Foreword
This book represents the final work in the five-volume history of Marine Corps operations in World War II. The story of the Okinawa campaign, told earlier in a separate monograph, has been reevaluated and rewritten to detail events in proper proportion to each other and in a correct perspective to the war as a whole. New material, particularly from Japanese sources and from the recorded interviews conducted with senior Marine Corps officers who participated in the Marine Corps Oral History Program, has been included to provide fresh insight into the Marine Corps’ contribution to the final victory of the Pacific War.
These pages cover Marine Corps activities in the Okinawa invasion and the occupations of Japan and North China as well as the little-known story of Marine prisoners of war. The book relates the Corps’ postwar demobilization and reorganization programs as well. By 1945, amphibious warfare doctrine and techniques had become highly developed. While new and improved weapons were employed in the Okinawa campaign, the landing operation itself realistically demonstrated the soundness of fundamental amphibious doctrine developed over the years by the Navy and the Marine Corps. Again, as at Guadalcanal, the battle for Okinawa clearly reemphasized the fact that basic Marine Corps tactics and techniques were sound. An outgrowth of the lessons learned at Okinawa was the establishment of a balanced air-ground amphibious force in readiness which has become the hallmark of the present-day Marine Corps. Many of the senior officers and commanders at Okinawa were prewar teachers and planners who had participated in the early operations of the war in the Pacific. The successful application at Okinawa of the knowledge, expertise, and experiences of these individuals against a fanatic foe fighting a last-ditch battle to protect his homeland was a vital factor in the final victory over Japan.
The assault and capture of Okinawa represents the most ambitious joint Army-Navy-Marine Corps operation in the history of the Pacific War. Statistically, in comparison to previous assaults in this war zone, the numbers of men, ships, and planes as well as the tons of munitions and supplies employed in this campaign stagger the imagination. But, had the enemy not capitulated in face of the American victories in the western Pacific and as a result of the atom bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
the personnel and logistics figures reflecting the requirements for the planned assault on Japan would have been even more overwhelming. Fortunately for both sides, the war ended before more blood was shed.
After participating in several Central Pacific landings, I returned to the United States and was assigned to Headquarters Marine Corps. From this vantage point, I observed the conduct of Marine Corps operations in the late stages of the war, when ground, sea, and air forces drove relentlessly towards the heart of the Japanese Empire. I also viewed with great pride the outstanding performance of duty of Marine occupation troops in Japan and North China. Here, small units and individual Marines proved themselves and the validity of Marine Corps training and discipline under conditions that were often trying. The fund of command experience acquired by junior officers and noncommissioned officers in a variety of circumstances has since been drawn on constantly in peace and war.
Similarly, the discipline and training of Marines captured at the outbreak of the war and after was tried and found not wanting in face of trials that beggar the imagination. In their own way, against the ever-present threat of death, these men continued fighting the enemy by various means, including sabotage and escape. The heroism of such Marines equaled and at times surpassed the records of the men who were engaged in the march across the Pacific. The record of our Marine POWs in World War II is something we can all be proud of.
Like other active duty Marines at the end of the war, I, too, experienced the period of transition when the Corps reverted to a peacetime role in the defense of this nation. Responsive to its combat experiences in World War II, the Marine Corps made many tactical and organizational changes, as this book shows. Unchanged, however, was our highly prized esprit de corps, which, even as this is written, is being as jealously guarded as when our Corps was first formed.
When the roll of America’s battle honors is read, the names of the World War II campaigns in which Marines fought4Wake Island to Okinawa,—will strike a familiar ring to all who cherish liberty and freedom. I am proud of my association with the men who won these honors and to have shared their hardships and their victories.
Wallace M. Greene, Jr.
U.S. Marine Corps
Commandant of the Marine Corps
Reviewed and approved
29 November 1967