Quartermasters can also fight the devils

Chapter 778: Difficult Battle in the South

Under the repeated urging of the Japanese Imperial Headquarters, Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima, commander of the 32nd Japanese Army, was originally preparing to launch a general counterattack against the Okinawa airport occupied by the American army on April 8, 1945.

However, on the afternoon of April 7, 1945, Lieutenant General Ushijima Mitsuru, commander of the 32nd Army of the Japanese Army, discovered that hundreds of ships of the American Navy were active in the sea near Naha. Lieutenant General Ushijima Mitsuru was worried that the American army would land from the side and rear of the Japanese 32nd Army's troops counterattacking the airport.

In addition, the commander of the 32nd Japanese Army, Lieutenant General Ushijima Mitsuru, was not enthusiastic about the counterattack requested by the Japanese Imperial Headquarters. He used this as an excuse to cancel the counterattack plan of the 32nd Japanese Army, thereby using all the troops to hold the defense relying on solid fortifications. This caused great difficulties for the offensive forces of the 24th Army of the United States Army.

On April 9, 1945, the offensive force of the 24th Army of the United States Army encountered stubborn resistance from the Japanese defensive forces and its advance was severely hampered. Lieutenant General Jr. SB Buckner, commander of the 10th Army of the United States Army, had to deploy the 27th Division of the United States Army, which remained on the naval warship as a reserve, into the offensive operations on the southern line of Okinawa Island.

Friday, April 13, 1945 was a black day for the officers and soldiers and ordinary people of the United States, because President Rowe died in Hot Springs, Georgia. This shocked and saddened the American troops fighting on Okinawa Island, from the commander-in-chief to the ordinary soldier.

Admiral Nimitz, commander of the Allied Pacific Theater, sent a condolence message to President Luo's wife on behalf of all officers and soldiers of the Allied Pacific Theater.

The Japanese military headquarters began to take advantage of the opportunity to make a big fuss, spreading leaflets titled "The Tragedy of the United States", claiming that the Japanese kamikaze special attack operation would sink all the warships of the United States Navy and make countless Americans orphans.

At the same time, the Japanese military headquarters was impatiently urging Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima, commander of the 32nd Army of the Japanese Army, to seize the opportunity to launch a counterattack against the United States army on Okinawa Island.

Under the repeated orders of the Japanese military headquarters, Lieutenant General Ushijima Mitsuru, commander of the 32nd Japanese Army, could only order his troops to launch a counterattack. However, Lieutenant General Ushijima Mitsuru, commander of the 32nd Japanese Army, did not follow the instructions of the Japanese military headquarters and put all the forces of the 32nd Japanese Army on Okinawa Island to launch a counterattack.

Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima, commander of the 32nd Army of the Japanese Army, retained a considerable portion of the troops of the 32nd Army of the Japanese Army and only deployed a part of the troops to counterattack the American army on Kakazu Heights.

The counterattack force of the 32nd Army of the Japanese Army first used suicide attacks by using explosives to blow up the tanks of the American Army, and then launched a charge against the infantry of the American Army who had lost the cover of the tanks.

Under the desperate attack of the counterattack force of the Japanese 32nd Army, the United States army was beaten back step by step, with nearly 5,000 officers and soldiers killed or wounded. In the end, it was only with the heavy artillery and superior sea and air firepower of the United States' follow-up troops that the offensive launched by the Japanese 32nd Army was contained.

On April 19, 1945, three divisions of the 24th Army of the United States Army launched a large-scale attack on the defense line of the 32nd Army of the Japanese Army from about 6.5 kilometers north of Naha.

At 5:40 in the morning, the six battleships, six cruisers and eight destroyers of the United States Navy first began a fierce bombardment on the defensive positions of the 32nd Army of the Japanese Army. At 6 o'clock in the morning, the 27 artillery battalions of the United States Army also began a 40-minute bombardment on the positions of the 32nd Defense Force of the Japanese Army. The United States Army fired a total of 19,000 artillery shells during this artillery attack.

Then, 650 aircraft of the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps began to carry out aerial fire preparation on the defensive positions of the Japanese 32nd Army, and dropped a large number of bombs and napalm bombs on the defensive positions of the Japanese 32nd Army.

After such fierce and continuous firepower attacks, the offensive force of the 24th Army of the United States Army also launched an attack on the defensive positions of the 32nd Army of the Japanese Army in the south of Okinawa Island. However, the troops of the 32nd Army of the Japanese Army used tunnels dug in advance to successfully avoid the previous artillery bombardment of the United States Army.

When the artillery fire of the United States Army began to extend backwards and the ground forces launched an attack, the defensive forces of the 32nd Army of the Japanese Army entered the defensive positions to fight. As a result, the offensive of the United States Army was repeatedly disintegrated by the defensive forces of the 32nd Army of the Japanese Army.

In order to defend Okinawa Island, the troops of the 32nd Army of the Japanese Army fully demonstrated the tenacious fighting will of the Japanese Army. This required the American army to fight many bloody battles before they could seize every hilltop, every bunker, every tunnel, and even every rock on Okinawa Island from the hands of the 32nd Army's defensive forces.

Lieutenant General Ushijima Mitsuru, commander of the 32nd Army of the Japanese Army, also spent a lot of time thinking about building the defensive positions on Okinawa Island. Under the command of Lieutenant General Ushijima Mitsuru, commander of the 32nd Army of the Japanese Army, the positions built by the 32nd Army of the Japanese Army on Okinawa Island also had two distinct characteristics.

First of all, in terms of firepower combination, the 32nd Army of the Japanese Army effectively combined the machine guns and mortars in the defensive bunkers to form a three-dimensional firepower network. When the American army launched a charge attack, the defensive forces of the 32nd Army of the Japanese Army could continuously fire machine guns and mortar shells in the bunkers to kill as many infantry as possible in the American offensive forces.

Secondly, the tunnels dug by the 32nd Army's defense forces of the Japanese Army made it difficult for the United States' offensive forces to destroy them directly. The level of fortifications built by the 32nd Army's defense forces in the southern part of Okinawa Island was very high. Each underground fortress was connected by secret passages. Moreover, these low fortresses were enough to withstand the bombardment of the United States' army's large-caliber artillery.

These extremely strong fortifications and bunkers built by the 32nd Army of the Japanese Army did indeed cause great trouble to the offensive forces of the United States. It can be said that the offensive forces of the United States had to pay an extremely heavy price for every step forward.

The fierce battle lasted for five days. The defense forces of the 32nd Army of the Japanese Army relied on bunkers and tunnels, and used a three-dimensional firepower network composed of machine guns and mortars to continuously kill infantry officers and soldiers of the American offensive forces.