For a scout observation pilot aboard the cruiser USS Tuscaloosa, catapult launchings and flight missions over Okinawa provided a panorama of lasting memories. Okinawa Gunto was unprepared for the "tetsu no bofu", the typhoon of steel, as the American assault on the island in April 1945 has been characterized. The campaign began with an encircling storm of naval gunfire directed into Japanese-held positions from all sides of the island. Fire support came from 10 battleships, 9 cruisers, 23 destroyers, and 177 gunboats. Battleship and cruiser pilots flow over known Japanese defense installations to bracket the ship's gunfire in destroying the targets. The cockpit of a battleship/cruiser spotting aircraft furnished the best seat in the fleet to observe a ground war.
One first impression in flight over the island was the huge horseshoe-shaped burial mounds on the ground. Thousands of immense strange-looking Okinawan tombs formed a most characteristic aerial feature of the landscape. The Japanese were able to convert them into formidable defensive positions. Another was watching the awesome firepower and smoke emerging from the big ships' main batteries, followed by the impact explosions as the shells hit enemy target areas. Lasting impressions included furious rocket launches from the gunboats close to the shoreline that created a curtain of terror for the enemy.
From the air above, seeing armored flamethrowers roll up to a coral cave entrance and "belch a sheet of flame" into an enemy cave was a most inhospitable and awesome sight. As the war concluded, thousands of civilians were pushed southward to the end of the island. On my last flight I was able to observe long columns of civilians on roads moving towards their conquered unknown destiny.
Psychological warfare in the form of leaflets was used before and during the campaign. Fifth Fleet carrier planes dropped some five million leaflets on the island. The psychological warfare teams' immediate objective was to depress Japanese morale so that the enemy soldiers would surrender rather than resist. The long-range goal was more ambitious: to promote the idea that Okinawans were ethnically and culturally different from the home island Japanese. The leaflets told the Japanese soldier why and how should surrender and the Okinawan citizens not to be afraid, for they were not regarded as the enemy.
My most vivid memory occurred during a spotting mission over Okinawa when I flew into thousands of falling propaganda leaflets dropped by one of our planes. The airplane appeared to be running into a snow storm. Hundreds of the leaflets caught on the wings and the cockpit canopy. Cracking the canopy, I was able to grab one before they all blew off. The leaflet was the "Ryukyu Shuho" [Ryukyu Weekly] or Okinawa Weekly. Information on the devastating B-29 raids over Japan and other information from the recovered leaflet is presented below [translation courtesy of the Library of Congress]. Clicking on the thumbnail pictures of the leaflet will link to a larger version.
