CHAPTER II - The Battle for Okinawa
"Loochoo" and "Ryukyu" are, respectively, the Chinese and Japanese derivations of the same 7th-century Chinese ideograms which depict the archipelago as a "floating horned dragon." "Okinawa" is a term of Japanese derivation meaning "a rope in the offing." The term properly refers only to Okinawa Jima, the largest island in the chain, although it is often used to denote Okinawa Gunto—that island plus its immediate outlying islands. It is sometimes misapplied to the entire archipelago.*1
The people of the Ryukyu Islands, although resigned to the severe typhoons that annually sweep their islands, were unprepared for the tetsu no bofu, the typhoon of steel, as the American assault on the islands in April 1945 has been characterized.' The campaign, which officially lasted eighty-two days, was the last battle of World War II. For Americans, it also proved to be the bloodiest of all the Pacific campaigns against the Japanese Empire. For the people, the society, and the very land itself in that small portion of the empire, the battle was a devastating experience. The magnitude of the destruction and the sudden appearance of many thousands of hapless civilians meant that long before the battle ended, American civil affairs officers embarked on a military government experiment of unprecedented scope and duration.
The Ryukyu Islands (Nansei Shoto) reach southwest from the Japa- nese home islands in a 775-mile curvilinear chain to within seventy miles of Taiwan (see Map 2). The archipelago, which separates the East China Sea from the Pacific Ocean, consists of some 140 islands or islets-only thirty or so of which can support permanent human habitation—and countless rocks and reefs in major island groupings. Most of the islands are the peaks of three distinct mountain ranges rising along the edge of the continental shelf. Others are volcanic in origin. Coral formations are found on both types. East of Okinawa, the largest of these islands, the deep Ryukyu Trench falls away sharply to depths in excess of twenty-five thousand feet.
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Despite their temperate zone location, the islands bask in a semi-tropical atmosphere because of the Kuroshio (Black) Current which flows northward from the North Pacific Equatorial Current, channeling tropical waters through the Ryukyus. This current keeps the water immediately surrounding the archipelago five to fifteen degrees warmer than the water further offshore. The humidity is above 76 percent the year round, and life there would be most uncomfortable were it not for the constant sea breezes. Naha, Okinawa's capital city, has a mean annual temperature of 72°(F) and an average of 202 rainy days each year with a mean annual precipitation level of nearly 83 inches. Rainfall is heaviest during the months of May and June. April through October, however, is the typhoon season, and, at a minimum, three typhoons strike or closely skirt the islands each year; the number has been as high as forty-five.' *3
With a land area of some 454 square miles, Okinawa is by far the largest of the Ryukyu Islands. The island is sixty miles long and ranges in breadth from two to sixteen miles. The northern part of the island, north of the isthmus between Ishikawa and Nakadomari, is rugged and mountainous, with considerable tree cover. Agriculture there is limited to the coastal areas and to small terraces. The central portion of the island, south of the isthmus, consists of a hilly, dissected limestone plateau of some 50,000 acres, with its highest elevations averaging 500 feet above sea level. The land rises gently from this central plain to a hillier 30,000 acre plateau in the south. This plateau is bounded by steep escarpments descending to raised beaches, except at the extreme southern tip where the escarpment becomes a sea cliff. Okinawa's irregular terrain, which is dotted with hills, ravines, and caves, offers numerous natural defensive positions.
The Ordeal of Japanese Defense Preparations
Initially, the outbreak of hostilities in China and the Pacific did not affect Okinawa. The island had neither surplus food nor a great deal of industry to assist the Japanese effort. Its harbor facilities were unsuitable for large warships, and the airstrips served only as steppingstones for Japanese flights to Taiwan and beyond. The island's main contribution to the war effort lay in its production of sugar cane. The black sugar crop was shipped to Japan, where it was converted into commercial alcohol for torpedoes and engines. Fully one-fourth of Okinawa's cultivated land was devoted to sugar cane production. *4
As hostilities came closer to the home islands, the Japanese began more extensive defense preparations on Okinawa. Following American air strikes against Truk Island in February 1944, Imperial General Headquarters drafted new plans for the defense of Taiwan and the Ryukyu Islands. On 1 April Lt. Gen. Masao Watanabe activated the Japanese 32d Army to be stationed on Okinawa with its headquarters in the suburbs of Naha.*5 At that time the Okinawan defenses were considered secondary to the Marianas defense line, which the Japanese hoped would prove impenetrable. But in July 1944 American forces breached the Marianas line at Saipan, forcing Imperial General Headquarters to reconsider its defensive strategy. In August Lt. Gen. Mitsuru Ushijima replaced General Watanabe as commanding general of the 32d Army. Ushijima reorganized the staff, replacing most of the incumbent officers with talented young men from Imperial General Headquarters. Reinforcements for the 32d Army, including service and support units, arrived from the home islands throughout the summer and fall of 1944. While the 32d Army augmented its manpower, work proceeded on the construction of various defense works, including countless concrete pillboxes and fortified positions, tank traps, and mine fields. In addition, dozens of Okinawa's natural rock and coral caves, supplemented by man-made tunnels, were stocked with ma- teriel and fortified. These caves became the basis for an extensive network of underground defensive positions. Approximately 20,000 Okinawans were conscripted for the Boeitai (Okinawan Home Guard) for labor ser- vice and assisted in the construction of airstrips and fortifications. Because time was short for the island's defenders and there were not enough men to meet construction goals, many women were also pressed into labor service-some were obliged to work on airfield construction.*6. This conscription of so many island women for service away from the home had a distinctly negative impact on Okinawa's traditional close-knit family life.
By late March 1945 General Ushijima could deploy a sizable number of men and weapons in defensive positions. Additional forces-naval personnel, communications troops, engineers, and other miscellaneous elements-brought the estimated strength of the 32d Army (counting home-island Japanese only) to over 77,000 men. To these were added the Okinawans: 20,000 Boeitai, 750 male middle-school students organized into Tekketsu Kinnotai (Blood and Iron Students Corps) volunteer units trained for combat, and thousands of others conscripted as civilians for service functions or pressed into service with the 32d Army. Counting the Boeitai, the Tekketsu units, and the numerous civilian "volunteer" laborers, one Japanese source estimated that "... almost all Okinawan males from 18 to 45 years old were mobilized for combat." Additionally, about 600 middle-school girls were trained specifically for medical ser- vice. Although the total number of Okinawans mobilized is open to some dispute, observers later agreed that one overall conclusion appears valid: the Japanese preparations had a thoroughly adverse impact on most facets of Okinawan society."*7
Since no accurate records exist of all the Okinawans drafted into the 32d Army, the exact strength of the Japanese force at the time of the American invasion cannot be stated precisely, but it certainly exceeded 100,000 men. These forces were positioned in anticipation of the Amer- ican landing, and they were well supplied. Once Imperial General Head- quarters recognized that the Philippine campaign was lost, most of the weapons and material originally destined for that sector were sent to Okinawa instead. The defensive preparations, of necessity, also included foodstuffs and by the end of March 1945 the 32d Army had stockpiled enough provisions to sustain its units until mid-September. Although foodstuffs had been imported to feed both the civilian population and the military, no plans were made to distribute food for civilian use once hostilities began.
In an effort to ease the food shortage, while at the same time improving operational efficiency, Imperial General Headquarters decided to evacuate Okinawans to the home islands. Before the American assault, some 80,000 civilians were taken to Kyushu on transports that had brought troops and munitions to Okinawa. In another less ambitious, but no less painful, population shift, the 32d Army relocated approximately 60,000 civilians from the southern half of the island, where the Army intended to make its stand, to the rugged, far less populated north. About one-half of this number were children and the aged. The dislocation of so many civilians. caused considerable hardship and made matters all the more difficult for the American civil affairs officers after the campaign ended. But, even with 80,000 inhabitants removed to Japan and 60,000 more hiding in the northern caves, there were still over 360,000 civilians in potential danger in central and southern Okinawa.
Thus, for months before the American forces landed on their island, Okinawans were plagued with total disruption of their peaceful way of life, increased pressure on their meager food supplies, family separations, arduous forced labor, and relocation. Individual homes and even entire villages were commandeered to house the swollen Japanese garrison. The Okinawans resented these disruptions as they resented the attitude of the Japanese military, who were unable to communicate in the local Okinawan dialects and who regarded their hosts as "rustics." This touched on all things Okinawan. With little thought to cultural considerations, the 32d Army had located its headquarters in the historic city of Shuri beneath the castle of Okinawa's kings, thereby ensuring Allied destruction of this ancient treasure. The Okinawan bureaucracy knew that an attack was imminent, but the local government was so thoroughly dominated by home-island Japanese that little was done to protect the island's historic treasures or the ancient archives of the kings. The manifestations of the 32d Army's presence left in many native Okinawans a residue of ill will against the home-island Japanese." *8
The Okinawans, with no tradition glorifying warfare and the warrior, insisted, to the consternation of the Japanese, on retaining an indifference to things military. Such an attitude was suspect in a society where the civilian population had come to exist primarily to feed and outfit the military, but those suspicions did not surface suddenly in 1945. Ten years earlier Lt. Gen. Torao Ishii, then garrison commander, had cast doubt upon the Ryukyuans' loyalty when he vehemently denounced the carefree attitude of the islands' young men. The Ryukyuans deeply resented his public condemnation. Despite their lack of military fanaticism, the Ryu- kyuans did not think of themselves as fundamentally disloyal to the empire. At the same time, however, they did resent the increasing military demands for "voluntary" contributions of time and resources-contri- butions that the Okinawans could ill afford. *9 For the most part these levies were borne stoically by the Okinawans; very few became active dissenters. The vast majority of the population remained loyal, if not particularly enthusiastic about Japan's foreign adventures. A few Okinawan nationalists endured, and their movement survived until the American invasion in 1945. One of their spokesmen, a prefectural librarian from Shimabuku, lost his position in 1940 for publicly denouncing Japan's intensified efforts to assimilate the Ryukyus into a militarized Japan. The librarian was an exception, however, for by 1940 most Okinawans were responding positively to a decade of propaganda that extolled the heroic deeds of Japan's soldiers in China. Okinawans, too, were serving in most branches of Japan's armed services, and some had achieved officer rank. *10
War Comes to the Ryukyus
Beginning in late September 1944 American aircraft and submarines began to tighten a noose around the Ryukyu Islands. Japanese surface shipping became extremely hazardous. B-29's of the Fourteenth and Twentieth Air Forces and planes of the Navy's fast carrier forces struck repeatedly at enemy positions throughout the western Pacific. Naha, the major population center, came under heavy air attack. On one day, 10 October, carrier planes struck the city in five separate bombing and straf- ing raids, leaving a wake of destruction that was nearly total. The mayor of Naha, a Japanese sympathizer named Jugo Thoma, some years later described the raid as a “holocaust."*11 Japanese officials, in what can only be regarded as the height of audacity given their own record, complained that American planes had indiscriminately struck at military and civilian areas alike.*12
Additional raids followed in early 1945. Shuri-Okinawa's second largest city, its ancient royal capital and cultural center, and the site of the 32d Army's headquarters-became a major target. Thus, well before the invasion, the city and its ancient treasures were destroyed. Most residents of the city were left homeless-if they were among the fortunate ones who survived."
The first American troops landed in the Ryukyu Islands at 0804 hours on 26 March 1945. *13 The 3d Battalion Landing Team, 305th Regimental Combat Team, 77th Division, assaulted the beaches of Aka in the Kerama Retto (island group), just fifteen miles from Okinawa. Three other teams followed immediately. By nightfall on 29 March, American forces had occupied all the islands of the Kerama group (see Map 3). On L-Day, Easter Sunday, 1 April 1945, Tenth Army combat units assaulted the Hagushi beaches on the west coast of Okinawa itself.*14
The advance elements of military government headquarters, consisting of ten officers, including General Crist, and thirteen enlisted men, landed on Okinawa on L-Day. The second and third elements reached the island approximately ten days later; thereafter, headquarters elements arrived at about two-week intervals, until the rear echelon of two officers and four enlisted men landed in mid-May with the rear echelon, Head- quarters, Tenth Army. As previously planned, military government field teams came ashore on the island independent of headquarter's landings. The great majority of 15-member "A" detachments, such as A-4 with the 7th Division, landed on 1 or 2 April. These teams immediately fanned out through the combat zone to collect civilians. Most of the 27-member "B" teams, which were to continue and expand the relief efforts of the advancing "A" teams, landed on L+2 or L+3 and began establishing holding areas for displaced islanders. The small but relatively mobile 25- bed Navy G-10 dispensaries landed with the "A" and "B" detachments (G-10-5, for example, with the 7th Division on 1 April) and began dis- pensing medical assistance to the Okinawans. The first 36-member "C" team-the teams charged with operating the refugee camps-was ashore by sundown on 3 April. At that time there were some 45 officers and 125 enlisted men assigned to military government teams on the island and all were immediately involved, for American combat forces advanced rapidly during the first few days of the invasion and thousands of non- combatant Okinawans came into the lines. *15
The 32d Army made no serious attempt to contest the landings. Jap- anese strategists believed, mistakenly, that if they permitted the American ships and troops to concentrate off the Hagushi beaches, the Japanese fleet coming down from the home islands could trap and destroy them. The American success in sinking the Japanese naval relief force, including the super-battleship Yamato, shattered this optimistic strategy, and the American forces quickly moved inland. Some turned north, but most proceeded south toward the main Japanese defensive positions around Shuri and Naha. *16 As the fighting intensified, particularly in the south, casualties, both military and civilian, increased. Many islanders remained in hiding in the caves. Weakened by fever and lack of food and conditioned by Japanese propaganda, they refused to emerge when American servicemen ordered them out. The GIs, reluctant to enter the caves be- cause of warnings about boobytraps and fanatical Japanese holdouts, cleared them with explosives and flame throwers. These tactics saved American lives, but countless civilians died or were wounded.
Casualties were extremely heavy on both sides for a single campaign. American battle casualties totaled 49,151 dead and wounded; there were also 26,211 non-battle casualties. Japanese military losses were even more staggering, an estimated 110,000 combatants and service troops killed and 7,400 captured. These figures include an unknown number of last- minute Okinawan conscripts and civilians. The precise number of civilian casualties will probably never be known, but the lowest estimate is 42,000 killed. In all likelihood, somewhere between one-tenth and one-fourth of the civil population perished. *17
Bad as was the fighting, it might have been worse had it not been for the work of Tenth Army's psychological warfare units before and during the invasion. Between 25 March and 17 April, Fifth Fleet carrier planes dropped some five million leaflets on the island. Planes were also used to distribute the psychological warfare office's newspaper, the Ryukyu Shuho, which attracted considerable attention among enemy soldiers and civilians alike. Other propaganda tools-such as tank-mounted ampli- fiers, aircraft with loudspeakers, and remotely controlled radios para- chuted behind enemy lines-contributed to the psychological operations effort. *18
The psychological warfare teams' immediate objective was to depress Japanese morale so that enemy soldiers would surrender rather than re- sist. The long-range goal was more ambitious: to promote the idea that Okinawans were ethnically and culturally different from the home-island Japanese. Consequently, the leaflets and loudspeakers not only told the Japanese soldier why and how he should surrender, they also told the Okinawan citizenry not to be afraid, for they were not regarded as the enemy.
Before Operation ICEBERG, psychological warfare operations against the Japanese had been something of a disappointment. Nimitz's staff, which was largely responsible for the ICEBERG psychological warfare plan- ning, judged this operation to be the most successful of the Pacific war. Military resistance from the civilian population was negligible, and larger numbers of enemy soldiers surrendered earlier in the campaign than had been anticipated. *19 Most certainly the success of the psychological warfare efforts in the Ryukyus helped reduce the toll of human suffering during the campaign for the islands. Unfortunately, the loss of life and property on Okinawa in particular still reached immense proportions.
The first task of military government personnel was to assemble the islanders, many of whom were wandering about the battlefield in search of food or relatives. The collection camps were very modest affairs, some- times only a circle of barbed wire and a pit latrine. Many early camps. lacked even canvas protection from the chilly Okinawan nights. Some islanders willingly came forward to surrender; others, conditioned by Japanese propaganda to fear the invaders, had to be captured by Amer- ican assault troops. Many others appeared in camp only as the result of military-government detachment searches. The civilians exhibited con- siderable fear, but no one offered resistance; a stoic sense of resignation seemed to prevail. The first "D" (or District) team of 82 members, which was capable of administering a civilian population of 60,000 to 100,000, did not land until 27 April. Until then, the smaller detachments-high on humanitarian purpose, but low on supplies-were very much on their own.
Two teams, B-10 and C-1, typified the activities of military govern- ment detachments during the assault phase. Attached to the 27th Division, B-10 team came ashore on 9 April and established civilian collection centers at Chatan and at the nearby village of Momobaru Aza (see Map 4). The Chatan facility was particularly spartan-little more than a barbed wire enclosure. On 1 May the team transferred from the 27th Division to the 1st Marine Division and immediately established new centers at Iza (Isa) and at "Berger Beach" near Itoman. Berger Beach was particularly busy, processing nearly 13,000 refugees every two weeks during June.*20 Once rested, fed, and given preliminary medical attention, the team's civilian charges were transferred to larger temporary camps at Koza, Shimabuku, and Naha.
As with the other camp teams, C-1's mission was to establish and operate a compound capable of re- ceiving large numbers of refugees from the sixteen "A" and "B" de- tachments operating in the Ryukyus. C-1 team came ashore on 4 April near Sobe. Some 1,000 former Sobe residents came out of hiding that first day and placed themselves un- der military government care. C-1 established a temporary facility there, then moved to a permanent camp near Koza. Activity was min- imal at first, but 225 more refugees arrived on the 16th and another 300 came in within two days. The de- tachment's lone interpreter struggled with the problem of registering the newcomers. The next week brought in more than a thousand new arrivals, and by the fourth week C-1 had a total of 3,378 civilians under its care. The number of refugees reporting in continued to increase. By 1 June, 144,311 civilians-some 40 to 45 percent of the surviving population— were under American care.*21
Refugee Care
Once the refugees had been gathered into the various camps, the civil affairs teams' most immediate concern was food supply. Food had long been a problem on Okinawa, even before the war. Most of the land in the Ryukyus is moderately fertile at best; only a few areas of more fertile soil exist in central and southern Okinawa and on a few of the outlying islands. Okinawans, however, made the most of what they had: rice was grown in the fertile, but poorly drained, reclaimed coastal marsh areas; sweet potatoes, sugar cane, and green-leaf vegetables were cultivated on the upland plains. The sweet potato, first introduced from China, was the staple food crop for both men and animals. Sugar cane was the prin- cipal cash crop. Traditionally, and of necessity, as many as 75 percent of Ryukyuan households engaged in agriculture.*22 Despite this manpower commitment, however, food had to be imported to feed the archipelago's population.
Military government planners knew that the Ryukyu Islands had never been self-sufficient in food production. Beyond that fact, little was certain about actual conditions on the island. There was no way of knowing, for example, how Japanese defense preparations had affected the food supply or the extent to which American preinvasion bombing and shelling might have destroyed food sources. The planners pervision. had, therefore, prepared for all aspects of a potential food shortage. Each division was issued 70,000 civilian rations for emergency feeding. The rations, calculated with Japanese preferences in mind, included rice, flour, dried fish, cooking oil, soybeans, and sugar. A regular ration contained 1,530 calories, but special rations were also prepared for laborers (2,000-2,500 calories), nursing mothers (2,200 calories), and very small children (782-921 calories). These last two diets included extra calcium in the form of evaporated milk, but all of the rations were "devoid of ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and deficient in riboflavin (vitamin B2). .. ."*23 Each division was to land its civilian rations in various echelons throughout the assault phase.
To their great relief, the American forces discovered that there was no immediate food crisis. This was all the more remarkable because the defending Japanese forces had thoroughly disrupted agricultural efforts by evacuating and/or conscripting for labor so many able-bodied citizens. Moreover, in the south, the soldiers of the 32d Army often confiscated food from the civilians' meager stores. *24 Despite such confiscations, Okinawan civilians had managed to hide food in the island's coral caves. Consequently, one of the military government's immediate tasks was tosalvage that food and distribute it through a rationing system. Under close military government supervision, the civilian population sought out the food caches. They also harvested the remaining sweet potato, wheat, barley, and millet crops. Since most of the other crops had been lost during the fighting, as had most of the livestock and the fishing fleet, these salvage operations became extremely important. *25 And they were successful. Detachment B-1's officers found the native salvage efforts "adequate," especially in such items as onions, cabbages, soybeans, and the ubiquitous sweet potatoes. Civil affairs officers at C-1 team, while finding no great quantities of rice, noted that the local fields "abound” in sweet potatoes and cabbages. *26
During the battle, 1,402 tons of processed foodstuffs and 2,079 tons of harvested crops were salvaged and rationed. Until 21 June, the end of the assault phase, between 78 and 85 percent of the population, depending upon locality, was fed from local sources. Imported rations supported the remainder. While hoarding was a problem, the military government teams' biggest food problem during the fighting was one of timely and equitable distribution. Transportation, or lack thereof, was a major part of the food situation." *27 On most of the outer islands, where battle-related destruction was far less than on Okinawa, the food situation was less serious.
As the Ryukyus campaign officially ended (2 July 1945), however, military government teams found themselves facing a deteriorating food situation. During June the field detachments fed an average daily pop- ulation of 196,000, with only 22 percent of the food being imported. By July the figures had risen to 295,000 persons fed daily, with 59 percent of the food being imported. In part, these statistics suggest that a growing number of civilians came under military government care in the last days of the campaign. There were, however, other, more serious reasons for the increase. By July the salvaged foodstuffs had been exhausted and considerable additional damage had befallen the island's crops. The re- taining walls of numerous terraced fields and the intricate irrigation systems developed over the years had been damaged. Once the combat phase ended, buildozers, heavy trucks, and graders, following base construction plans, continued the destructive work already begun by tanks and artil- lery. The man-made walls and irrigation ditches, so essential to farming on Okinawa, could not be easily replaced. The damage done to island agriculture by this necessary development was compounded by theft and vandalism on the part of American soldiers. Headquarters, Tenth Army, lamented the situation:
At the outset, an ample supply of food was uncovered.... Substantial losses were incurred by the uncontrolled action of troops and the lack of sufficient military govern- ment personnel to prevent such losses. Losses also incurred in livestock, poultry, ... farm implements and building materials by needless destruction and lack of personnel and transportation to salvage such items for Military Government use." *28
Military government teams made a maximum effort to have the civilians harvest the crops, but inadequate transport, countless shifts of population from one camp to another, and insufficient military govern- ment and military police personnel to supervise civilian harvesters re- sulted in large losses. Many crops, especially sweet potatoes, rotted in the fields.*29 The same detrimental factors, particularly the shifting between camps for battlefield or logistic considerations, also left the Okinawans with very little incentive to plant new crops.
Before long the more balanced civilian rations brought ashore by the assault divisions proved inadequate to support the growing number of Okinawans dependent upon imported rations. Military government teams attempted to keep the caloric level in the 1,530-1,990 range, but the nutritional value of the rations often became very questionable. At times chocolate was the only available food for several days. One Okinawan recalls a week when only butter was distributed in his camp; during another week the ration was powdered ice cream, which the Okinawans mixed with boiling water and consumed as a tea. During other weeks corn meal was supplied, but without the eggs or milk to make bread.*30 Because of a world-wide shortage of fats and oils, as well as the dearth of farm animals locally, cooking oils and fats so essential to the Okinawan style of food preparation soon became very scarce. Military government teams found they could provide only about 3 percent of the local demand. Military government headquarters begged mess sergeants not to dispose of old oils and fats, but to distribute these items to Okinawan employees of the various units. Still the demand could not be met, and some Oki- nawans were reported to have used machine oil to cook their tempura. *31 With the food situation deteriorating so badly and so quickly, General Crist warned civil affairs personnel to avoid using terms such as "concentration centers" when referring to the camps; Tenth Army personnel were advised that descriptions of civilian camp conditions would be cen- sored from letters home.*32 In late September 1945 all pretense of main- taining the civilian rations at the April level was dropped, and the ration was cut in half until more rations could be imported.*33 Nevertheless, military government teams somehow managed to provide minimum amounts of food to support the civil population, and although the people of the Ryukyus experienced hardships and instances of malnutrition, actual starvation was averted. The question of food, however, and Okinawa's lack of ability to feed itself, would remain a major concern of the American authorities long after hostilities ceased.
While the principles governing the production and distribution of food for a war-devastated people have almost universal application, those gov- erning the provision of medical aid do not. The Army's only experience with so many enemy civilians occurred in Europe. There military gov- ernment medical officers were able to utilize local personnel and facilities; once organized and supplied, they carried the burden of civilian health care. Conditions and experiences in the Pacific, however, most notably on Saipan, convinced the planners that practically all medical care would have to be imported and furnished by military government. They greatly feared a large number of civilian battle casualties, as well as widespread tropical diseases resulting from the poor sanitation facilities on the island. Expecting the worst, Tenth Army planners could not hope to provide more than minimum humanitarian health care, and that only in the most extreme cases. Successful planning for medical facilities was a frustrating experience, not only because of limitations on military government as- sault tonnage, but also because of Tenth Army's inability to obtain the type of facilities best suited for civilian medical care. The Saipan expe- rience pointed to the need for mobile field hospitals, but with so many commitments elsewhere, the Army was unable to provide this type of facility. Military government forces on Okinawa had to make do with Navy hospital units, which were far less mobile and adaptable to assault
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