Seventy-Five Years Ago: Easter Sunday in Okinawa

This portion of an illustration by John Hamilton from his series War at Sea shows USS Tennessee (BB 43) being targeted by Japanese Special Attack Corps (Kamikaze) aircraft on April 12, 1945, while performing shore bombardment in support of American troops fighting their way across Okinawa.  (Navy Art Collection via Naval History and Heritage Command Photo Curator/ Flickr)   

By Zachary Smyers
HRNM Educator


On April 1, 1945, Easter Sunday, two US Marine Corps Divisions, along with two Army Divisions, landed on the Japanese island of Okinawa. Okinawa represented the last steppingstone in the island-hopping campaign before reaching the Japanese home islands. Much like the invasion of Iwo Jima, the fighting on Okinawa would be fierce on both land…and sea.

Landing craft crowd an Okinawa beach on "L-Day," April 1, 1945 (Naval History and Heritage Command image)

Utilizing veteran units from the Marine Corps and the Army, the assembled invasion force would be the largest ever assembled under the US Navy. An armada of over one thousand ships backed up the Marines and soldiers landing on the island.  Utilizing lessons that had been learned during the hard fought Pacific campaign, the Navy planned to be on station during the duration of the invasion.

The Japanese defending the island numbered 155,000 soldiers under the command of Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima. Lt. Gen. Ushijima divided the island into defensive sectors to maximize the use of his troops. What Ushijima also had an abundance of was mortars and artillery. These weapons would be used to great effect during the course of the battle.

The primary objectives of the invasion were the airfields located at Yontan and Kadena. Securing these would provide an air base even closer to Japan for B-29 bombers as well as other support aircraft. The Navy carriers operating off the coast would provide valuable close air support to the Marines and soldiers operating on the ground.

LSTs and LSMs on an Okinawa beach with a crowd of other amphibious shipping offshore on April 3, 1945.  USS LST 552 is at left.  In the center are LCT 1270 and LSM 31.  LST 776 is second from right.  Photographed from an aircraft from USS Tulagi (CVE 72). (Naval History and Heritage Command image)

The initial landings proceeded with no resistance.  Beachheads were established to keep the steady flow of supplies. Veterans within the Marine and Army units knew that when you land unopposed on an island, it meant that the Japanese were dug in for you and waiting somewhere else. This was definitely the case on Okinawa. The 6th Marines did not make initial contact with the Japanese until April 13. This lead to a four-day battle, which resulted in an estimated 2,000 Japanese troops, killed. The 6th Marines suffered 207 killed and 757 wounded.

Marines holding the line near Naha, Okinawa, in May 1945. (U.S. Marine Corps Photograph/ Department of Defense via Britannica.com)

Operating in the southern front, the Army encountered stiff resistance on the 6th of April. The defensive line that the Army discovered was centered on the town of Shuri and became known as the Shuri Line. This defensive arrangement proved to be very difficult to capture, and the fighting would become very deadly.

Marine Private First Class Joseph F. Garrity fires his flamethrower at a tomb being used as a Japanese sniper's nest.  Taken in late-May 1945. (Naval History and Heritage Command image)

At sea, the overall strategic commander for the Navy was Admiral Raymond Spruance. Admiral Spruance had come to Okinawa with the entire Fifth Fleet, which was broken up into nine task forces, which included units from the Royal Navy. Within the Fifth Fleet battle group, were several battleships that had been repaired after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The combination of aircraft carriers, battleships, cruisers, light cruisers, and destroyers brought a tremendous amount of firepower to support the operation. Eventually though, the fighting at sea would become just as intense as the fighting on the land.

Japanese “Zero” fighter plane in anti-aircraft action with Task Group 58.1 makes an attack on USS Vincennes (CL 64) off Okinawa, Ryukyu Islands, as seen from USS Miami (CL 89). Photograph released April 6, 1945.  (National Archives and Records Administration 80-G-324531 via Naval History and Heritage Command Photo Curator/ Flickr)   

The invasion of Okinawa saw the heaviest use of the Japanese Kamikazes. Having lost most of their veteran pilots during the course of the island hopping campaign, Japan resorted to using young men with bare minimum flight training to turn their aircraft into human missiles and dive into American ships. During the course of the battle, over 1,900 kamikaze planes were flown into US Navy ships. These attacks resulted in the loss of 36 ships along with 64 ships receiving significant damage. 

Japanese Kamikazes were far from the only hazards to Navy ships and landing craft during Operation Iceberg.  USS Halligan (DD 584) struck a mine on March 26, 1945, during the prelude to the landings, causing her magazine to explode. (National Archives and Records Administration 80-G-324187 via Naval History and Heritage Command Photo Curator/ Flickr)

Operation Iceberg lasted 82 days. The island of Okinawa was declared secure on June 22, 1945. Japanese losses were estimated at over 150,000 killed which included civilians. For the US Navy, 4,907 Sailors were killed in action and 4,874 were wounded. It was the highest casualty count ever for the Navy during a single engagement with enemy forces. The Marine Corps lost 2,938 Marines during the fighting while the US Army had 4,675 soldiers killed in action. This included Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr., who was the highest-ranking US military officer lost to hostile fire during World War II.

Marine Corporal Earl Brunitt (left) and Private Genare J. Nuzzi (right) of the 29th Regiment, 6th Division, share their foxhole with an Okinawan orphan as they grab a brief nap during the fighting in April 1945.  (U.S. Marine Corps Photograph/ Library of Congress image PR-13_CN-246-5 via Naval History and Heritage Command Photo Curator/ Flickr)

An After-Thanksgiving Attack in "Suicide Alley," Part II

Editor's note: Over the 74 years since the British troopship Rohna was sunk by an advanced German weapon in November 1943, the lack of official support on the part of the British and American governments to detail the circumstances of its loss has left an information void that survivors and various authors have sought to fill, with uneven results.  

By Justin Hall
Curator, the National Museum of the American Sailor
 
In the months following the attack on Convoy KMF-26 and the sinking of HMT Rohna, next-of-kin of those who perished were notified that their loved ones were “missing-in-action,” with little to no elaboration on the circumstances. The American Graves Registration Service finally declared those who had not been recovered dead in 1949, yet the news of those adjudications were not passed on to relatives. Those who survived the attack were prohibited from writing the name of the ship they were on or details about what had happened to them within their letters home. An unclassified report released to the Associated Press and the United Press about the incident in mid-February 1944, and printed in the New York Times, stated that “One Thousand American soldiers have lost their lives in the sinking of a troopship after an enemy attack in heavy seas in European waters… details were withheld.” One clue as to why such obsessive secrecy surrounded the incident surfaced when the report stated, “there is reason to believe that the enemy does not know of the results of the attack and therefore the date is withheld.”

The perception on the part of American and British officers that the Germans didn’t know that their glide bomb had been successful turned out to be wrong, yet even after the war, many official Army histories still failed to mention the destruction of HMT Rohna.  Author Don Fortune surmised in his book Sinking Of The Rohna (1997) that in order to prevent demoralization, censorship prevented the release of details of the sinking. However, he questions why it took decades after the sinking before information was released to anyone, including family members of the deceased. Historians, survivors, and family members had searched for answers, but secrecy has resulted in speculation and scapegoating.

In 1998, James G. Bennett, whose brother, Private First Class Robert O. Bennett, died in the attack, wrote The Rohna Disaster, and in 2002 the History Channel released an episode of its History Undercover series, “The Rohna Disaster: WWII's Secret Tragedy,” that was based on Bennett’s book. Both alleged that the crew acted cowardly by abandoning ship and leaving the GIs behind. John Fievet was a soldier below deck with all of the other troops who were being transported when the vessel was hit. He recalled that the internal communication system ceased to work and Captain T.J. Murphy's order to abandon ship was relayed by word of mouth. Furthermore, according to Fievet’s account, Rohna's officers and crew remained on board to deploy as many life rafts as possible. If orders to abandon ship were relayed by word of mouth, then the officers of Rohna took responsibility to have the orders conveyed to all soldiers on board and did not abandon them. Additionally, former Rohna First Officer J.E. Willis’ report offered detailed information on the attack and contained information on how convoys should defend themselves in future attacks. This is evidence of an officer which remained composed during the engagement and contests Bennett’s accusations that the officers acted cowardly.

Another example of inference and fault that has come out of the Rohna disaster is that Bennett has blamed the lifesaving equipment. Again, Fievet’s account of that day gives another explanation. Damage to the ship was devastating and had trapped many men below deck and as Fievet recalled, for those that could escape, it took over 20 minutes for the men in lowest departments to reach the main deck. This is a significant amount of time and because the Rohna was sinking so quickly, many GIs had panicked due to their unfamiliarity with lifesaving equipment and the soldiers were not efficient in deploying the life rafts or their inflatable life belts. While Fievet’s is only one account, many recent publications of other Soldiers’ accounts have emerged and many of these survivors have come forward in an attempt to make sense of what happened on that day. In these accounts, some have repeated Bennett’s assertions, yet almost everyone of them maintained that due to their individual experience, they personally did not witness anything supporting Bennett’s allegations.

Unfortunately, an adherence to secrecy prevented an official account of events and caused the next of kin to rely on the stories from survivors, many of whom relied on each other’s stories in an attempt to form an understanding of what occurred. This failure has not provided a comprehensive account and its consequence is a patchwork of various stories that incorporate speculation and blame. One perfect example is John P Fievet, who has published his own account of events and who is a source which discredits Bennett’s claims. However, when Fievet provided a forward to a more recent publication, he repeated a story that was told to him by a fellow soldier, who had heard a story from yet another soldier who claimed that the Rohna crew were first to abandon ship.

One last concern with the top-secret status of the Rohna is that Soldiers and next of kin have become demoralized by not being informed and not having their story told. This is perfectly understandable because it contradicts the narrative of why we fight. These Americans were willing to sacrifice their lives to ensure democracy and freedom for all. Yet, when that sacrifice is not acknowledged, does it challenge our cause?

An After-Thanksgiving Attack in "Suicide Alley," Part I

Editor's Note: Asked to name the ship that sustained the greatest loss of American lives during the Second World War, most if not all of the readers of this blog could probably name the battleship Arizona, which exploded and sank at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.  But what about the ship that sustained the second-greatest loss of American lives? 

This is the story of that ship and the once-secret tragedy that befell her on November 26, 1943.

By Justin Hall
Curator, the National Museum of the American Sailor

On October 12, 1943, several thousand American GIs embarked at the Hampton Roads Port of Embarkation in Newport News, Virginia, for the Atlantic crossing aboard the American transports William Rawle, Lambert Cadwalader, Booker T. Washington, Nicholas Gilman, and Betty Zane. After disembarking at Oran, Algeria, the Soldiers continued training in a staging area awaiting the next stage of their journey, which was withheld from them in order to maintain secrecy. Then on November 24, over 2,000 of them reembarked at Oran aboard HMT (His Majesty’s Transport) Rohna to join convoy KMF-26. Convoy KMF-26 was a troop transport convoy traveling to Port Said, Egypt and consisted of 17 ships in five columns, being escorted by 10 armed escort vessels and two fighter aircraft. While onboard Rohna, the GIs learned their destination would be the China-Burma-India Theater of Operations. The men also practiced lifeboat drills and had Thanksgiving Dinner on the 25th.

As a civilian cargo ship before the war, Rohna carried approximately 100 passengers.  On the day she was sunk, the troopship was carrying 2,193.  (Wikimedia Commons)

A considerable number of the men had just deployed from the United States for their first tour; therefore, they were unaware that they would be passing through a section of the Mediterranean known as "Suicide Alley." This narrow stretch of the Mediterranean between Sicily and Tunisia had earned notoriety because Allied convoys had to travel through it. Consequently, German submarines and aircraft repeatedly attacked this location. On November 26, the minesweeper USS Pioneer (AM-105) reported a surprise aerial attack made up of 24 to 30 planes, first spotted by the naked eye at approximately 10 miles. These planes were identified as Heinkel 111 and Heinkel 177 bombers flying at an intermediate altitude and fast speed. After the convoy tracked the planes for one minute to confirm their first evaluation, the ships engaged with their anti-aircraft armament of 3-inch 50-caliber and 40mm guns and 20mm cannons. Enemy bomber attacks focused on the left section of the convoy, dropping 40 to 50 bombs. Fortunately almost all were near misses. Tragically, the Rohna was hit and would quickly sink.

A Heinkel 177 "Greif" heavy bomber carries a Henschel 293 rocket-boosted glide bomb. (walterwerke.co.uk)

What makes Rohna different from all the other ships attacked in the convoy was that it was hit and sunk by a radio-controlled, rocket-boosted glider bomb. A less-advanced version had hit USS Savannah a few months before off of Italy. Rohna's Second Officer, J.E. Willis, watched the bombers from the bridge. As the glide bombs came within range of the 20-mm, Wills was finally able to identify the incoming object as a bomb and ordered all 20mm to target the bomb. The 20mm gunners failed to destroy the bomb and it hit the Rohna, traveling at about 370 miles per hour, about halfway down the port side, just above the water line, at the engine room level. Around 300 men were killed instantly. Immediately the ship began to flood. To make matters worse, all electrical equipment failed.  

Convoy tactics demanded that the ships remain on course, yet after the attack, six ships remained to pick up survivors or provide cover for the rescue ships. USS Pioneer picked up 606 survivors, but five succumbed to their injuries during the night and the remaining ships rescued less than 200 men. On Nov 28, 1943, the War Department in Washington received a classified message reporting Rohna had sunk within half an hour after receiving bomb damage and half the men aboard were reported as casualties. Darkness and heavy swells hampered rescue efforts and 1,015 American servicemen were among the 1,149 lost in the sinking.

Fort Norfolk and the U.S. Navy

Fort Norfolk was one the original coastal fortifications Congress approved funding for and President George Washington signed into existence, and the only one still around. In 1794 Washington signed the bill Congress had passed for the construction of 19 coastal fortifications to protect the fledgling nation. Like most fortifications of the time it was small and made mostly of trenches and earthwork mounds to protect the troops and guns. Personnel duties during its early years consisted of stopping and checking ships heading into port, for contraband and, more importantly, yellow fever. By 1802, the fort had been abandoned and stripped of anything useful, but tensions with Great Britain would see its rebirth.

By 1810, tensions with Great Britain had reached the point where the United States government decided to reinvest in coastal defense.  This next round of construction would see masonry defenses as well as officer and enlisted quarters built on the fort. Although it did not play a very active role during the War of 1812, Fort Norfolk’s presence protected the area by discouraging British ships from trying to penetrate further up the Elizabeth River. With the completion of Fort Monroe in the 1830s, and the protection it rendered at the entrance to Hampton Roads, Fort Norfolk would once again be seen as unneeded. This time it would be the Navy that saved it.

The rapidly degrading condition of Gosport Navy Yard (later named Norfolk Naval Shipyard) would prove to be Fort Norfolk’s salvation. The Navy got control of Fort Norfolk in 1849 as an annex to Gosport Navy Yard.  By 1852, Gosport was in bad shape from neglect, and it was too small for the expanded fleet.   More importantly, its magazine was too close to where the fleet anchored. To solve this latter problem, by 1854, the Navy built a powder magazine at Fort Norfolk and converted some of the existing buildings to produce munitions.  Although the fort would continue as an ordnance depot until the 1880s, its biggest contribution may have happened during the Civil War.

The Confederacy took control of Gosport Navy Yard in 1862, and Fort Norfolk may have been the biggest beneficiary.  Union troops had tried to destroy as much of the yard as it could, particularly the equipment and naval stores, but a lot was left behind.  Many of the guns at Gosport were moved by the Confederacy to other points across the south, including neighboring Fort Norfolk.  Fort Norfolk played a key role in the ironclad battle between USS Monitor and CSS Virginia (formerly USS Merrimack).  The fort operated as a supply point for the Confederate ironclad, and supplied troops from the state militia unit, which had been manning the fort, to supplement Virginia’s crew and man her guns.  After Union troops took control of Norfolk, the Army used the fort as a prison for the remainder of the war.  After the Civil War, Fort Norfolk transferred back to the Navy until the 1920s, when the Army Corps of Engineers took control.  From the 1880s until its transfer to the Corps, the fort served little purpose for the Navy.

Fort Norfolk now stands on the grounds of the Army Corps of Engineers Norfolk District Headquarters.   The Corps of Engineers used the fort’s buildings until the current headquarters building was completed in 1983.  Over the last several years, restoration work has been done to preserve the buildings and grounds, and now much of it is preserved to its nineteenth century condition.  Now officially on the National Register of Historic Places, the grounds and building exteriors of Fort Norfolk are open to the public.  For access, the general public needs to first check in at the front gate to the Corps headquarters.  The Norfolk Historical Society conducts guided tours during the summer every Sunday from noon to 4 p.m.  For more information about visiting the fort, go to the Historical Society’s website.

Fort Norfolk was around long before it became a naval ordnance depot.  It’s still here, long after the depot closed, and efforts continue to keep it around for decades into the future.

Story by Hampton Roads Naval Museum Educator Jerome Kirkland