History

The Battle of Okinawa — 65 Years Ago today, May 15, 1945

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May 15, 1945

On Okinawa, slow American advances and costly Japanese counterattacks continue. Heavy fighting is reported around the Sugar Loaf Hill and Conical Hill positions.

Marines on Sugar Loaf Hill, elements of US 3rd Amphibious Corps, withdraw because of Japanese fire.

The US 1st Marine Division advances along the Wana river valley, west of Shuri, against heavy Japanese resistance.

The US 305th infantry regiment and 77th Divisions, of US 24th Corps, achieve limited progress and have been reduced to 25 percent effectiveness in the fighting.

See Okinawa Map XXXV: Tenth Army Advances, 11-21 May 1945

Map XXXV: Tenth Army Advances, 11-21 May 1945

Campaign Background — Kamikaze!

According Appleman’s OKINAWA:THE LAST BATTLE:

Between 6 April and 22 June there were ten organized (aerial) Kamikaze attacks, employing a total of 1,465 planes as shown below:

Date of Attack…..Total…Navy Planes…..Army Planes
6-7 April……………355…….230…………….125
12-13 April………..185…….125………………60
15-15 April………..165…….120………………45
27-28 April………..115……..65……………….50
3-4 May……………125……..75……………….50
10-11 May………..150……..70……………….80
24-25 May………..165……..65……………..100
27-28 May………..110……..60……………….50
3-7 June…………….50……..20……………….30
21-22 June…………42……..30……………….15

TOTAL
………………………1465………860………………605

In addition, sporadic small-scale suicide attacks were directed against the American fleet by both Army and Navy planes, bringing the total number of suicide sorties during the campaign to 1,900.

The Battle of Okinawa — 65 years ago today

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Okinawa 65 Years ago today —

May 14, 1945

On Okinawa, 20 American Marines reach the summit of Sugar Loaf Hill. This is the first of several assaults that reach and be pushed off Sugar Loaf before it is finally captured.

The airfield at Yonabaru is captured.

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This is the belated beginning of an occasional 65th anniversary commemorative series on the of the Battle of Okinawa.

Background to this point:

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Forgetting “The Few”

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Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few

–Winston Churchill, referring to the fighter pilots who fought and won the Battle of Britain

The British publication News of the World recently sponsored a reunion of Battle of Britain pilots. (via Newmark’s Door) Searching for links on this story, I ran across a September 2000 item in The Independent:

An ICM poll to mark the 60th anniversary of the Battle of Britain found that some were not even sure that Britain was fighting the Germans, saying instead that they thought the enemy was the Romans or Normans – while 10 per cent thought the French were the foe. Some people were also confused as to whether their wartime leader was Winston Churchill or King Alfred.

For the survey, 1,000 people were asked four questions about the Battle of Britain – but fewer than half of those aged between 18 and 24 knew it was an air battle.

I doubt if the general level of knowledge has improved much in the last 10 years.

C S Lewis observed (I’m quoting very loosely here) that if you want to destroy an infantry unit, you cut it off from its adjacent units..and if you want to destroy a generation, you cut it off from previous generations. Such cutting-off seems to be proceeding, on both sides of the Atlantic, at a rapid pace.

Niall Ferguson at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs

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Wednesday night I attended a lecture by Niall Ferguson for the Chicago Council on Global Affairs at the Fairmont Hotel. The name of his presentation was “America: An Empire on the Cusp of Collapse.”

I was a fan of Niall based on his book “The Pity of War” about World War One, which I thought was an interesting approach to the topic, although I did not share all of his conclusions.

Mr. Ferguson’s presentation was not as depressing as the title sounds. In his articles he is prodding governments for better policies to tackle debt and working with lawmakers in the US and overseas that want to consider solutions. In a recent visit to Washington DC, however, Mr. Ferguson said that only three leaders wanted to meet with him.

His largest point was that the US and Western Europe had a giant advantage in economic power vs. their population when compared with Asia and the rest of the world in the period from the 1800’s through the middle of the twentieth century. It appears that this advantage is eroding and the Asian economies (predominantly China) are closing that gap.

He stated that we needed to consider why Western Europe was able to take such as commanding lead in the first place, and by understanding this we would be able to think about how we might be able to “reboot” our economies to compete more effectively. Here are the six “killer applications” (and a link to an FT article by Niall) that Niall Ferguson said enabled Europe to lead Asia for so long:

1) Modern medicine
2) A science-based culture
3) A representative political system
4) Consumer society
5) Market capitalism
6) Work ethic

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Nine Years versus Nine Months

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After nine years of litigation and regulatory maneuvering, the Secretary of the Interior has given the approval for construction of the Cape Wind offshore power-generation facility. (Well, sort of…there are still a few more regulatory hurdles to clear before any actual wind turbines can be erected.)

Nine years is a long time, and it’s worthwhile to look at what Americans have been able to do in that amount of time…and in much shorter amounts of time…in other periods of our history.

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