,000 rounds of 105 millimeter and

higher-caliber munitions. Ammunition had to be borrowed from the III

Amphibious Corps stocks. This rate of fire actually increased as American forces

reached the strongest of Japanese defenses. Buckner had to request approval

from Nimitz for an earlier-than-planned deployment of four artillery ammunition

carrying LSTs.18 Lack of port facilities also hampered ammunition resupply.

Standard Navy cargo ships were not designed to unload in primitive conditions,

they were best suited for permanent port facilities with cranes and other lifting

equipment. At Okinawa and Ie Shima most supplies had to be transferred to

smaller vessels as only a handful of temporary piers were able to be constructed.

In early May Tenth Army devised a plan to unload these ships in the Marianas

and transfer their cargo to the more versatile LSTs. This move increased beach

unloading capacity and at the same time reduced targets for kamikaze attacks.19

16
HQ, XXIV Corps, BG Crump Garvin, Estimate of XXIV Corps Logistics Situation, January 13, 1945, 3,
Decimal Files 44-45, 560-563.5, Box 32, Entry P 50416, RG 338, NACP.

17
Buckner and Stilwell, Seven Stars, 33; Dobbs, War Journey, 87-88.

18
HQ, Tenth Army, G-4 Section, G-4 Report No. 17, 12 April 45; Ibid, G-4 Report No. 18, 13 April 45; G-4
Report No. 24, 19 April 45, Box 2481, Entry 427, RG 407, NACP.

19
Ibid, G-4 Report No. 37, 2 May 45.

60
 Shipping requirements consistently grew throughout the planning process.

But this was not unique to ICEBERG; earlier post-operation studies had

determined that shipping deficits were always underestimated.20 Investigations

found that the shipping initially allocated for previous campaigns was based on

generic infantry division tables of men and equipment. During combat, and

particularly so for amphibious operations, divisions were heavily augmented with

both combat and service units. Additional units were also assigned at the corps

and army level, primarily artillery (both anti-aircraft and ground support) and huge

numbers of specialty service units. These additional units were not accounted

for in early ICEBERG shipping schedules.21

To address the resulting shortfall, Tenth Army received approval from

Admiral Turner in January 1945 for an additional twenty LSTs and forty Landing

Ship, Mediums (LSMs), to better accommodate the full combat organization of

the command. This brought Tenth Army’s total number of assigned LSTs to a

staggering 170. Even this augmentation was insufficient to move all units

required for Phase I of ICEBERG. Buckner’s staff had to organize a rapid

turnaround of LSTs from the initial assault to pick up eight Naval Construction

Battalions at Saipan. The III Amphibious Corps was also required to shift 10

20
JCS, JLC, “Minutes of J.L.C. 98th Meeting,” Records of the JCS, Part 1: 1942-45, Meetings, JLC, January
19, 1945, 2.

21
HQ, XXIV Corps, Major General Hodge, letter to LTG Buckner, Shipping Requirements for an Amphibious
Operation, September 7, 1944, 1-2, 400-451.2, Box 28, Entry P 50416, RG 338, NACP

61
percent of its required cargo from the assault shipping wave to the first garrison

wave, a move that had cascading effects on service unit arrival.22

Planned amphibious operations during Phase II of ICEBERG were also

found to be problematic. The Tenth Army G-4, the Army staff section responsible

for all logistics and transportation, estimated that sufficient assault shipping was

not available for the proposed simultaneous two division attack against

Okinawa’s northern Motobu Peninsula. Only one division could be moved at a

time, resulting in risk to the first unit while landing craft executed the round trip

movement and loading of the second. Occupation of the island of Ie Shima was

also supposed to occur during this phase. The G-4 recommended moving the

operation to Phase I when more shipping was available.23

A key assumption in the CINCPOA staff study for ICEBERG was the

timely release of assault shipping from operations at Leyte. The vessels had

been transferred from Nimitz to MacArthur on the condition they would be

available for the next Central Pacific amphibious operation.24 A February request

by Turner for an early release of LSTs and LSMs allocated to ICEBERG was not

granted by MacArthur’s headquarters.25 Only after a series of cross-theater staff

22
HQ, Tenth Army, Action Report Ryukyus, 5-0-4.

23
HQ, Tenth Army, G-4 Section, Estimate of the Logistic Situation, Phase II ICEBERG, January 22, 1945, 3-4,
Box 2441, Entry 427, RG 407, NACP.

24
HQ, CINCPOA, ICEBERG, CINCPOA Staff Study, 25 October, 1944, 1.

25
HQ, Amphibious Forces Pacific, COMPHIBSPAC to CINCPOA, Lighterage for Unloading XXIV Corps
Equipment and Supplies at Leyte, 1, Decimal Files 44-45, 560-563.5, Box 32, Entry P 50416, RG 338, NACP.

62
meetings and intervention from the Joint Chiefs of Staff did MacArthur permit the

shipping to begin preparation for ICEBERG.26

MacArthur’s foot dragging on another issue also impacted shipping

timelines. Major General Hodge’s XXIV Corps, allocated for ICEBERG,

participated in the invasion of Leyte in the Philippines. Similar to the conditional

use of assault shipping, the corps was supposed to be pulled from combat in

time to refit, train, and load for their next operation. On January 6 Nimitz sent an

inquiry to MacArthur on the status of releasing the units. No action was taken,

leading Hodges to personally write to Nimitz that intra-theater agreements made

at a November 1944 conference were not being adhered too. The corps

commander cited four key issues that would prevent his unit from participating in

ICEBERG, including the failure to provide thirty days of supplies and lighterage,

the smaller vessels used to move personnel and supplies from ship to shore, to

assist in the loading and unloading of cargo. The supply deficiency required the

addition of more supply vessels to the already complex ICEBERG logistics plan

while the lack of lighterage threatened to disrupt the corps ability to stay on the

invasion timeline.27

On January 15 MacArthur wrote to Nimitz that the corps was required on

Leyte until a new infantry division arrived to relieve it as all his remaining forces

26
Nimitz, Graybook, Vol. 6, “CINCPSWPA to CINCPOA 20 0535 FEB 45” (Pink); “CINCPOA to CINCSWPA 21
0156 FEB 45” (Pink); MACARTHUR to COM7THFLT, CTF 77 25 1304 FEB 45” (Pink).

27
HQ, XXIV Corps, MG Hodges to Nimitz, Situation with respect to mounting XXIV Corps from Leyte,
January 16, 1945, 1, Box 166, Series XII, Strategic Plans, War Plans Division, RG 38, NACP.

63
were tied up in preparations for the Luzon invasion.28 After several more rounds

of communication MacArthur responded definitively on January 27 that “the 24th

Corps is now fully engaged in combat and it cannot now be predicted when I will

be disengaged.”29 This statement was made a month after MacArthur himself

had declared an end to Japanese organized resistance on Leyte at the end of

December, 1944.30 Only on February 10 was XXIV Corps assigned to Tenth

Army. Corps staffers were thus excluded from providing shipping requirements

during the planning process.31

Cascading effects from the shipping shortage occurred on both ends of

the Pacific. Though combat units at Okinawa were able to quickly disembark

men and equipment from assault shipping, Island Command garrison units fell

behind due to unloading capacity at beaches and ports. Massive stores of

excess supplies were scattered across the Pacific. One of the headquarters

responsible for the administration of these bases, the Central Pacific Base

Command, recommended to the headquarters of Army Service Forces that

material destined for ICEBERG ship directly from the United States. The time

28
Nimitz, Graybook, Vol. 6, “CINCSWPA to CINCPOA 17 1400 JAN 45” (Pink).

29
HQ, SWPA, CINCSOWESPAC to CINCPOA, January 27, 1945, Box 166, Series XII, Strategic Plans, War
Plans Division, RG 38, NACP.

30
Charles R. Anderson, Leyte (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1994), 29-30.

31
HQ Tenth Army, Action Report Ryukyus, 5-0-4.

64
required to collect surplus supplies would tie up a significant amount of

shipping.32

Though this plan offered an opportunity to tailor loads to specific units and

phases of ICEBERG the reality of shipping schedules intervened. At U.S. ports

supplies were loaded as they arrived, rather than according to the order of when

they would be used, to minimize the days that ships remained stationary. This

resulted in unloading of unnecessary cargo at Okinawa and further compounded

delays to shipping and construction schedules.33

Competing demands for limited shipping assets plagued operations in the

Pacific Theater. The situation was so dire that President Roosevelt himself

addressed it in a December 1944 directive that forbade the use of cargo vessels

for storage. In forwarding this message, Nimitz commented that subordinates

should have “a more realistic appreciation of port and discharge capacity.”34 Any

delays in loading and unloading operations adding time to an already lengthy

supply chain.

On March 28, Nimitz’s headquarters directed all rear areas to cease non-

essential construction and maintenance activities, stating that the resulting

reduction in their supply tonnage was needed for the increased requirements for

32
HQ, Central Pacific Base Command, From HQ Central Pac Base Command to CG, Army Service Forces,
Advanced Shipment of Maintenance to Provide Continued Resupply in ICEBERG Operation, January 4,
1945, 2, Decimal Files 44-45, 560-563.5, Box 32, Entry P 50416, RG 338, NACP.

33
HQ, Tenth Army, Action Report Ryukyus, 5-0-7, 5-0-9.

34
HQ, CINCPOA, 20 DEC 44 Memorandum from CINCPOA (no subject), Box 71, Entry 427, RG 338, NACP.

65
long-range bomber munitions. Nimitz himself sent a message on April 28 to

Fleet Admiral King, copies of which were provided to his immediate subordinates

and General MacArthur, stating his recommendations for operations beyond

Okinawa. In the message he labeled shipping as the primary problem in

mounting an invasion of Japan before the end of 1945.35

In May, 1945 Nimitz ordered a massive consolidation of south Pacific

bases in order to release both shipping and troops for the advance toward Japan.

Vice Admiral J.H. Towers, CINCPOA Chief of Staff, informed Nimitz that 75% of

assault shipping allocated to the task was instead moving Navy cargo, a

consequence of poor logistical planning that had left huge stocks of supplies

scattered across the command. The expansion of the VLR program also

confounded planners. Towers referred to the “repeated acceleration of VLR

requirements” as an “imposing demand on shipping and terminal port reception

capacities.”36

Adding to an already precarious state of affairs regarding shipping and

logistics, the turbulent Ryukyus weather further delayed unloading operations.

Joint Chiefs of Staff studies on future operations in 1944 identified March 1st as

the preferred invasion date, though March and April also marked the beginning of

an unfavorable period of heavy overcast skies and high probabilities of rain.

35
Nimitz, Graybook, Vol. 6, “28 0208 Mar 45 CINCPOA PEARL to COMGENPOA, COMGENAAAFPOA,
DEPCOM20THAF” (Green); ”28 0235 Apr 45 CINCPOA ADV TO COMINCH INFO CINCSWPA, COM3RDFLT,
COM5THFLT, COM7THFLT” (Yellow, Nimitz Only).

36
Nimitz, Graybook, Vol. 6, “”23 0315 May 45, CINCPOA PEARL to CINCPOA ADV (Towers to Nimitz Only)”
(Yellow, Nimitz Only).

66
Concluding combat in the spring avoided the dangerous summer typhoon

season.37 However, delays in releasing troops from the Philippines, shipping

shortfalls, and poor weather resulted in the original invasion date being delayed

by a month.38 Finally executed on April 1st, the critical early days of the operation

were hampered by the start of the rainy season. Unloading operations were

suspended on three of the first 12 days of the operation due to poor weather.

Cargo backloads, already building up due to stevedore shortages, continued to

increase.39

Civil government responsibilities had also not been accounted for during

early logistics planning. The Tenth Army G-4 reported to Buckner that the

CINCPOA Staff Study failed to include an estimated 10,000 tons of monthly

subsistence supplies required to care for Okinawa’s civilian population. This

figure equaled nearly an entire day’s total tonnage unloaded during the first

crucial months of ICEBERG.40

During his tenure at Tenth Army, Buckner was constantly occupied by

shipping concerns. In his first week of command Lieutenant General Richardson,

commander of U.S. Army Forces Pacific Ocean Area, requested a detailed plan

37
JCS, Joint Staff Planners, “Annex A” to “J.P.S. 404/6 Future Operations in the Pacific,” Records of the JCS,
Part 1: PT, POA, July 9, 1944, 13.

38
HQ Tenth Army, Action Report Ryukyus, 3-0-9.

39
War Department, SGT Burns, Army Historical Division, interview with Navy LT C.D. Clawson, Navy Beach
Battalion, April 13, 1945, Box 2441, Entry 427, RG 407, NACP

40
HQ, Tenth Army, Memo from Tenth Army G-4, Logistics Implications, ICEBERG, December 27, 1944, 2.

67
for the conducting of ship-to-shore logistics movement. Richardson brought up

difficulties from earlier operations and included an after-action review from

Saipan to help Buckner with developing a plan.41 Buckner and his staff in turn

developed detailed plans for all aspects of the logistics chain. Admiral Turner,

who had commanded numerous amphibious operations in the Central Pacific,

reviewed and “considered to be excellent” Buckner’s concept for organizing

shore parties.42

To combat anticipated logistics shortages during ICEBERG the maximum

utilization of resources was emphasized in a series of Tenth Army operational

directives issued in January. Logistics Directive No. 1 stated that “this

headquarters will render such aid to the garrison forces of a captured objective

as will expedite the work of base development.” Units departing the combat

area for rehabilitation were directed to loan organizational equipment and hand

over supplies to garrison forces. Equipment was to be returned to the original

owners only at the latest possible date before their next operation. Another

directive emphasized the importance of utilizing captured Japanese material

when available and directed the formation of corps and division-level salvage

teams for collection.43 Both directives reflected the shortfall in required shipping.

41
HQ, USAFPOA, Richardson to Buckner, Proposed Logistical Plan for Ship to Shore Movement, October
15, 1944, 400-451.2, Box 28, Entry P 50416, RG 338, NACP.

42
Headquarters, Amphibious Forces Pacific, Turner to Buckner, Shore Party Concept Revision, December
11, 1944, 1, Box 14, Entry P 61, Commander Amphibious Forces Pacific Fleet Blue 160, RG 313, NACP.

43
HQ, Tenth Army, “Logistics – Number 1,” January 1, 1945, 7; “Logistics – Number 2,” January 1, 1945,
12-13. Operational Directives, Tenth Army, 1945.
http://cgsc.cdmhost.com/cdm/ref/collection/p4013coll8/id/622.

68
With essential equipment and material delayed in reaching construction units

Tenth Army emphasized to its units the necessity to use every asset available to

complete the mission.

Tenth Army’s G-4 section fought throughout the ICEBERG planning

process to correct unrealistic estimates for logistics and shipping requirements

made by CINCPOA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Nimitz, as much as possible,

funneled decision making on shipping through Buckner. While still preparing for

CAUSEWAY Nimitz ordered his staff and subordinate headquarters to route all

shipping changes through Buckner before he would approve them. This was

required even if a change was absolutely necessary given the situation.44

Offloading speed had always been a point of emphasis during ICEBERG

planning. Less than a month from the beginning of the operation, Nimitz wrote to

his subordinates that “the inadequacy of harbor facilities at LEGUMINOUS and

INDISPENSIBLE45 make it necessary that despacthed (sic) to those areas at a

rate commensurate with discharge capabilities and the tactical situation.”46

Nimitz’s warning ultimately proved prophetic.

From the opening days of the invasion cargo vessels were backed up

while waiting to be unloaded due to a lack of stevedores and the reduced speed

44
HQ, CINCPOA, CINCPOA Message, Changes to echelon and shipping schedules, August 24, 1944, 1,
Decimal Files 44-45, 560-563.5, Box 32, Entry P 50416, RG 338, NACP.

45
LEGUMINOUS was the codename for Okinawa, INDESPENSIBLE was Ie Shima.
46
HQ, CINCPOA, Memo From CINCPOA, Control of Shipping – ICEBERG (Serial 000299), 1, Decimal Files 44-
45, 560-563.5, Box 32, Entry P 50416, RG 338, NACP.

69
of offload operations over reef-blocked beaches. After six weeks of growing

frustration, including the loss of numerous waiting cargo vessels to kamikaze

attacks, Buckner was forced to take action. On May 16 he recommended to

Admiral Turner that standard vessels unload their cargo in the Marianas Islands.

Then it would be loaded onto LSTs and LSMs and delivered on the beaches at

Okinawa. Two weeks later Buckner provided Nimitz with an update on port

capacity, stating that none would be available until the end of June and he still

lacked the personnel to man them once opened.47

Though Tenth Army succeeded numerous times in increasing shipping

allocations, it was not enough to overcome the impact on logistics resulting from

the fog of war. Unexpected losses of ammunition ships, poor weather, the

Japanese defensive plan and other factors combined to throw off the detailed

planning for ICEBERG. Buckner’s knowledge of the strategic shipping shortage

in the latter stages of the Pacific Campaign influenced many of his decisions at

the tactical level. While the original invasion plan called for landings on both the

west and east coasts of Okinawa, he scrapped this for a more simplified single

approach from the west.48

Buckner also modified the original plan’s sequence of operations. During

the first days of the invasion he opposed any use of his immediate reserve force,

not wanting to lose flexibility. After identifying that the Japanese were only

47
Nimitz, Graybook, Vol. 6, 19 “0431 May 45 COMGEN TEN to COM5THFLT” (Green), “31 1715 May 45
COMGEN 10 to CINCPOA PEARL” (Green).

48
HQ Tenth Army, Action Report Ryukyus, 3-0-10.

70
defending the southern half of Okinawa, he followed the January

recommendation of the G-4 section and used the 77th Division to seize Ie Shima

in Phase I. Though starting development projects on Ie Shima earlier than

planned added logistical complexity, this was offset by both short and long-term

benefits. Committing the 77th Division, until then holding at sea, freed up their

assault shipping for other missions after the Ie Shima landings were completed

and the division moved to Okinawa to join the XXIV Corps offensive. In the same

vein, construction troops began airfield development ahead of schedule, moving

forward on one of the primary goals of Operation ICEBERG.49

As the operation progressed the continual influx of personnel and material

for base development further strained shipping. Austere port conditions, including

the delay in opening Naha, forced Buckner to utilize landing craft as the primary

supply vessels for both his combat forces and development efforts on the

islands. Any large scale secondary landing would have required additional

assault shipping to maintain the flow of logistics, but none were available in the

Pacific. The unanticipated operations in the Philippines, increases to strategic

bombing, and the requirements to support the vast amount of bases spread

across the Pacific subsumed a large share of available shipping. With the entire

theater already operating on reduced logistics allocations, Buckner was not able

to maintain a reserve of ships to conduct a large scale landing.

49
Buckner and Stilwell, Seven Stars, 30, 33.

71
 Even if additional shipping had been available Buckner lacked the service

units required to maintain any combat forces engaged on a new front. Additional

shore parties, ammunition and supply dumps would have had to been organized

by service units. But there were no troops available, either locally or across the

entire Pacific. The decisions to prioritize Europe over the Pacific, to mount dual

Pacific campaigns, and the expansion of strategic bombing resulted in a critical

shortage of units, particularly port and engineer units. Operations at the main

supply area would have had to been reduced in order to free up the personnel

required to build a similar logistical line at a Minatoga beachhead, further slowing

down unloading operations and extending turn-around times for cargo vessels.50

Such a move threatened the timeline for development of base facilities and the

November target for Operation OLYMPIC.

50
Buckner and Stilwell, Seven Stars, 18.

72
 Chapter 4: Arnold, LeMay, Halsey, and the Strategic Bombing Campaign

The Army Air Force Aims to End the War

After spending enormous material and manpower waging a strategic

bombing campaign against Germany, with what they regarded as great success,

the Army Air Force in 1944-45 aimed to do the same against Japan. This push

was bolstered by support from President Roosevelt and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Strategic bombing was seen as an alternative to costly ground operations and as

a means to bolster U.S. morale, while at the same time, decreasing the

Japanese will to fight. Ineffective early missions flown from bases in China gave

way to much more potent attacks after the 1944 capture of the Marianas Islands,

which had been selected as an objective for seizure primarily in order to provide

bases less at the limit of the B-29 heavy bomber’s 1,600 mile range. In a role

similar to that of the B-17 in Europe, the B-29 became the workhorse of the

Pacific strategic bombing campaign, which was designated in official military

terminology as the Very Long Range (VLR) bombing program.1

Supporting the bombing campaign came at a high cost in supplies,

transport and infrastructure. In April 1944, the Joint Chiefs of Staff approved the

1
Wesley F. Craven and James L. Cate, eds, The Army Air Forces in World War II, Volume 5, The Pacific:
Matterhorn to Nagasaki, June 1944 to August 1945 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1983),
3-4.

73
deployment of twelve B-29 groups to the Marianas. Rear Admiral D.B. Duncan,

head of the Navy War Plans Division, sent a warning to Admiral King that:

In view of increasingly “tight” shipping situation, VLR operations can

only be supported at to the expense of other – possibly more
productive – effort. If VLR bombing does not prove an effective
blow against the enemy, our efforts to support it will actually serve
to lengthen rather than shorten the PACIFIC war.2

By the last years of the war many U.S. military leaders regarded strategic

bombing as a tool of victory almost equal in importance to the traditional ground

and naval forces. This was a radical departure from pre-war thinking. In 1941 the

Army’s primary doctrinal work, Field Manual 100-5, made no reference to

strategic bombing. The doctrinal role of the Army Air Forces was to “further the

mission of the supported unit and receive its mission and objectives from the

commander of the forces which it is supporting.”3

Early champions of the bomber, including General of the Army Hap

Arnold, Army Air Force Chief of Staff, succeeded in institutionalizing their ideas

on strategic bombing. The 1939 design of the B-29 itself, ill-suited for any other

missions, foreshadowed the increasing prevalence of strategic bombing doctrine.

The 1944 edition of Field Manual 100-5 split combat aviation into tactical and

strategic air forces. It strongly advised against use of strategic bombers to

2
Office of the CNO, Admiral D.B. Duncan to Admiral King, Logistics Implications of VLR Bombing Program,
22 May, 1944, 2.

3
War Department, War Department Field Manual 100-5: Field Service Regulations, Operations
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. U.S. War Department, 1941), 12-14,
http://cgsc.cdmhost.com/cdm/ref/collection/p4013coll9/id/24.

74
execute tactical missions, except “when the action is vital and decisive”, and

closed the discussion with the caveat that “this deviation from basic employment

is rare.”4

With the activation of the 20th Air Force in April, 1944, Pacific commanders

no longer had a say in target selection. With Arnold holding personal command

of the headquarters any requests for deviation from strategic targets required

approval from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. At Okinawa B-29s were authorized to

support Buckner’s ground forces for five weeks. LeMay vigorously opposed the

mission, but acquiesced when Nimitz promised to not ask for the diversion of

strategic bombers again prior to the Japan invasion.5

United States Army Forces Pacific Ocean Areas, the headquarters

responsible for all Army administrative and logistical functions in Nimitz’s theater,

clearly identified strategic bombing as “one of the principle missions” of the

headquarters. Army Air Corps units shared logistics supply lines in common with

ground forces. But they also had their own dedicated air and maritime shipping

assets for munitions and major parts independent of the Army’s Service of

Supply.6 The stationing of the initial twelve VLR groups in the Marianas required

4
War Department, War Department Field Manual 100-5: Field Service Regulations, Operations
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. War Department, 1944), 22,
http://cgsc.cdmhost.com/cdm/ref/collection/p4013coll9/id/30.

5
LeMay, Strategic Air Warfare, 48.

6
G-4 Section, HQ USAFPOA, G-4 Periodic Report, U.S. Army Forces Pacific Ocean Areas, for Quarter Ended
30 June 1945, 24 July 1945, 3,
http://cgsc.cdmhost.com/cdm/ref/collection/p4013coll8/id/1793.

75
an additional thirty-one cargo ships for support, a consideration explored in depth

in Chapter 3.7 This first deployment marked the start of a yearlong debate on the

effectiveness of strategic bombing and its logistics implications for the Pacific

Theater. Reaching the highest level of leadership, political and personality-

driven decision making trumped the objections of both Army and Navy strategic

planners.

Okinawa marked the culmination of the testy relationship between the

services regarding strategic bombing in the Pacific. After years of prioritizing

strategic bombing in Europe over the Pacific, the Joint Chiefs in August, 1943

ordered a B-29 force to India and China to begin strategic bombing of Japan.

Codenamed Project MATTERHORN, the campaign was cancelled before it

began due to its enormous logistical cost. Needing a new base of operations,

the Joint Chiefs directed the planned force of 12 B-29 groups to be based in the

Marianas Islands.8

In May, 1944, Navy planners raised flags of warning about strategic

bombing’s impact on the Central Pacific campaign. Rear Admiral D.B. Duncan,

Assistant Chief of Staff for War Plans, wrote to Admiral King that “some concern

has been felt as to our ability to provide the logistic support for 12 groups in the

MARIANAS without impinging on other operations.”9 The process of transferring

7
Office of the CNO, Duncan to King, Logistics Implications, 22 May, 1944, 1.

8
Haywood S. Hansell Jr., The Strategic Air War Against Japan: A Memoir (Washington, D.C.: Office of Air
Force History, 1986), 55-57, 142-45.

9
Office of the CNO, Admiral D.B. Duncan to Admiral Ernest King, VLR Program for the Marianas, 26 May,
1944, 1, Box 68, Entry Strategic Plans, War Plans Division (Series III), RG 38, NACP.

76
the B-29 wing from the China-Burma-India Theater to the Central Pacific

highlighted the poorly coordinated nature of the campaign. In a meeting of the

Joint Chiefs of Staff’s Joint Logistics Committee the members discussed a just-

completed study on the logistical impact of the B-29 transfer, but declined to

forward it to commands in the Pacific because the War Department had already

approved the move. In their haste to utilize the growing bomber force, the U.S.

Military’s senior leaders neglected to consider the tail-to-tooth operational ratio of

the bombing campaign. This first step marked the beginning of an ever

increasing demand for share of Pacific Theater resources.10

After receiving approval for the initial Marianas deployment, the Army Air

Forces quickly called for a much greater Pacific footprint. Navy planners

repeatedly stressed to Admiral King that any further growth jeopardized

operations in the first half of 1945. D.B. Duncan’s May 22, 1944, memo

highlighted the huge disparity between the actual weight of bombs dropped, and

the load placed on the logistics system to provide them. He also recommended

opposing any additions to 20th Air Force until the command demonstrated their

effectiveness.11

Two months later the Navy War Plans Division addressed the topic again

through a proposed draft memorandum from King to the commanding general of

10
JCS, JLC, ”Joint Logistics Committee 104, 9 February, 1945,” Records of the JCS, Part 1: 1942-1945,
Meetings, JLC, 1; Hansell, 55-57.

11
Duncan to King, 22 May, 1944, 2.

77
the Twentieth Air Force. Quoting estimates from Nimitz’s staff, the memo called

into question the validity of B-29 requirements that were presented at meetings of

the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Citing an overestimation of port capacity and an

underestimation of tanker requirements, it concluded that the VLR plan

“underestimates shipping requirements by approximately 600,000 tons.”12

President Roosevelt’s support of the massive production and employment of B-

29s, together with the placement of command of 20th Air Force in the hands of

General Arnold, prohibited Navy warnings from slowing the growth of the VLR

bombing program.13

A four-fold expansion of the B-29 force occurred over the next year. The

first increase, from 12 to 20 groups in November 1944, led Nimitz to express his

concerns about this increase to Lieutenant General Ernest Harmon, commanding

general of the Army Air Forces, Pacific Ocean Areas. Nimitz noted that the

theater lacked both sufficient service troops for construction, and the shipping

needed to move materials necessary for building bases. Though he closed the

letter with a commitment to implement the Joint Chiefs’ decisions if feasible,

Nimitz offered a strong rebuke of the VLR program as a whole. He stated that

“until these shortages are met, the Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet and

Pacific Ocean Areas is very much opposed to augmentation of VLR program

12
Office of the CNO, Draft Memo from War Plans Division to CG 20th AF, Logistic support of air forces in
future Pacific operations, 31 July, 1944, 1, Box 76, Entry Strategic Plans, War Plans Division (Series III), RG
38, NACP.

13
Wolk, Cataclysm, 82-83.

78
requiring Service Troops and Shipping that might otherwise be available for

carrying out the POA program of operations.”14

Under continued pressure from Roosevelt and his chief advocate, Army

Chief of Staff George Marshall, the Joint Chiefs of Staff authorized an increase to

48 B-29 groups. Captain Paul Stroop, the Navy’s chief of aviation plans, warned

against the conversion of B-24 units to B-29s, a cause both King and Nimitz took

up with Arnold. Just two days before ICEBERG kicked off Stroop proposed that

King and Arnold write a memorandum seeking to stop the transfer of three B-24

groups that would support the invasion. This pressure from the Navy’s top

leaders, coupled with the tenacity of Japanese resistance at Okinawa, led Arnold

to cancel conversion plans on May 16, 1945.15

Army Air Force designs on Okinawa as a massive B-29 base also drew

Stroop’s attention. Original plans called for a force of 12 VLR groups to be

established on the island. Stroop correctly predicted that the AAF would

shoehorn more bombers onto the island than authorized, referring to their

“customary “foot-in-the-door method” that would “eventually have 20 groups on

Okinawa.” Just two weeks later Stroop informed Duncan that the Twentieth Air

14
HQ, CINCPAC/POA, Memo to CG AAFPOA from CINCPOA, Increase of 8 Groups of VLR Bombers for
P.O.A, 7 November, 1944, 1-3, Box 76, Strategic Plans, War Plans Division (Series III), RG 38, NACP.

15
HQ, Army Air Forces, GEN Arnold to ADM King, Planned deployment of Very Heavy Bomber (VHB)
Groups, May 16, 1945, Box 76, Strategic Plans, War Plans Division (Series III), RG 38, NACP.

79
Force successfully executed the fait accompli, having established sixteen

bomber groups, four more than authorized and with more on the way.16

Massive airfield and support facility construction projects began only days

after the launch of ICEBERG. Mostly conceived during the planning phase,

airfield sites sprang up across both Okinawa and Ie Shima. Though existing

Japanese facilities provided an opportunity for early basing of tactical support

aircraft, the vast majority of fields were bare sites that would require significant

new construction. On June 30, just days after organized resistance ceased on

Okinawa, construction was already underway or in the works on eleven airfields

with nineteen total flight strips. Fifteen strips featured runways long enough for

heavy bombers, and seven met the 7,500 foot runway requirement for B-29s.17

Ie Shima held four more airfields capable of supporting aircraft as large as B-24

heavy bombers. Estimates forecast completion of all fields by November 15,

1945, just in time to support the invasion of Kyushu.18

16
Navy Department, Memo from CAPT Stroop to RADMs Duncan and Gardner, 31 May, 1945; Navy
Department, Memo Stroop to F-1, Comments on JCS 1190/8 – Planned Deployment of Strategic Very
Heavy Bomber Groups, 15 June, 1945, Box 76, Strategic Plans, War Plans Division (Series III), RG 38, NACP.

17
Headquarters of the Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet (CINCPAC) and Pacific Ocean Areas (POA),
Base Facilities Summary: Advance Bases Central Pacific Area, 30 June, 1945, 224,
http://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/u?/p4013coll8,2622.

18
Ibid, 234.

80
 Figure 3: Airfield Sites, Okinawa and Ie Shima, June 1945

Source: HQ CINCPAC and POA, Base Facilities Summary, Advance Bases

Central Pacific Area, 30 June 1945, CARL_Ft_Leavenworth, 223.

81
 Buckner became a central figure in the debate over competing strategic

“ways” to end the war and their impact on efforts to support tactical operations at

Okinawa. Though his Army background biased him somewhat toward a

preference for land based ways to reach strategic ends, Buckner’s ideas

primarily rested on his interpretation of the conclusion of World War I and its

meaning for the prevention of future similar wars. In 1943, while still

commanding in Alaska, Buckner stated that “you’ve got to march into their

country to make them realize their complete defeat” and that “we made a mistake

when we did not crush Germany by actual invasion in the last war.” His views on

tactical losses for strategic gain, that “loss of a few thousand men in invading

Japan would be insurance against the loss of millions in the next war” provide

insight into how Buckner conducted operations at Okinawa with an eye firmly set

on the next battle.19

Though a seasoned Army infantry officer, Buckner did not hold negative

feelings towards the use of air power. His experience in Alaska played no small

role in this attitude. The single greatest contribution to repelling Japanese attacks

in the Aleutians came from air power, not ground or naval forces. Air raids

against the Japanese Navy, though causing little damage, eventually forced their

withdrawal. The islands of Attu and Kiska remained occupied but mopping up

operations required relatively small amphibious assaults. From his new

command’s location, Buckner wrote to his wife Adele on June 15, 1945, that

19
“General Buckner a West Pointer: Son of Confederate General Was Academy Head from 1933-6, Born in
Kentucky,” New York Times, June 19, 1945, 7.

82
Okinawa-based bombers were conducting daily attacks against Japan, and

claimed that the campaign had “already developed our island into a powerful

offensive base.”20

In addition to his personal notes on the topic, Buckner continued to

receive explicit guidance on airfield construction from Admiral Nimitz throughout

the campaign. Less than two weeks into the invasion Nimitz wrote to Buckner

and other senior officers in the combined force that “the governing principle will

be maximum early development of Okinawa as a base for attack on Japan

consistent with immediate urgent requirements for tactical purposes.” In a May

28 note for Buckner’s eyes only, Nimitz ordered him to speed up the construction

efforts and to relieve his senior officers if necessary, remarking that airfields were

progressing “disturbingly slow.”21

While Buckner and Nimitz traded correspondence on the matter, other

senior leaders from the Army Air Force and Navy, from general officers in the

Pacific to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also weighed in on the issue. On April 14,

Vice Admiral Raymond Spruance, commander of the 5th Fleet and the Central

Pacific Task Force, conducted an inspection of facilities on the island and warned

Nimitz two days later that poor weather and lack of natural runway material would

extend the planned construction timetables.22

20
Buckner and Stilwell, Seven Stars, 65.

21
Nimitz, Graybook, Vol. 6, “12 2314 Apr 45 CINCPOA ADV to CG10” (Green); “28 0910 May 45 CINCPOA
ADV TO COM5THPHIBFOR” (Yellow, Nimitz Only).

22
Ibid, “16 0834 Apr 45 COM5THFLT to CINCPAC ADV“ (Green).

83
 Initial plans for basing bombers on the island called for two of the first

eight airfields under construction to accommodate B-29s. Fierce opposition, both

by Japanese ground forces on Okinawa and kamikaze aircraft from Japan, led to

a debate on construction priorities. In early May competing demands from Navy

and Army Air Force leaders reached Nimitz, with Buckner included in the

message distribution. On May 6, Spruance issued a direct request to Buckner

that he cease work on facilities for long-range bombers. Instead Spruance

wanted to shift focus to fighter aircraft fields, which would aid in the defense

against kamikaze attacks. Four days later Major General Curtis Lemay, now

deputy commander of Twentieth Air Force, responded that this would interfere

with plans for basing B-29s on Okinawa.23

Nimitz rebuffed LeMay on May 11, identifying tactical aircraft as the

highest priority for facility construction. True to his philosophy of valuing the

opinions of his battlefield leaders, Nimitz asked Buckner for his view on the

matter. Buckner, understanding the strategic intent of his mission, had come to

this conclusion even earlier than Nimitz. His journal entry of May 6 revealed that

he immediately ordered the changes recommended by Spruance, five days

before Nimitz’s order.24

23
Nimitz, Graybook, Vol. 6, “06 0129 May 45 COM5THFLT TO CTF 56” (Green); “10 0752 May 45
DEPCOMAF 20 to CINCPOA PEARL” (Green).

24
Ibid, “16 0834 Apr 45 COM5THFLT to CINCPAC ADV” (Green); “06 0129 May 45 COM5THFLT TO CTF 56”
(Green); “10 0752 May 45 DEPCOMAF 20 to CINCPOA PEARL” (Green); “11 0042 May 45 CINCPOA ADV TO
DEPCOM20AF” (Green); Buckner and Stillwell, Seven Stars, 53.

84
 Buckner believed that strategic bombing had a role in the war, though he

identified its primary benefits as its psychological impact on Japan and the

military and industrial damage that would reduce resistance to invasion, not as a

means that would in itself force surrender. Buckner demonstrated this belief in

his decision to prioritize tactical airfield construction over strategic bomber fields.

This decision would lead to increased capacity for the tactical aircraft supporting

Tenth Army’s ground assault and to greater protection for naval assets in the

Ryukyus. The move also bolstered preparation for Operation OLYMPIC by

increasing capacity for those aircraft that best supported amphibious operations.

Buckner in a May 29, 1945, message to Nimitz clearly stated that “fighter fields”,

not VLR strips, were “vital to future plans.”25

Nimitz shared these sentiments. He wrote to King and the Joint Chiefs on

12 May 12, 1945, that changes should be made to the types of aircraft deployed

to the island. Nimitz advised that “a decision to execute OLYMPIC this year may

make it desirable to temporarily replace some part of the VLR wings proposed for

OKINAWA by types better adapted for attack on enemy air forces and air

installations and for close support of troops.”26

Naval Aviation Goes Strategic

The Pacific strategic bombing campaign had a dynamic missing from the

strategic bombing campaign in Europe. Though the Air Corps owned the only

25
Nimitz, Graybook, Vol. 6, “29 1012 May 45 COMGEN10 to CINCPOA ADV” (Yellow, Nimitz Only).

26
Ibid, “12 0220 May 45, CINCPAC ADV to COMINCH” (Yellow, Nimitz Only).

85
“strategic” bombers, naval aviation advocates argued that mass attacks by

carrier based tactical aircraft produced strategic effects. This belief stemmed

from the radical shift in naval strategy after Pearl Harbor. At the time of the

attack the U.S. Navy operated eight aircraft carriers, of which only five were

designed as carriers, the others being converted tenders or battle cruisers.27 The

small number of carriers during the early war years meant that they were

continuously employed, with the most critical period occurring from the Battle of

the Coral Sea to Midway. As the operational area continued to shrink in early

1945, the Navy was faced with the dilemma of having a glut of carriers with

limited targets for their employment. For instance, plans for Operation

OLYMPIC, the invasion of Kyushu, included a total of fifty aircraft carriers, seven

times the pre-war force.28

Nimitz’s rotation of his main battle fleet leadership reflected the constant

shifting of operational focus during the last two years of war. Command of the

Central Pacific Task Forces transferred multiple times between Admiral

Raymond Spruance, designated 3rd Fleet, and 5th Fleet under Admiral William

“Bull” Halsey.29 During the Central Pacific Campaign large scale amphibious

27
U.S. Navy, “The Carriers The List,” http://www.navy.mil/navydata/ships/carriers/cv-list.asp (accessed
October 10, 2015).

28
Office of the CNO, War Plans Division, Brief of OLYMPIC, 19 May, 1945, 7, Box 68, Strategic Plans, War
Plans Division (Series III), RG 38, NACP.

29
Navy fleet number assignment ties to the commander and staff. More staffs exist then actual organized
fleets, allowing for rotation of personnel during extended conflict. Individual ships are assigned to the
fleet headquarters and then further down to numbered task forces or task groups, they also rotate
between active service and refit periods.

86
operations at the Marianas, Iwo Jima and Okinawa command fell to Spruance.

Under his command was the Navy’s foremost amphibious practitioner, Vice

Admiral Richmond Turner. In between the Marianas and Iwo Jima a significant

part of Nimitz’s fleet supported MacArthur’s invasion of the Philippines. Halsey

was given command in anticipation of a decisive carrier aviation battle against

the remnants of the Japanese fleet. With the almost complete destruction of the

Japanese Navy, Nimitz experienced a six month period between ICEBERG and

OLYMPIC with no major land operations to employ his carrier aviation.

Halsey and his staff, with the blessing of Nimitz, planned for a series of air

raids targeting Kyushu and Honshu months before ICEBERG began that were

designed to keep the carrier fleet in action. The concept was not a new one,

having first appeared as an October 1944 CINCPOA plan. Using the codename

HOTFOOT, the operation proposed “to destroy enemy military forces and

facilities, (and) to provide strategic cover for the PACIFIC Campaign by

containing or diverting enemy forces in the EMPIRE.”30

At the Pentagon, Admiral King’s staff study of HOTFOOT included an

assumption that “carrier(s) can prosecute effectively a strategic bombing

campaign.”31 In practice the employment of carriers as part of the strategic

bombing effort played only a small role in the closing months of the war. Even

compared to the reduced bomb loads of B-29s operating from the Marianas, the

30
HQ, CINCPOA, CINCPOA Joint Staff Study HOTFOOT, 5 October, 1944, 1, Box 76, Strategic Plans, War
Plans Division (Series III), RG 38, NACP.

31
Office of the CNO, COMINCH Staff Study HOTFOOT III (undated, likely May, 1945), Box 76, Strategic
Plans, War Plans Division (Series III), RG 38, NACP.

87
total ordnance dropped by carrier based aircraft was small. For instance, on one

multi-day operation Halsey’s aircraft dropped a total of 300 tons of bombs. By

comparison, in support of that raid, LeMay’s bombers in one maximum effort

attack against Japanese airfields dropped 3,000 tons.32 The effectiveness of

carriers in a strategic bombing role was inhibited by the heavy refit requirements

for both aircraft and ships, as well as the threat of Japanese air and submarine

attacks, which prevented the carriers from carrying out continuous raids. Navy

War Plans Division member Captain C.D. Glover expressed concern to a fellow

planner over the over-ambitious goals of HOTFOOT III, remarking “we should

have learned from experience to evaluate the potentialities of our air forces and

to guard against over-optimism.” He recommended toning down language in the

staff study that read as if carrier aviation would single-handedly win the war.33

Halsey’s prolonged commitment to support MacArthur doomed the original

HOTFOOT, but planning for subsequent carrier-based strategic bombing

operations continued at the Pentagon and CINCPOA headquarters. Support for

the concept from the Navy’s top leadership drowned out Glover and others’

words of caution. The latest iteration of the concept, HOTFOOT III, made its way

through Washington and Pearl Harbor in May, 1945. HOTFOOT III offered a

long-term solution to the problem of idle aircraft carriers, with raids against Japan

scheduled for the period of time encompassed by ICEBERG, OLYMPIC, and

32
LeMay, Strategic Air Warfare, 51-52.

33
Office of the CNO, Memo from C.D. Glover, F-112, to F-15, Comment on HOTFOOT III, May 2, 1945, 1,
Box 76, Strategic Plans, War Plans Division (Series III), RG 38, NACP.

88
CORONET, which was the planned spring 1946 invasion of the Tokyo Plain on

Honshu. This continued interest coincided with Nimitz’s schedule for the rotation

of leadership in the Central Pacific Task Forces, with Halsey and his 5th Fleet

staff taking the lead in HOTFOOT III planning.

Mid-way through Operation ICEBERG Halsey once again assumed

command of the Central Pacific Task Forces, freeing Spruance and his 3rd Fleet

staff to begin planning for Operation OLYMPIC. On May 28, 1945, Halsey

requested and received approval from Nimitz for a prolonged raid by the majority

of his assigned fast carriers against the island of Hokkaido in the first week of

July. In another cable sent just minutes his initial request, Halsey added targets

in Kyushu and Honshu that would extend the duration of the operation to more

than a week. Though smaller raids against Japanese airfields had taken place

throughout the execution of ICEBERG, the new plan required a full 14 days of

refit for Halsey’s fast carriers, removing them from their support of Okinawa

operations in mid-June.34 Just as the Army Air Force pushed ahead of published

timelines, Halsey moved his carrier raids ahead of schedule, sending two carrier

task groups on a June 8 raid against Kyushu.35 From that point forward Okinawa

no longer served as 3rd Fleet’s primary mission.

Offensive operations against entrenched enemy forces required mass

quantities of supporting fire to gain ground. The mountainous terrain of southern

34
Nimitz, Graybook, Vol. 6, “28 0921 May 45 HALSEY to NIMITZ” (Yellow, Nimitz Only); “28 0929 May 45
HALSEY to NIMITZ” (Yellow, Nimitz Only); “29 0859 May 45 NIMITZ to HALSEY” (Yellow, Nimitz Only).

35
Ibid, “06 0829 Jun 45, COM3RDFLT to CINCPOA ADV” (Yellow, Nimitz Only).

89
Okinawa limited the effectiveness low angle naval gunfire. Designed to engage

other ships on the horizon, such firepower proved largely ineffective against cave

defenses. The ability of aircraft to hit pin-point targets and the increased lethality

of the new munitions they carried made air support vital to success. Halsey’s

departure left Buckner and Tenth Army dependent primarily on Marine aircraft

operating off captured Japanese airfields at Kadena and Yontan. A significant

portion of the Navy’s remaining escort carrier aircraft conducted combat air

patrols to defend against kamikaze, leaving few sorties to support ground

operations.

With a vastly reduced level of aviation support, any amphibious end run at

Minatoga to bypass the Japanese defenses would prove problematic. Minatoga

fell outside the range of U.S. artillery to the northeast of the Shuri Line. Minimum

firing distances also prohibited larger caliber guns from moving to the new

beachhead until it could expand significantly, leaving landing forces vulnerable to

a Japanese counterattack. Without the aid of the fast-carriers and Army Air

Force heavy bombers, the proposed amphibious landing faced significant

operational risk.

What had been the greatest example of U.S. joint operations during World

War II fell apart before Okinawa was secured. The push for strategic bombing by

both the Army Air Forces and Navy had led to a diversion of essential fire-

support in the middle of Buckner’s heaviest fighting on Okinawa, a result of the

military services desire to utilize their massive fleets of aircraft. The B-29 growth

in the Pacific also diverted service troops and shipping that restricted the tactical

90
options open to Buckner. Both factors contributed to Buckner’s decision to

continue a frontal attack that promised a high cost in terms of both time and men,

but one that was certain to achieve the goals of ICEBERG.

91
 Conclusion

“I am not hurrying the attack on the south, but am greatly reducing

casualties by a gradual and systematic destruction of their works. This we are

doing successfully and can, I feel confident, break their line in ample time for our

purposes.”1 These two sentences in LTG Buckner’s April 14, 1945, letter to his

wife Adele provide a concise view of his tactical and strategic outlook at

Okinawa. Though Buckner spent the majority of his time directing tactical

operations and visiting ground combat troops, the strategic goals of the U.S.

were constantly on his mind. He recognized the value of the Ryukyus both as a

means to end the war with Japan and as a means of providing a longer-term

forward presence in the Pacific. In another letter to Adele he stated that

“strategically it [is] highly important to our air and naval forces as a base to

prevent further trouble from starting in the Orient. I hope we are sensible enough

to keep it.”2

Senior leaders of the other military services respected Buckner’s

leadership abilities and commitment to joint operations. As already noted, Nimitz

hand-selected Buckner for command of Tenth Army, even with his limited combat

experience. Buckner’s immediate supervisor during the amphibious portion of

1
Buckner and Stilwell, Seven Stars, 39.

2
Ibid, 40.

92
ICEBERG also had a high opinion of his performance and character. After a

conference at Okinawa Nimitz wrote to King that Turner “rates Buckner very

highly and wishes to work with him in the invasion.”3 This was high praise from

two of the Navy’s most respected leaders.

Buckner did his part to recognize sister service contributions and protect

fragile inter-service relationships; this was key to his effort to maintain progress

towards strategic goals in the Pacific. When a mid-campaign press briefing by

USAFPOA commander LTG Richardson only mentioned the progress of Army

units, an angry Buckner remarked in his journal that he immediately “wrote him

an official letter urging him to give due credit to my Marines” [emphasis in

original] and claimed that “Richardson is always a menace to good relations

between the services in the Pacific. Adm. Nimitz knows it.”4 Buckner also

selected Marine Major General Roy Geiger, commander of III Amphibious Corps,

as the successor to command of Tenth Army, another point of contention with

Richardson. This is the only instance in U.S. military history of a Marine

commanding a field army level force. Though junior in date of rank to MG

Hodge, Buckner viewed Geiger as more qualified to assume the position.5

Buckner demonstrated a sound strategic understanding throughout his

tenure as Tenth Army commander. The command’s first planned operation,

3
Nimitz, Graybook, Vol. 6, “CINCPAC to COMINCH, 12 1215 APR 45” (Yellow, Nimitz Only). The invasion
referenced was Operation OLYMPIC.

4
Buckner and Stilwell, Seven Stars, 45.

5
Buckner and Stilwell, Seven Stars, 17. Sledge, With the Old Breed, 300.

93
CAUSEWAY, marked his first major decision point tied to strategic issues.

Though others raised concerns on its feasibility and value, the voice of the

combat commander held the most weight. His projections of service troop

shortages, a problem he helped bring to light, ultimately forced a change to Tenth

Army’s objective.

Buckner recognized and addressed strategic factors throughout the

planning and execution of Operation ICEBERG. In October, 1944 Buckner

became the first Pacific commander to organize and activate a separate island

command at the onset of fighting. A successful element of mid and post-battle

re-organization in the Marianas and Iwo Jima, the island command concept

relieved tactical commanders of rear area logistics and base development

responsibility.6 In planning for ICEBERG Buckner took these lessons learned

and improved upon the concept. Shifting most of the non-combat functions to

the Island Command allowed Tenth Army Headquarters to focus on current

operations and future battle plans. A separate general officer led headquarters,

which gave the organization its own command authority, dealt solely with

orchestrating the massive development effort to both support combat forces and

prepare Okinawa for its role in the invasion of Japan. Buckner placed himself in

a position to exercise command of both combat and support activities.

Designation as the Commander of Expeditionary Forces, a joint command

position, also led Buckner to a critical decision about headquarters composition.

6
Buckner and Stilwell, Seven Stars, 18; HQ, Tenth Army, Action Report Ryukyus¸ 11-XXVI-1.

94
His understanding of the function of each service and the significant increase in

headquarters responsibilities led to a request and approval for a significant staff

augmentation. Totaling 86 Army, 27 Navy, and 32 Marine officers, the additional

expertise proved beneficial in mitigating strategic logistics issues. An Army

Ground Forces observer found that the detailed planning and execution of

amphibious operations was due in large part to the Navy officers on the staff of

Tenth Army.7

Buckner’s expanded staff included two additional general officers. The

first, Marine Brigadier General Oliver Smith served as one of two Tenth Army

deputy chiefs of staff. Buckner’s request for a Marine deputy reflected his recent

experience as the investigating officer of a contentious episode at Saipan, the

relieving of an Army general officer by a Marine commander. Providing a strong

Marine presence at the table to represent half of ICEBERG’s combat force

deliberately aimed to keep cordial relations between the two ground services.

More importantly, Navy Commodore Andrew Bissett assumed command of all

Island Command construction troops. The placement of a general officer in such

a position reflected Buckner’s prioritization of airfield and port construction.8

Buckner did not completely ignore tactical considerations in decision

making. Under pressure from Navy leaders facing the kamikaze onslaught,

Tenth Army occupied four additional small islands to augment air defense

7
Howe, Observers Report - Okinawa, 10; HQ, Tenth Army, Action Report Ryukyus, 3-0-5.

8
HQ Tenth Army, Action Report Ryukyus, 2-II-22.

95
warning efforts.9 Though these operation required only small forces, the

diversion of any amount of shipping slowed base development operations.

Another call in late May, 1945, to shift all engineers to road repair for an entire

week also provided short-term tactical benefits at the expense of strategic

objectives.

Tenth Army’s ICEBERG operation plan, much like the mission goals of

CAUSEWAY, reflected the focus on occupying terrain suitable for bases.

Invasion beach selection was determined by proximity to existing Japanese

airfields and the flatlands of the central portion of the island. Phase II of

ICEBERG called for the seizure of the nearby island of Ie Shima, another area

suitable for large scale air facilities. Beyond this objective the rest of the mission

statement called for an “occupation (of) such northern OKINAWA as necessary

to establish control of the entire island and develop base facilities in favorable

locations.” No specific task to defeat all Japanese forces, nor a timeline for

completing occupation of the islands was included in either CINCPOA directives

or those promulgated by Tenth Army.10

Ten days after the invasion Nimitz questioned 5th Fleet Commander

Admiral Raymond Spruance on the need for three Army divisions to clear

southern Okinawa. If all three were not required Nimitz recommended using the

77th Infantry Division to capture Ie Shima before the planned ICEBERG Phase II

9
HQ, Tenth Army, Action Report Ryukyus, 1-0-2.

10
Ibid, 1-0-2, 3-0-7.

96
date.11 This contingency had already been planned for by Buckner and his staff

two months before the assault. His decision to fold Phase II into Phase I both

addressed the strategic shortage of shipping and secured prime territory for

airfield development early in the operation.

In mid-April, geography and a well-crafted Japanese defensive plan forced

American forces into a slogging frontal assault. Buckner’s subordinates, most

stridently among them the 77th Division commander Major General Andrew

Bruce, called for an amphibious end run to hasten victory. Successful in Europe,

and more recently in the Philippines, the tactic required coastal maritime

superiority to land forces behind fixed enemy defenses to force their retreat. Two

tactical factors limited the feasibility of such a move. First, the proposed landing

site fell outside of the range of artillery located on the main Tenth Army front.

Second, the reefs off of Minatoga limited beach access to only a portion of

assault shipping types and excluded entirely any sustainment from standard

cargo vessels.12 These two considerations alone made a second amphibious

operation problematic, undermining the arguments of Leckie, Millett, and Murray.

Strategic factors, though, turned out to be the greatest contributor to

limiting Buckner’s options. Admiral Halsey’s increase in carrier raids against

Japan significantly reduced Tenth Army’s air support. Though ostensibly labeled

11
HQ, CINCPOA, CINCPAC ADV to COM 5th FLT, Serial 10046, April 10, 1945, Box 71, Tenth U.S. Army A.G.
Section Operational Reports and Plans, 1944-1945, U.S. Army Commands 1942-1945, RG 338, NACP.

12
Office of the CNO, War Plans Division, Memo for F-00, by A.E. Becker Jr (F-112), Southeast Beaches of
Okinawa – report of, June 16, 1945, BOX 166, Strategic Plans, War Plans Division, Series XII, RG 38, NACP.

97
as operations in support of ICEBERG, the attacks were a long-term project

favored by Nimitz and Halsey. Any daring tactical move by Buckner had to

conclude quickly carriers departing for refit. The Twentieth Air Force had also

ended participation in ICEBERG and returned to strategic bombing of Japanese

cities.

Theater wide shipping and manpower shortages played a much greater

role in influencing Buckner than the reduction of air support. His mission

centered on development, combat operations were only necessary to secure

base sites and prevent the Japanese from interfering with construction. The

major impediments to successful completion of ICEBERG stemmed from

logistics issues four years in the making. Projected force structure requirements

in the1941 Victory Program were weighted too heavily towards combat units, an

oversight that did not become evident until the peak of combat operations in both

theaters in 1944. A key contributor to this situation was the splitting of the Pacific

into two competing theaters under MacArthur and Nimitz. Pre-war planning had

focused on a single axis of advance through the Central Pacific. The addition of

a second route through the South Pacific and the Philippines added dozens of

new bases and corresponding increases to service unit requirements. Buckner’s

first planned operation for Tenth Army, the occupation of Formosa, became a

casualty to the effects of the split commands.

These same decisions also impacted the availability of shipping. As both

Pacific campaigns moved further from U.S. ports, the requirements for shipping

outstripped U.S. ship production capacity. Extension of the war in Europe into

98
1945 prevented the transfer of shipping assumed to occur as part of the Joint

Chiefs of Staff 1944 strategies for the final approach to Japan. Shortages of key

ship types, most importantly assault shipping, became a limiting factor in the

movement of logistics into austere port environments like those at Okinawa.

Nimitz had to loan shipping to MacArthur to facilitate operations in the

Philippines. The tardy return of these vessels impacted the preparation for

ICEBERG.

Massive expansion of the Pacific strategic bombing campaign in 1944

added significantly to both the service troop and shipping shortages. The largest

impact to service troop numbers was the demand for engineers to construct

airbases. So many Army engineer units were occupied in the Marianas that the

Navy had to assist with construction of airfields in Operation ICEBERG.

Transportation of fuel, munitions, and parts were added to an already strained

logistics system. Buckner’s plans for ICEBERG required numerous changes to

shipping schedules to account for competition from within the theater, most

resulting in arrival delays or restrictions on unit weight allowances.

These strategic conditions ultimately led Buckner to the decision to

complete the Okinawa campaign through the continued application of ‘blowtorch

and corkscrew.’ This course of action offered the lowest risk to the Pacific’s

strategic goals in light of significant shortages in both service troops and

shipping, exacerbated by the massive manpower and logistics requirements of

the strategic bombing campaign. In the end Buckner’s tactical decisions likely

added only a few weeks to the projected completion of combat operations. Just

99
hours before his June 18 death, Buckner had cabled to Nimitz that “enemy

resistance in OKINAWA broken today.”13 Given Okinawa’s distinction as the last

battle of World War II, Buckner has been subject to increased scrutiny for the

losses that occurred. But this hindsight bias ignores the fact that Buckner

operated under the belief that the invasion of Japan was necessary to win the

war. Though his successor would oversee weeks of mopping up operations,

Buckner had completed the occupation and had placed Island Command on

track to complete the majority of construction projects required to launch

Operation OLYMPIC.

13
Nimitz, Graybook, Vol. 6, “18 June” (Running Summary).

100
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