Bloody Okinawa Proved the Beginning of the End : Military: 50 years later, O.C. veterans recall three-month crucible that proved to be the final battle of World War II.

James Cordia can still vividly recall his life-and-death encounter with a Japanese soldier during the bloody battle of Okinawa half a century ago.

Cordia’s Sherman tank was supporting riflemen from the 6th Marine Division who were assaulting a fortified position on Sugar Loaf Mountain.

A Japanese soldier ran up to his tank and placed an explosives charge on the turret, said Cordia, 74, of Santa Ana. The tank was disabled but, unknown to the enemy soldier, the 75mm gun could still fire.

“After the charge exploded, he made the mistake of standing in front of the tank to admire what he’d done,” said Cordia, who served as a gunner with the Marine Corps’ A Company 6th Tank Battalion. “He was standing a few yards in front, directly in front of the gun. I fired a round and blew him to bits. He just disappeared.”

Cordia and dozens of other 6th Division veterans gathered here this week to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the final battle of World War II. Three Marine divisions, the 1st, 2nd and 6th, joined four Army infantry divisions, the 7th, 27th, 77th and 96th, to invade Okinawa on April 1, 1945. The day was April Fools’ Day, and Easter also fell on April 1 that year.

The invasion of the old island kingdom of Okinawa 50 years ago today put 182,000 U.S. troops on Japan’s doorstep. Kyushu, the southernmost of the Japanese home islands, was only 325 miles away. Japanese war planners believed the only way to prevent an Allied invasion of Japan was by killing as many Americans on Okinawa as possible.

The theory was that if the Japanese 32nd Army in Okinawa exacted a terrible toll in U.S. lives, the Allies would be unwilling to pay the higher price that would certainly accompany an invasion of Japan.

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Indeed, U.S. planners were prepared for casualties of 1 million men, while the British had predicted they would suffer 500,000 casualties in the invasion of Japan, which was scheduled for Nov. 1, 1945.

The U.S. land forces, commanded by Army Lt. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner, were joined by 1,300 Navy and Coast Guard ships, including 40 aircraft carriers of the 5th Fleet, commanded by Adm. Raymond A. Spruance. Okinawa proved to be the Navy’s bloodiest battle of World War II, and the only one in U.S. history where the Navy suffered more dead than wounded.

Most of the Navy casualties occurred in the 33 ships sunk and 368 ships and craft damaged by kamikaze pilots, who sacrificed themselves by crashing their explosives-laden planes on the U.S. fleet. More than 4,900 U.S. sailors died in the attacks, and 4,824 were wounded. The dead sailors at Okinawa accounted for 20% of all Navy dead in World War II.

Before the battle officially ended on July 2, 1945, both Buckner, son of a Confederate Civil War general, and Lt. Gen. Mitsuru Ushijima, who commanded Japanese forces on the island, were dead.

U.S. casualties were 15,956 dead, almost half of them Army soldiers, and 52,648 wounded. Japanese losses were 107,539 killed--23,764 of them sealed in caves blown up by U.S. troops. Nearly 11,000 Japanese troops surrendered or were captured, the largest number of Japanese prisoners of war gathered during one battle.

Some estimates put civilian deaths as high as 150,000. About 475,000 civilians lived on the 450-square-mile island at the time. The bombardment by planes, ships and artillery destroyed every building except one in the capital city of Naha.

Glenn A. Bouck, who served 35 years in the Marine Corps and also fought in Korea and Vietnam, said he admired the discipline of the Japanese troops at Okinawa. Bouck, 70, of Tustin said, “They fought to the death. Their discipline was amazing.”

Jack Hoag, 73, of Santa Ana said he plotted naval gunfire targets on Okinawa. He recalled one incident in which a Japanese soldier approached him and other Marines as if he wanted to surrender.

“He walked slowly toward us and bowed,” Hoag said. “He then pulled the pin from a U.S. grenade, pressed it to his stomach and blew himself up.”

The U.S. troops on Okinawa were aware of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s death on April 12, 1945, and of Germany’s surrender on May 8.

But as in most wars, U.S. ground troops on Okinawa fought in a nadir of confusion and ignorance of anything going on outside the area they were attacking or defending.

“I knew we were winning because we kept advancing and killing the enemy,” said former Marine tanker Harold Harrison, 71, of San Diego. “But like the others, I was a mushroom for the most part. They kept me in the dark and fed me bull. I knew we had won when the brass declared victory on July 2.”

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It was at Okinawa where Sigurd Carlson, 68, earned legendary status as “the indestructible Marine.” Carlson, now a Studio City resident, was just 15 when he fought in his first battle at Guadalcanal in 1942. He was wounded three times in the abdomen at Okinawa on May 16, 1945, by Japanese exploding bullets.

Although Navy corpsmen pronounced him dead five times, Carlson cheated death and went on to teach in Pasadena city schools. Today, Carlson works as a counselor for Amvets, helping disabled U.S. veterans.

Besides losing the battle, the Japanese lost the Yamato, the largest warship ever built, at Okinawa. So desperate was Japan’s military situation then that the giant battleship was ordered to steam for Okinawa, where Vice Adm. Seichi Ito was to beach it and fight until all ammunition was spent or the Yamato was destroyed.

On April 7, the Yamato and other accompanying Japanese warships were spotted by an American submarine en route to Okinawa and sunk by carrier-based planes. Only 269 of Yamato’s crew of 2,747 survived.

In the end, the Japanese succeeded in their objective at Okinawa. The bloodletting convinced American officials that an invasion of Japan would be too costly in U.S. and Japanese lives. But the U.S. decision not to invade Japan also led to the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the summer of 1945 and forced the Japanese to sue for peace.

Much debate in recent years has focused on whether the United States was justified in using atomic bombs to end the war. Not surprisingly, the American survivors of Okinawa said they were glad that President Harry S. Truman approved the use of the bomb.

“It was the greatest thing that could’ve happened for us,” Hoag said. “We didn’t understand how one bomb could destroy an entire city. It was kind of hard to believe at the time. I mean, we all said that nobody could build a bomb that big.”

THE FINAL CAMPAIGN: Maps, military strategies and other facts on Okinawa. A2

POWER OF A NAME: A combatant’s son uncovers a new perspective on war. A21