4.4.8 Okinowa

Okinowa

I really appreciated Whiteside taking care of me; the longer I could stay on the ship with hot food and a dry bunk, the better.  We sat on deck that night after a good meal, feeling sorry for our friends in their foxholes and eating cold K Rations.  Then the Air Raid Sirens sounded.  Everything was, of course, blacked out and there was no moon, but we could hear the lone Japanese plane circling low over Buckner Bay seeking a target.  We did get a glimpse of him, shockingly near, as he passed over us to crash with a tremendous explosion into a destroyer (the USS Warren we heard) about 400 yards away. 

            The ship sank in less than ten minutes.  We set up an emergency room in the Officer's Mess and the Doctors and Nurses, most of whom were still on board, spent the rest of the night treating the wounded survivors that were picked up by small boats.  We enlisted men did what we could, which consisted mostly of carrying stretchers to the Emergency Room and cleaning up the patients so the professionals could provide for them as best they could with  the inadequate facilities available. 

            I had seen trauma cases before, even several at a time when motor vehicle wreck victims were brought to our Hospital Emergency Room, but the number of casualties and the severity of many of their injuries were shocking.  We REALLY WERE IN THE WAR NOW.  I suspect it was a sobering experience for most of the Doctors and Nurses as well.

            After virtually no sleep, we were wakened shortly after dawn by loud air raid sirens.  We were supposed to stay below decks during an air raid, but after what we had seen the night before, there was no way Whiteside and I were going to obey that order. We made our way to my protected spot between the two winches and were treated to a rare spectacle.  It was like the opening few minutes of duck season in a public hunting area near a large city.  Japanese suicide planes were everywhere and hundreds of ships were firing every antiaircraft weapon they had at them.  We would cheer when one was hit and crashed smoking or in flames into the water.  I didn't see any ships hit; some probably were, but our casualties were not announced. We were told that 98 Japanese planes had been shot down in the attack.

            After those two educational experiences, wet foxholes and cold K Rations didn't sound so bad.  We "lucky" enlisted men selected to stay aboard and unload the boat had tacitly agreed to stretch it out as long as possible.  Whiteside, who was good at summing things up in few words, succinctly said something like "I don't like being a sitting duck on this boat.  Let's get this son of a bitch unloaded so we can get on solid ground and dig deep holes to hide in."   He didn't get any argument from me or anyone else in the crew.

       We soon joined the rest of the outfit; we were right, they were sleeping in pup tents, in soaked blankets  (we didn't have sleeping bags) and eating cold K Rations.  The foxholes were only used when the air raid sirens sounded, usually only once a night --never in daylight.  I don't know the conditions under which the Nurses and other Officers were existing, and never gave it a thought, but I can't believe they didn't have it better. 

            It wasn't long before we erected Squad Tents, in a double row with a company street between them, with folding cots so our blankets usually stayed dry.  The tents were designed for twelve men, the number in an Infantry squad (hence the name "squad tent"), but they put all the hard drinkers in one tent.  There were thirteen of us, so we were a little crowded but we made do. The company street was a sea of mud and the dirt floors of the tents weren't much better.  We wore combat boots, often without socks, except when we were in our bunks. 

            We could depend on at least one air raid alert every night. The Japanese seemed more interested in keeping us awake than actually killing us, and we hated them for it.  We would hear the first alert, loud sirens, when the Japanese planes took off from airfields I much later learned near Kagoshima, on the tip of the southernmost main Japanese island.  The final, Red Alert, was sounded when one or more Japanese planes approached Okinawa. Initially, we would all go to our foxholes at the Red Alert and try to keep our feet out of the water in the bottom for the hour or so of the alert.  Usually nothing happened and we would return to our cots after an hour of so in a muddy hole in the ground half-filled with stinking rain water when the All Clear sounded.

            Gradually, more and more of us would ignore the alerts and go back to sleep.  The cots with dry blankets felt even more luxurious during an air raid alert.  But one bomb dropped near enough to shake the ground was enough to send all of us in a frantic dash for our holes.  Closer attention was paid to the sirens the next night, with compliance gradually tapering off each night until another near miss got our attention again. Unfortunately, those "near misses" sometimes got other GIs who were also ignoring the air raid warnings.

            The 31st Station Hospital was never fully operational on Okinawa.  The Island was officially declared secure a few weeks after we arrived and, even though fierce fighting was continuing, there were enough field hospitals already operating to handle the casualties.  We were being held, still packed, to be the first hospital ashore in the invasion of the Japanese Homeland.  WHAT AN HONOR; we were really looking forward to that.  Mostly we marked time; we set up a small operation, more like an aid station and dispensary than a hospital. 

            There were numerous remnants of combat around us, burned out American tanks (sometimes with the incinerated crews still buttoned up inside them) dead Japanese that the Americans hadn't had time to collect for burial sprawled around the tanks and elsewhere like swollen, rotting grotesque dolls with flies crawling in and out of their exposed body orifices.  The area was dotted with the openings to caves, many of which still contained Japanese stragglers all of whom were eager to greet any American stupid enough to enter in search of souveniers with a grenade or sometimes a rifle shot if you ventured within range. 

            With little to do, some guys would organize a "Jap Hunt", checking out a vehicle and extra ammunition.  The chances of finding a Jap were a lot better than getting a shot at a whitetail buck during deer season, but I figured I hadn't lost any Japs that I wanted to find.  I accidentally found a couple who took shots at me when I visited the famous Shuri Castle or the few other remaining tourist attractions of Okinawa.  Like the whitetail buck, I turned tail and got the hell out of the area as quickly as I could without exposing myself further.

            Mostly, we in the "Drinker's Tent" drank whatever we could get as long as it was alcoholic.  We quickly drank up most of the whiskey we had brought from New Caledonia that the ship's crew and the Sea Bees that helped unload the hadn't found.  We scrounged seven "Jerry" cans on which we neatly stenciled a day of the week.  Then we "obtained" raisins, dried apricots or any other dried fruit, sugar and, most importantly, yeast from the mess hall.  The "Monday" can batch, with the appropriate mixture of the constituents (a closely guarded secret) then filled with water was lined up on a neat rack we had built behind our tent.  Properly prepared and given a week to "work" the "Rasin Jack"would attain about 10 % alcohol level. 

            Each night we drank the "Can of the Day", washed it and started another batch to be drunk a week later.  Bob Jackson found me one day, took off his 2nd Lt. insignia and joined us one night.  We put him to bed in a vacant cot and he declared the next morning, "this is the worst hangover I've ever had"; we were sort of proud of that, officers couldn't handle our Raisin Jack.

            We also found a Black, called Negro back then, Quartermaster Company that had liberated a Japanese Still.  They sold moonshine or white lightening for $25.00 to $50.00 a quart, depending on demand and ability to bargain.   You brought your own bottle and we carefully checked out several to get the most "bang for the buck".  That led to a few confrontations with the Still operators over the capacity of our bottles, but it was all in a spirit of good clean fun.  Business was so brisk that you usually had to place the mouth of your bottle under the end of the copper "worm"and wait for the alcohol to condense and drip into your bottle.  You could shoot a little craps while you were waiting if you were so inclined; you might even pay for the "White Lightening".  We drank it immediately; if it cooled we called it aged. 

            The officers found enough for us to do to keep us busy.  We dug latrines for the officers, nurses and enlisted men and covered them with tents, with wooden floors and a wooden frame for the tent; of course we built seats that consisted of a long box-like structure open on the bottom and with holes cut in the top to sit upon.  That was a real luxury, to defecate sitting down and out of the rain.  Because there were still a lot of Japanese stragglers around at night, mostly trying to steal food, we were required to carry a weapon and an "on" flashlight if we had to go to the latrine after dark (for olfactory reasons they were some distance from the sleeping quarters).  I occasionally wondered if that made sense: any Japanese infiltrator had an illuminated target.

            We also built a large Mess Hall, shared, I believe by Officers and Enlisted Men.  There we could sit down on wooden benches and eat from trays on wooden tables, both the benches and tables, of course, having been built by the Enlisted Men.  There our C rations were hot.  Actually, we had a variety of meat and vegetables, all canned (even the eggs were dehydrated) but we didn't complain because it beat the hell out of what we had been eating and what the troops in real combat still were.  That meant back to KP, but now everybody wanted it because it was out of the rain and wasn't as much work as digging latrines or carrying boxes of Hospital supplies, besides there might be an opportunity to "requisition" some dried fruit, sugar or, especially, yeast for Raisin Jack.

            Much of the hard physical work involved assembling all the hospital equipment and supplies, most still crated from the New Caledonia move and laboriously unloaded, sorted and stacked under shelter after our arrival in Okinawa, for the invasion of Japan.  No one bothered to tell us that the Ryukus, of which Okinawa was the largest island, were part of Japan  (we had already invaded Japan) .  A lot of us would have settled for that; we were not looking forward to landing in Japan with the prospect of every Japanese man, woman and child fighting to the death for the Emperor and the Japanese Empire.  Nobody asked the Mexican enlisted men under General Santa Ana how they felt about charging the Alamo, but I'll bet they would have voted to let the Texans keep it.

            The Air Force was doing its best to soften things up for the invasion.  Every morning many planes would take off from the nearby air field, circle until the entire force was assembled and leave to bomb the Japanese Mainland.  Most of the bombers were B24s (Liberators) because we were so near to Japan.  There were a few B29s, but most of them were stationed on more distant islands because of their greater range.  We were never told of their targets, the results of their raid, or any loss of planes.

            We heard a rumor one morning that a "Super Bomb", something called an Atomic Bomb, had been dropped on a Japanese city, Hiroshima, that we had never heard of and that it had wiped out the whole damned city.  That was just too good to be true: rumors were the opiate of the troops; reality was nightly air raids and the certainty of going in on the third wave in the impending invasion.   Unbelievably, the Authorities finally told us something; it was announced later in the day that a new type of bomb, the most powerful in history, had totally destroyed Hiroshima with unknown but great casualties.  We were happy that a lot of Japs had been killed, but the suggestion that this meant the end of the war was near (advanced by a few fellow Enlisted Men) was generally ridiculed.  Hell, the Japanese LOVED to die for the Emperor: we had seen it in our own experience.

            Two or three days later (we didn't have calendars available and seldom knew the exact date; it didn't really matter because it was a different day (we occasionally argued whether it was a day before or after than in the U.S.) the Air Force dropped another Atomic Bomb, this time on Nagasaki.  Shortly thereafter the Emperor announced that Japan was Unconditionally Surrendering.  We were understandably ecstatic: no more air raids and, best of all, no hitting the beach in the third wave. 

            When the announcement was made that the Japanese had surrendered and the war was over, almost everyone got their shovels from their combat equipment and went out to dig up the last bottle or bottles secretly buried for the hoped for end of the war or, more likely, to be drunk just before embarkation for the invasion.  The announcement was made shortly after nightfall and the celebration was highlighted by light: all the antiaircraft searchlights were probing the sky, almost every weapon in American hands was emptied into the air, especially  tracer ammunition and rockets that exploded to provide light.  When I began hearing "rain" falling around me and not getting wet, I took my last bottle of Major Larson's Seagram VO for a last session in my foxhole.  There were rumors later, almost certainly exaggerated, of hundreds of casualties from the falling ordinance. 

            Recordings of the Emperor's speech of capitulation and Japan's surrender were put on vehicles with loud speakers and driven all over Okinawa, broadcasting the news to Japanese troops holding out and stragglers hiding in caves or other inaccessible locations.  Also broadcast were instructions to surrender and how to do it, dictated by some Japanese officers who surrendered when they heard the Emperor's broadcast.  Reportedly, a few Japanese officers rode around in jeeps with loud speakers assuring the Japanese soldiers that it was not an American trick.  A date and time was set for the surrender of the remaining Japanese soldiers on Okinawa; all were to report with their weapons to a specific location, where General "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell and a contingent of armed American troops waited in formation to accept their surrender. 

            Some of us, vaguely realizing the historical significance of the event, drove over to witness the ceremony.  It was incredible: Japanese troops led by their officers, in polished boots and Samurai swords, and fully armed enlisted men in formation marching in to surrender their weapons, then stragglers in small groups of two or three and even alone, all coming in only because the Emperor had ordered them to.  We knew from frequent encounters that there were a lot of Japanese soldiers still out there, but we could hardly believe what we were seeing. They soon outnumbered the troops accepting their surrender and the stacks of surrendered weapons kept growing.  I've heard and read various figures, but apparently more than 30,000 Japanese soldiers surrendered.  It was almost like the jokes about Custer at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, "Don't take any prisoners,men" and then "Jesus Christ, look at all them fucking Indians".

            Shortly after the Japanese surrender we were hit by the real Kamikaze or "Divine Wind" that had saved Japan hundreds of years before and could have saved it again if it had come a month or so earlier.  The most powerful typhoon in history hit Okinawa in Mid-September.  The Barometric Pressure dropped to a low that has not been matched more than forty years later; winds of more than two hundred miles per hour were recorded before the anemometers blew away.

            Everyone and virtually everything was housed in tents when the typhoon hit; the tents were blown away long before the winds reached their maximum strength.  We lay on the ground, dripping wet with all our rain gear on, holding the tent ropes in a vain attempt to keep our tent from blowing away.  When the wind began to increase we were thrown about like multiple end men in a giant crack the whip game; those who were not knocked senseless by being dashed into the ground by the flapping canvas dropped off as the tent, rent into large sections, became airborne. 

            Anything loose on the ground became a potential lethal projectile.  Steel helmets (used by field soldiers as wash basins and for shaving by driving three tent pegs into the ground as supports--the water could be heated by building a small fire under the helmet) blew about like autumn leaves; tent poles, cots, and almost anything lighter than a truck might go sailing by.  Everyone headed for shelter once the tents were gone; most for the Okinawan tombs (concrete and built into the hillsides) that offered the safest refuge available.  Whiteside and I, along with J. D. Sheppard (another Texan) opted for a nearby small stone stable, built into the corner of a stone wall.  We had appropriated it for our own use to stable some horses we had found wandering about.  We moved the horses out and moved in for the duration of the typhoon. 

            There were probably two or three others sharing our quarters whom I don't remember.  We were reasonably comfortable, with sleeping bags on top of piles of straw and mostly dry, but we were hungry.  After a couple of days, with the typhoon winding down, we somehow obtained a box of 10 in 1 Rations (10 in 1 Ration was one meal for 10 men).  It included a can of bacon, cans of various vegetables, crackers, marmalade or jelly, butter, candy and cookies and a pack of cigarettes and matches. We built a fire in the middle of the floor and were frying bacon in a mess kit when Lt. Korn, the Motor Officer and Whiteside's boss entered. He said "that sure smells good; I haven't had a bite to eat in three days.  What is it?"  I was doing the cooking and I forked out a few slices, put them in another mess kit and handed them to him, along with some crackers, jelly and other goodies. "It's bacon, Lt. Korn, we got some coffee, too."  "I can't eat that", he said, "I'm Jewish".  I said something to the effect that I didn't think God would hold it against a Jew eating pork to keep from starving to death, but if he didn't want to take the chance, it wouldn't go to waste.  He said, "Sparks, I think you're right, but I'm not going to enjoy it; it's just for survival".   From the look on his face while he was eating, I was pretty sure he was enjoying it, but none of us said anything.                

            When the storm finally subsided, we survivors emerged from our emergency shelters, bedraggled and homeless, to a scene less devastated than Hiroshima or Nagasaki but about the maximum destruction that nature could inflict without help.  Nothing was standing; the wind had leveled everything. Our fancy Mess Hall had been picked up and deposited, almost intact, over a nine foot fence on top of the Medical Supplies Depot. Of course, all out sleeping tents had blown away and our belongings scattered.    

            There were, of course, no official statements of the damage other than general statements to the effect that we had survived the worst typhoon in history with minimal loss of life and property.  We could tell the latter statement was Bullshit by looking around; THERE WAS TREMENDOUS LOSS OF PROPERTY.  We heard rumors, probably exaggerated, of the hundreds of ships that went down and the thousands of fatalities on land and at sea, but I've never seen an authoritative summation of the cost.

            Now that the war was over and we did not have to invade Japan, new plans had to be developed.  First, though, a Rotation System, was set up.  Points were awarded for the number of months spent overseas, for battle stars, and various esoteric criteria.  All the "old timers", Officers and Enlisted Men, were sent back to the States and suddenly we were the "old timers". We received replacements, mostly teenagers, but also a few "lucky" fellows who had been wounded in Europe, sent back to the US, then ordered to the Pacific Theatre.  Nobody was happy, but they were the most unhappy.  I had been overseas 20 months and expected to go home on the next boat once the war ended; after all, we had gone overseas for "the duration" and innocently assumed that meant for the duration of the war, not the duration of our lives.  Instead, we bade our Officers and older Enlisted Men farewell and loaded the boat for Korea.  By then we had all been promoted at least once and we made sure the replacements did most the heavy work loading the boat.