The Twilight Warriors Part 20

Lt. Gen. Simon Buckner was spending most of the daylight hours in his new command post ash.o.r.e. In two more days he intended to move his entire staff and all their gear off the Eldorado Eldorado.

Buckner had reason to be optimistic. Even if the campaign wasn't progressing as quickly as he wanted in the south, the battle in the north was almost wrapped up. The 6th Marine Division had the Motobu Peninsula nearly secured.

Now Buckner was anxious to seize Ie s.h.i.+ma, the oval-shaped island three miles off the tip of Motobu. Ie s.h.i.+ma was five miles long and two miles wide, a flat plateau covered in scrub brush and a patchwork of vegetable and sugarcane fields. The island's main value lay in its airfield, which had three runways long enough to accommodate heavy bombers.

For the capture of Ie s.h.i.+ma, Buckner intended to use the crack 77th Division, led by Maj. Gen. Andrew Bruce. Buckner was impressed with Bruce's aggressive spirit. "I much prefer a bird dog that you have to whistle in to one that you have to urge out," Buckner wrote. "He is of the former variety."

It had been Bruce's 77th Division that seized the Kerama Retto in the days before the Love Day landings. The islands of the Retto were taken with surprising ease, and intelligence reports indicated that Ie s.h.i.+ma would be the same. Aerial reconnaissance and advance scouting teams revealed no sign of enemy activity. The base appeared to be abandoned and the runways ripped up. Fighter sweeps over the island had drawn no return fire. Ie s.h.i.+ma, it seemed, had been abandoned.

It was a deadly deception. Hidden on the island were 3,000 j.a.panese troops, commanded by a tough army major named Masas.h.i.+ Igawa. With time to prepare his defenses, Igawa had constructed a cla.s.sic beehive of interconnecting tunnels and fortified gun positions dug into the limestone rock. Igawa augmented his garrison with local conscripts and several hundred support personnel and armed them with every available weapon-mortars, antiaircraft guns, aircraft machine guns, even bamboo spears.

The j.a.panese defenses were centered near the village of Ie, on the eastern end of the island. Overlooking the village was the pyramid-shaped Mt. Iegusugu, an extinct volcano that the Americans would call "the Pinnacle." Rising like a monolith on the east of the island, the Pinnacle had the same deadly features as Mt. Suribachi on Iwo Jima. With its expanse of flat plateau, three long runways, and 578-foot-high promontory at one end, Ie s.h.i.+ma had the appearance of a giant, unmoving aircraft carrier.

The a.s.sault began at dawn on April 16 with a ma.s.sive naval bombardment. Two battles.h.i.+ps, four cruisers, and seven destroyers pounded the island. The landing beaches on the south and southwest sh.o.r.es were blanketed with rockets, mortar sh.e.l.ls, and close air support from carrier-based fighter-bombers. The covering fire was so intense that most of Ie s.h.i.+ma was obscured in smoke and billowing dust. A j.a.panese soldier wrote in his journal: "After a fierce air and naval bombardment, the enemy began his landing in front of the 4th Company, using amphibian tractors. Their firepower is so great we dared not show our heads."

Not until the Americans had charged several hundred yards inland did the truth become apparent: the enemy had not conceded Ie s.h.i.+ma. From concealed machine gun nests and mortar sites and cave openings, the j.a.panese opened fire. The resistance grew steadily more vicious as the soldiers of the 77th advanced to the eastern part of the island.

On the second day of the battle for Ie s.h.i.+ma, America's most famous war correspondent came ash.o.r.e to see the action for himself.

Ernie Pyle was tired. He was glad to be riding in a Jeep instead of slogging up another d.a.m.ned hill with the foot soldiers. Pyle was three weeks short of his forty-fifth birthday, but he looked older. Three years of sleeping in foxholes, riding troop transports, and witnessing the carnage in Europe had taken a toll on him. He was gray-haired, balding on top, with a haggard, war-weary expression. Pyle was beginning to look more and more like one of the "GI Joe" caricatures drawn by his friend, artist Bill Mauldin.

Pyle arrived on Ie s.h.i.+ma April 17. That afternoon he watched the fighting from an observation post. The heaviest action was in the east of the island, where the j.a.panese were making a stand on a stretch of high ground the GIs were calling b.l.o.o.d.y Ridge. The next morning he dutifully signed autographs for the troops, then had a meeting with General Bruce.

What Pyle really wanted, though, was to see the fighting. That's what he'd come for, not to sign autographs and get briefed by generals. Lt. Col. Joe Coolidge, who commanded the 305th Infantry Regiment, had a Jeep and was headed for the front. Pyle could come along.

Pyle, Coolidge, and three soldiers were b.u.mping along a dirt road that paralleled the southern sh.o.r.e. Their Jeep had joined a procession of three trucks and a military police Jeep. In the distance, from b.l.o.o.d.y Ridge and the town of Ie, they could hear the crackle of gunfire and mortars.

The convoy was nearing a road junction when they heard the sharp rattle of a machine gun. On either side of the Jeep, puffs of dirt kicked up. The front tires were hit, and steam gushed from a hit in the radiator. The machine gun fire was coming from a coral ridge ahead of them.

The Jeep lurched to a halt, and all five men dove into a ditch. The machine gun went silent. Pyle let several seconds go by, then he looked around. Coolidge was next to him in the ditch. The two men raised their heads to look for the other three. Pyle saw that they were all safe. He smiled and said to Coolidge, "Are you all right?"

He had barely uttered the words when the machine gun opened up again. Coolidge ducked as a round kicked up dust in his face and whizzed over his head. At the same time he saw Pyle drop back into the ditch. It took him a moment to realize what had happened.

Pyle was lying on his back, clutching the knitted cap he always had with him. Coolidge didn't notice any blood, but then he saw the purplish hole in the left temple. He yelled for a medic while an infantry squad from the 305th went after the machine gunner. For Ernie Pyle it was too late. The bullet had killed him instantly.

There was no time to mourn. The battle for Ie s.h.i.+ma was still raging. They buried the war correspondent, still wearing his helmet, in a long row of fresh graves on Ie s.h.i.+ma. A private lay on one side of him, an engineer on the other. Someone erected a wooden marker: "On this spot, the 77th Division lost a buddy, Ernie Pyle, 18 April, 1945."

In the reporter's pocket they found the rough draft of a piece he'd written in antic.i.p.ation of the war ending in Europe.

There are many of the living who have had burned into their brains forever the unnatural sight of cold dead men scattered over the hillsides and in the ditches along the high rows of hedge throughout the world.Dead men by ma.s.s production-in one country after another-month after month and year after year. Dead men in winter and dead men in summer.Dead men in such familiar promiscuity that they become monotonous. Dead men in such monstrous infinity that you come almost to hate them...

It was a final touch of irony. Ernie Pyle might have been writing his own epitaph.

It took three more days to close the ring around the Pinnacle. Again and again the j.a.panese defenders made suicidal counterattacks, rus.h.i.+ng the American lines, hurling satchel charges, and blowing themselves up with live mortar rounds.

Even the old warrior General Bruce was shocked at the ferocity of the enemy defenses. After four and a half days of b.l.o.o.d.y fighting, as his troops were closing in on the last remaining stronghold, Bruce reported to General Buckner, "Base of Pinnacle completely surrounded despite bitterest fight I have ever witnessed against a veritable fortress."

And it still wasn't over. Reaching the summit was an even more bitter fight. By the time the 77th had captured the Pinnacle and Ie s.h.i.+ma was declared secure, 218 American soldiers were dead and nearly 1,000 wounded. The j.a.panese had lost 4,700, and 409 were taken prisoner.

At noon the next day, April 19, Intrepid Intrepid pulled into the heart-shaped lagoon at Ulithi in the western Caroline Islands. Ulithi looked different than when pulled into the heart-shaped lagoon at Ulithi in the western Caroline Islands. Ulithi looked different than when Intrepid Intrepid had been there in March. Gone were the long rows of gray wars.h.i.+ps a.s.sembling for the invasion of Okinawa. The only big s.h.i.+ps in the anchorage were the battles.h.i.+p had been there in March. Gone were the long rows of gray wars.h.i.+ps a.s.sembling for the invasion of Okinawa. The only big s.h.i.+ps in the anchorage were the battles.h.i.+p Iowa Iowa, the carrier Enterprise Enterprise, which was undergoing repairs from her own kamikaze hit on April 11, and the fast carrier Shangri-La Shangri-La, on her way to join the task force off Okinawa.

And Ulithi had become swelteringly hot. At 10 degrees above the equator, the atoll baked in the tropical sun and humidity. While crews labored to repair Intrepid Intrepid's combat damage, sailors sought relief from the heat on the recreation island of Mog Mog.

Mog Mog was one of many islets nestled inside Ulithi's coral reef. The Navy had persuaded the local chieftain, King Ueg, to move Mog Mog's three hundred inhabitants to another island in the atoll. Now Mog Mog had a movie theater, a chapel, and an array of refreshment stands.

When the anchorage was filled with wars.h.i.+ps, as many as fifteen thousand sailors a day swarmed over the 60-acre island of Mog Mog. They were given coupons for two beers apiece, but enterprising sailors always found ways to exceed the limit. Separate areas were fenced off for officers, whose booze limits were less restricted. There was nothing much to do on the atoll except drink the rations of beer, try to cadge more from nondrinking buddies, and comb the beach for exotic sh.e.l.ls. Mog Mog, someone cracked, had "no wine atoll, no women atoll, no nothing atoll."

Sailors being sailors, some managed to get drunk. The nightly trip on the LCVP (landing craft vehicle personnel) ferry boat to the s.h.i.+p was a cla.s.sic return from sh.o.r.e liberty: fights, men falling overboard, sailors unaccustomed to alcohol heaving their guts out.

Unlike most of the other Tail End Charlies, Erickson wasn't interested in hanging out at the makes.h.i.+ft officers' bar at Mog Mog. Instead, he finagled permission to visit the island of Fa.s.sari, which was off-limits to everyone except Navy photographers and journalists. Bartering cigarettes in exchange for posing, Erickson toured Fa.s.sari with his sketchbook in hand, filling pages with drawings of native life.

Meanwhile, crews from the repair s.h.i.+p Ajax Ajax struggled to get struggled to get Intrepid Intrepid back in fighting shape. It had already been determined that the carrier's number three elevator was beyond fixing. Still, they figured that after repairing the damage to her hangar bays and electrical systems, the carrier would be 80 percent combat capable. There was a war on, and that was good enough. back in fighting shape. It had already been determined that the carrier's number three elevator was beyond fixing. Still, they figured that after repairing the damage to her hangar bays and electrical systems, the carrier would be 80 percent combat capable. There was a war on, and that was good enough.

On April 24 came more bad news. They found that the number two elevator-the deck edge elevator on the s.h.i.+p's port side-had been knocked out of alignment, probably from the effect of rolling forty damaged airplanes over its edge on the day of the kamikaze attack. The elevator didn't work, and it couldn't be fixed.

Which meant that Intrepid Intrepid couldn't operate as a fighting carrier. With only one working elevator, she couldn't move airplanes between the hangar and flight decks fast enough to support combat operations. Nimitz himself made the decision: couldn't operate as a fighting carrier. With only one working elevator, she couldn't move airplanes between the hangar and flight decks fast enough to support combat operations. Nimitz himself made the decision: Intrepid Intrepid would return to the Hunters Point s.h.i.+pyard in San Francisco for permanent repairs. would return to the Hunters Point s.h.i.+pyard in San Francisco for permanent repairs.

Most of Intrepid Intrepid's planes, however, were staying where they were needed. While still at anchor in Ulithi, pilots catapulted off the stationary carrier, then landed on the nearby runway at Ulithi. Each pilot gritted his teeth against the jolt of the catapult shot, which was harder than normal to compensate for the lack of wind over the deck.

Now that Intrepid Intrepid was leaving, no longer functioning as an aircraft carrier, she would become a transport. Instead of airplanes, the s.h.i.+p was hauling U.S.-bound pa.s.sengers, including the pilots from the carrier was leaving, no longer functioning as an aircraft carrier, she would become a transport. Instead of airplanes, the s.h.i.+p was hauling U.S.-bound pa.s.sengers, including the pilots from the carrier San Jacinto San Jacinto.

In the crew s.p.a.ces there was jubilation. Going home, even for the brief time it would take to repair the s.h.i.+p, was an unexpected gift. For the Tail End Charlies in Boys' Town, the news had a bittersweet flavor. The Battle of Okinawa wasn't over, but the end was in sight. They were going to miss the finale of the show they had started.

Or maybe not. Rumors were flying like missiles around the s.h.i.+p. The normal time for an air group to be deployed in a combat zone was six months. If a carrier was taken off the line, her air group was usually off-loaded to await another carrier headed back to the war. The time you spent waiting for the next carrier didn't count.

To the Tail End Charlies it meant they might have to hang around in the Pacific for months before they went back aboard a carrier. They might even miss the rest of the war.

33

COUNTEROFFENSIVE COUNTEROFFENSIVE YONTAN AIRFIELD, OKINAWA

APRIL 22, 1945

Stepping onto the tarmac at Yontan, Adm. Chester Nimitz surveyed the scene around him. Yontan still had the look of a base under siege. The place was covered with tents, sandbagged trenches, and fortified sentry posts. Marine Corps Corsairs were dispersed all over the field to make them less vulnerable to the nightly air attacks and artillery sh.e.l.lings.

But the commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet hadn't come to Okinawa to inspect the facilities. He was there on urgent business. Normally a patient and even-tempered commander, Nimitz had lost his patience.

The Navy's s.h.i.+p losses at Okinawa had become unacceptable. Between April 1 and April 22, sixty vessels had been sunk or nearly destroyed by j.a.panese warplanes. More than eleven hundred Navy men had been killed and twice as many wounded.

In Nimitz's view, there was one overwhelming reason for these losses: the battle for Okinawa was dragging on too long. As long as the Tenth Army was bogged down on the island, the kamikazes would continue to savage Nimitz's s.h.i.+ps offsh.o.r.e.

Waiting on the ramp to meet the admiral was the white-haired, fit-looking commander of the Tenth Army, Lt. Gen. Simon Buckner. Nimitz had brought with him an entourage: Fifth Fleet commander Adm. Raymond Spruance, Lt. Gen. Alexander Vandergrift, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, and Nimitz's chief of staff, Vice Adm. Forrest Sherman.

The meeting started off amicably enough. Buckner took his guests on a tour of the captured sectors of Okinawa. The mood was still jovial and relaxed when Nimitz presented Buckner with a bottle of liquor, remembering his traditional toast, "May you walk in the ashes of Tokyo." Buckner joked that he would keep the bottle in reserve until Okinawa had been secured.

Then they sat down in Buckner's headquarters, and the mood changed. Nimitz got right to the point. It was time to break the impa.s.se, he told Buckner. If it took another amphibious landing behind the j.a.panese lines, then Buckner should do it. Whatever it took, he had had to speed up the advance. to speed up the advance.

It was a tense moment. That a Navy admiral had overall command of a land campaign had always been a sensitive issue with Army bra.s.s. Bristling, Buckner informed Nimitz that the ground a.s.sault was the Army's job. He would take care of it.

Nimitz's eyes flashed, and his temper rose to the surface. "I'm losing a s.h.i.+p and a half a day," he snapped. "If this line isn't moving within five days, we'll get someone here to move it so we can all get out from under these d.a.m.n air attacks."

Buckner held his ground. What this son of a Confederate general might have lacked in imagination, he made up for in stubbornness. Supporting another front, in his opinion, didn't make sense. He'd already lost two ammunition s.h.i.+ps at Kerama Retto. Opening another front would overstretch his supply system.

Vandergrift, the Marine commandant, sided with Nimitz. He told Buckner he ought to "play the amphib card." Vandergrift's 2nd Marine Division, which had played a diversionary role in the initial landings, was now on Saipan and available. They could make a landing on the southeast coast of Okinawa, just north of Minatoga, turn the j.a.panese right flank, and end the stalemate.

Even Buckner's division commanders, including his favorite, Maj. Gen. Andrew Bruce, were on record as favoring an amphibious end run. Bruce himself had executed such a move behind j.a.panese lines during the Leyte invasion with brilliant success. Here was the perfect opportunity to do it again.

Buckner wasn't having any of it. If he erred, it was d.a.m.ned well going be on the side of caution. The proposed landing beaches were directly beneath a set of treacherous steep cliffs. Buckner thought the landings could turn into "another Anzio [the disastrous 1944 landing in Italy] but worse."

The argument, like the battle itself, dragged to a stalemate. Buckner would not be swayed. As long as he was in command, he intended to continue the cla.s.sic frontal a.s.sault. In the long run, he insisted, it would save lives.

Spruance, for one, didn't think so. "I doubt if the Army's slow, methodical method of fighting really saves any lives in the long run," Spruance wrote to a friend. "It merely spreads the casualties over a longer period. The longer period greatly increases the naval casualties when j.a.p air attacks on s.h.i.+ps is a continuing factor.... There are times when I get impatient for some of Holland [Howlin' Mad] Smith's drive."

Nothing had been resolved. At the end of the historic meeting, it was Nimitz who backed down. The last thing Nimitz wanted at Okinawa was another Army-Navy brawl over a fired general.

The next day they were again standing on the ramp at Yontan. Nimitz shook hands with Buckner and climbed back aboard his plane. Buckner was still in command of the Tenth Army. He would continue to run the campaign his way. No surprises, no amphibious landing, no flanking maneuvers. Everyone expected that the battle would drag on.

And then that night, the enemy did something no one expected.

It began soon after dusk. An intense artillery barrage, more than a thousand rounds, poured down on the front-line American units. Directly behind the bombardment, almost as if summoned by the j.a.panese, came a dense fog that enshrouded the entire battle zone. Beneath the fog and the artillery cover, the j.a.panese defenders slipped away in the darkness, withdrawing to the second defense line on the Urasoe-Mura escarpment.

At first, the American troops on the front line didn't believe it. It had to be another j.a.panese deception. The pockmarked ground for which they had fought so bitterly was unoccupied. After days of sacrifice and failure the first j.a.panese line of defense, including the b.l.o.o.d.y Kakazu Ridge, was theirs for the taking.

The withdrawal, in fact, had gone exactly according to the plan proposed by Colonel Yahara and approved by General Us.h.i.+jima. Despite their success at holding off the American a.s.sault, the j.a.panese had lost ground over the past few days on Skyline Ridge, Nis.h.i.+baru Ridge, and the Tanabaru escarpment. Rather than stand their ground and be annihilated, the j.a.panese had executed a strategic withdrawal so they could continue fighting.

Still, the fire-eaters on Us.h.i.+jima's staff, led by General Cho, were belligerent. That night in the headquarters under Shuri Castle, the same old debate raged on about defensive versus offensive tactics. Cho continued urging a counterattack, throwing the Americans back to the beach. As usual, Us.h.i.+jima listened, nodding respectfully, letting all his officers weigh in. He wasn't inclined to change the strategy, at least not after the failed night attack of April 12. For now, he was sticking with Yahara's campaign of slow, measured attrition.

Yahara, for his part, had reason to be pleased. His strategy was working. Already the 32nd Army had held out longer and with greater success than in any other Pacific island campaign. From their fallback line on Urasoe-Mura escarpment General Us.h.i.+jima would continue Yahara's carefully constructed holding strategy.

Then came the night of April 29. It was the emperor's birthday, and General Us.h.i.+jima convened his staff officers in the underground headquarters. Fueled by larger-than-usual quant.i.ties of sake, General Cho was in his most strident bus.h.i.+do-obsessed voice. By now the divide between the conservatives, led by Colonel Yahara, and the fire-eaters, championed by Cho, had widened to a chasm.

Cho was again demanding a counteroffensive. It was a matter of honor, he insisted. The 32nd Army should be revered in history as an army of warriors, not failed defenders. By the next night, April 30, a majority of Us.h.i.+jima's staff officers were recommending that he launch an all-out counteroffensive against the American line.

To American officers-and to those of most other countries-it would seem a peculiar command style, a general taking a vote of his subordinates before making a crucial decision. It was not uncommon in the Imperial j.a.panese Army, and it was General Us.h.i.+jima's style. Without further deliberation, Us.h.i.+jima signed the order. The counteroffensive would launch on May 4. It would be coordinated with kikusui kikusui No. 5, another ma.s.sed No. 5, another ma.s.sed tokko tokko attack on the American fleet. attack on the American fleet.

Col. Hiromichi Yahara had again been outvoted and overruled. Dismayed, he watched his carefully constructed strategy for a holding action come apart. Yahara was a loyal soldier. He hoped that Cho's counteroffensive would work. In his secret heart he knew that it was doomed.

Like most j.a.panese battle plans, Cho's counteroffensive was ambitious and overly complicated. It envisioned the 24th Division seizing the eastern flank of the Maeda escarpment, taking control of the center of the line. Two engineering/s.h.i.+pping regiments were to make amphibious landings behind the American lines on both the east and west coasts.

The 44th Brigade would cut off the two U.S. Marine divisions holding the western end of the line. Two j.a.panese regiments would dislodge the U.S. 7th Division from its positions on Conical Hill on the eastern flank while the 44th and 62nd Divisions wiped out the trapped U.S. Marine units. Tanks and heavy artillery would concentrate on the critical Maeda escarpment, where the breakthrough would take place.

The counteroffensive began in the rainy predawn darkness of May 4. The flash and thunder of the ma.s.sive artillery barrage reflected from the low overcast. For half an hour more than twelve thousand rounds of artillery exploded on the American lines.

Then the j.a.panese a.s.sault troops moved out, making their way across the mud-slickened no-man's-land to the American lines.

They were moving too slowly. As the first rays of sunlight illuminated the battlefield, not all the units of the 24th Division had reached their jumping-off point. Caught in the open, they became targets for U.S. artillery and mortars. The advancing j.a.panese infantrymen ran into a wall of machine gun and mortar fire from the entrenched Americans.

Instead of a coordinated frontal a.s.sault against the U.S. lines, the counteroffensive quickly turned into a tableau of disconnected firefights, with j.a.panese infantry units being cut off and decimated one after the other. The attempt by the engineering/s.h.i.+pping regiments to make amphibious landings behind the lines was intercepted, and a thousand troops were mowed down.

The 27th Tank Regiment-the only j.a.panese armor to be employed offensively at Okinawa-ran into trouble before most had neared their objective on Maeda hill. Only two tanks managed to reach the American perimeter, and both were destroyed by a single American soldier, Private 1st Cla.s.s James Poore, who took each out with a round from his bazooka.

General Us.h.i.+jima was appalled. From his vantage point at Shuri Castle, he watched the attack on the Maeda escarpment falter. The counteroffensive was turning into an even greater disaster than the failed night a.s.sault of April 12.

But neither Us.h.i.+jima nor Cho was willing to concede failure. The battle raged on for the rest of the day, with j.a.panese troops closing in on a sector held by the U.S. 306th Infantry Regiment. After hours of combat, the j.a.panese were finally beaten back with heavy losses.

The only notable j.a.panese success was by the 1st Battalion of the 24th Division, led by a resourceful army captain named Koichi Ito. Concluding that a daylight attack was suicidal, Koichi came up with his own plan. After nightfall his battalion infiltrated the American lines, penetrating half a mile and seizing a stronghold on the Tanabaru escarpment.

Then they were stuck. Surrounded by the enemy and cut off from the rest of the division, which was stalled back at the main line, Ito and his men dug in. They held their perimeter all day and into the night against vigorous American attacks while they waited for the 24th Division to make a breakthrough.

The breakthrough never came. Despite the agonizing lack of progress, the j.a.panese counteroffensive continued into another rainy day, May 5.

By late afternoon, General Us.h.i.+jima had seen enough. He gave the order for all units to withdraw, ignoring for a change the protests of his junior staff officers. Under cover of darkness, the surviving j.a.panese troops crept back through the mud and smoldering remains of tanks to their lines.

Not until the next night, May 6, did Captain Ito's battalion, still holding out behind the American lines, manage to exfiltrate with 230 surviving troops back through the enemy positions to their own lines.

The counteroffensive was a catastrophe from which the 32nd Army would never recover. Nearly 7,000 of the unit's original 76,000 soldiers had been lost. Almost all their tanks were destroyed. The few surviving tanks would be buried to be used as immobile pillboxes. The once-formidable j.a.panese artillery on Okinawa had been reduced by half.

But the worst loss to General Us.h.i.+jima's army was its morale. The fighting spirit of the j.a.panese soldiers on Okinawa would never be the same. Though none yet knew it, they had just conducted the last j.a.panese ground offensive of the war.

As ordered, Col. Hiromichi Yahara appeared at the commanding general's office. Standing at attention, he rendered a silent salute. He had no idea why Us.h.i.+jima had summoned him. It was the evening of May 5, and the disastrous offensive was finished. Was the general planning to sacrifice the rest of the 32nd Army in a final fight-to-the-death offensive? Was this the end?

General Us.h.i.+jima was in his usual pose, sitting cross-legged on the worn tatami tatami floor. He wore a pensive expression. "Colonel Yahara," the general said in a soft voice, "as you predicted, this offensive has been a total failure. Your judgment was correct." Us.h.i.+jima told Yahara that meaningless suicide would no longer be their strategy. With what strength they had left, the 32nd Army would fight for every last inch of the island. "I am ready to fight," said the general, "but from now on I leave everything up to you." floor. He wore a pensive expression. "Colonel Yahara," the general said in a soft voice, "as you predicted, this offensive has been a total failure. Your judgment was correct." Us.h.i.+jima told Yahara that meaningless suicide would no longer be their strategy. With what strength they had left, the 32nd Army would fight for every last inch of the island. "I am ready to fight," said the general, "but from now on I leave everything up to you."

Yahara was speechless. Such an admission from a high-ranking commander was unheard of in the Imperial j.a.panese Army. Then, thinking about it, Yahara became furious. Now that the army had been beaten to exhaustion, Us.h.i.+jima was ready to do what Yahara had been advocating since the beginning.

The trouble was, it was too late. Yahara calculated that if the army's strength had not been squandered in the stupid offensive, they could have held out for at least a month longer. It might have made a difference in the outcome of the war. Thousands of lives might have been saved.

There was only one possible benefit from the disaster that Yahara could see. The offensive would make the enemy more cautious about any j.a.panese course of action.

As it turned out, it was just another false hope.