第87海軍建設大隊 (87th NCB)
p. 281
The Okinawa campaign was an apparently endless series of rough assignments for the veteran 87th Seabees a mad pace that began on 27 April and didn't let up until the battalion was finally inactivated on 7 November. The unit was involved in many important construction projects south of Bolo Point.
Among these were two major operations-Yontan Airfield, the first American-built bomber strip on Okinawa, and Bolo Airfield, the mammoth B-29 strip near Camp Bolo. The battalion also helped build Awashe Airfield where the 36th Seabees required the assistance of 150 operators and mechanics for 45 days.
Every conceivable type of aerial warfare was witnessed by the 87th ringsiders. The never-ending roar from the death struggle around Naha and Shuri was audible day and night. Artillery concussion and continuous flares over the flaming battlefront frequently resulted in lost sleep at Bolo.
Kamikaze planes, sometimes eluding the famed "Picket Line" around Okinawa in broad daylight, constantly tried for Allied shipping in the nearby crowded harbor. Frequently, a withering curtain of flak would box in the fanatical invaders and fascinated onlookers would cheer lustily as the "Meatballers" exploded in mid-air.
At night, searchlights held enemy planes in their radar-controlled beams until 90-mm. gunfire erased the "Bogies." Flak dropped all over with a fearsome sound. Then, everyone hit the foxholes-but never for long! The show was too big, gruesome and fascinating to be missed underground. Fortunately, the battalion's fabulous luck under fire continued.
General alarms were circulated virtually every night after the Japs' suicidal airborne invasion of Yontan Airfield in May. After that night- mare, mates slept beside loaded pieces, ammunition, knives and gas-masks. Less than two miles from Yontan and Kadena and expecting the worse, Camp Bolo was ringed with machine-gun pillboxes and the guard was doubled.
Soon after General Buckner's shocking death, the island was secured on 21 June-82 days after Easter D-Day-but enemy raids continued until the end. There had been 281 Jap raids up to that time.
The Okinawa operation gave the 87th its second battle star, one Legion of Merit, two Bronze Stars and five Commendation Ribbons before the Pacific tour ended.
And then one never-to-be-forgotten night-10 August-as the mates sighed over a torrid cinema love scene, all the island seemed to explode into a scintillation fireworks exhibition. The sky was miraculously ablaze with madly whirling searchlights. Colored tracers of all calibers streaked wildly in every direction. Many made a scrambled rush for foxholes. This could be nothing less than the all-out air-borne invasion so often promised by Radio Tokyo!
Then, loudspeakers blared the astounding news: "THE JAPANESE GOVERNMENT ARE READY TO ACCEPT ..." Like an all-engulfing tidal wave, the stunned men surged out of foxholes with hysterical shouts: THE WAR IS OVER! THE WAR IS OVER! Few had expected the end for another six months-if then! Surrender seemed incredible! Lurching in blind circles, the men were drunk with mad, delirious joy.
Next day, the still excited men were astounded to learn that six had been killed and 30 wounded during the previous night's pre- mature celebration-and that the war was still on!
the U. S. S. MISSOURI in Tokyo harbor. Like a lump of sugar in Then, on 2 September, the inevitable peace became official aboard the rain, the 87th began slowly, but surely, to dissolve. Men over 42 had been flown home in June, along with the excess personnel. Two small rotation groups arrived, releasing 27 men..
The 44-point discharge system became operative amid loud squawks from veterans long overseas who were receiving no credit for foreign service. Simultaneously, rotation and the five per cent deal apparently ceased.
In late September, the battalion moved from Bolo Point to Baten- Ko. On 9 October, the worst typhoon in 20 years leveled Okinawa and the 87th camp.
Finally, in their twenty-seventh month of foreign service-on 7 November-the remaining 361 veterans left for the States.
The hardened 87th-with more than two years overseas-had occu- pied a ringside seat for the titanic Pacific struggle from the Solomons campaign to the resounding atomic and at Hirohito's own doorstep.
