This research paper analyzes the principal naval engagements which occurred in and around Okinawa between Allied and Japanese forces during the spring and early summer of 1945.
1. Types of Engagements. No major surface ship to ship engagements occurred. Ever since the Japanese Navy had suffered a crushing defeat in the Battle of Leyte Gulf on October 20, 1944, its "battle fleet had nearly reached the end of the road" and its "surviving battleships and carriers were holed up in port," harassed by American air attacks and forced to conserve fuel cut off by American submarine attacks on Japanese merchant shipping. The major engagements involved: (1) the defense of the American carrier task forces, supporting warships, supply and landing craft against attacks by Japanese land based aircraft, including special suicide or kamikaze attack units, submarines and some small naval craft through the use of radar, shipboard anti-aircraft, fighter cover, fire control and anti-submarine measures; and (2) the sinking by American carrier-based aircraft of the world's largest battleship, Yamato, and its flotilla of one cruiser and eight destroyers 70 miles east of Okinawa. Other engagements included carrier and land-based American air raids on Japanese airfields and shipping in Japan, Formosa, the China coast and Okinawa; the launching and logistic support of preliminary landings on Kerema Retto and other smaller islands and the main landing on April 1, 1945; minesweeping and clearance of underwater obstacles by navy frogmen, an "immense bombardment" of Japanese defenses on Okinawa by battleships, cruisers and destroyers on L-Day (April 1, 1945) and the sinking of Japanese suicide boats by naval gunfire.
2. Dates and location. The main naval engagements at or near Okinawa began in mid-March, 1945 in the air and at sea and continued until resistance ended on the island on June 22, 1945. Yamato was sunk at 1423 on April 7, 1945.
Okinawa is...