Imperial Valley press., 1945-04-06
Mighty Armada
Carried Men
To Hit 0kinawa
BY ERNIE PYLE

| OKINAWA. (By Navy Radio)-Now
/ that we are ashore in full force upon
the japanese Island of Okinawa. I
would like to go back and tell you
| in detail how the invasion went off.
As our regimental commander said
| the night before the landing: "All
/ I'm worried about is getting past
the first two days when we are on
our own and will have to improvise
| to meet every situation. But after
that we will be established and from
then on we can just go by the
/ book"
The first two days are over-ac-
complished with an ease that had
everybody flabbergasted. BY even
ing of the first day we had done
much more than the most optim-
istic planner figured we could in the
first three days. So from now on
it's by the book"
For some reason which I haven't
fathomed yet, the conventional
name of D-Day was changed for
this invasion to love day" Possibly
it was because we were landing on
Easter Sunday and somebody felt
the spirit of brotherly love.
At any rate when dawn came on
love day" and the pink rising sun
| lifted the shroud of oriental dark
ness around us, we were absolutely
appalled,.
Our main conveys hao converged
and there they lay around US in one
gigantic fleet, stretching for miles.
There were around 1900 ships and
thousands of small landing craft
which the ships had carried with
them.
There weren't as many small ships
as at Normandy. but in naval power
and actual force of men and fight
in strength it was equally as big
as the inXasion of Europe. We
certainly didn't go at OkinaWa in
any half hearted manner.
1t was only half light when we
went on deck. You could see flame
flashes on the horizon toward shore.
The men on the deck were dark and
indistinguishable forms.
Our assault transport carried
many landing craft (CVP's) on deck.
They were lifted by a derrick and
swung over the rail. Then the winch
lowered them into the water.
I went on the first boat to leave
our ship. 1t was just breaking dawn
when we left. 1t was still more
than two hours before H-Hour. Our
long ocean trip was over. The days
we reluctantly had counted off were
all gone. Our time had run out.
This was it.
All around us hundreds of other
boats were putting off and churn-
ing the water, but there was no or
ganization to it. They weren't yet
forming into waves. These early
boats carried mainly the control
crews who would manage the COL
ossal traffic of shore bound invas-
ionists in the next few hours.
An assault on an enemy shore is a
highly organized thing. 1t is SO
intricately organized so abundant in
fine detail that it would be i'm
possible to clarity il all in your
mind. No single man in our armed
forces knows everything about an
invasion.
But just to simplify one point
Suppose we were invading an en-
erny beach on a four mile front
It is not as you would think, one
overall invasion. Instead it is, a
dozen or more little invasions, sim
ultaneously and side by side. Each
taapo r-Ilnc itS oun inva sion COM
bat team is a regiment. Our regi-
mental commander and his staff
were on the little control ship. Thus
our control ship directed only the
troops of our regiment.
We had beaches yellow One" and
yellow Two. Troops of our regi-
ment formed waves directly off those
beaches, miles at sea, and we went
straight in.