Objective: "Break the impenetrable
Naha-Shuri- Yonabaru Line ...and take the capital city of Naha, pop. 60,000 at one time.

Sugar Loaf - one of the bloodiest of the campaign battles.
May 15-19. Again and again the 29th Marines, (the young kids of the Division) fought under a barrage of fire, up the hill, now blackened and bloodsoaked. The assaults on Sugar Loaf were almost suicidal. The selflessness of some of these kids!" The "Good" War

"Part of the Naha-Shuri-Yonabaru Line had been broken by the rapid and forceful - and sacrificial advance of the Double Deuce. The Sixth Division suffered over 2,000 casualties. Sugar Loaf would be assaulted eleven times; some companies would be literally wiped out twice. In taking Charlie Hill C Company of the Twenty-second Marines had 35 men killed and 68 wounded of an original 256." Uncommon Valor

The Outskirts of Naha
..."Rain on the Front on the Naha-Shuri Line
As the regiments waited for the command to cross the Asato into Naha, the Japs continued to shell the basin

For 8 days the Okinawan 'plum showers' fell, persistant rains, which turned the roads to Naha into impossible clay traps.

Engineers tried to build a bridge across the swollen Asato. but all they could manage was an unsteady footbridge.

Patrols from the Fourth and Twenty-second Marines began to ventrue into the outskirts of Naha. The hours were filled with heavy fighting and the job of removing casualties was difficult. It was done on stretchers in chest-deep water and under persistent artillery fire." Uncommon Valor

...Into shattered Naha
"Once inside Naha, the Marines could see Kamikazes coming out at night to attack the thousands of ships in the harbor. Closer to home, The Sixth Marine Division's tanks, lined up on the Haguchi beaches outside the city, watched, night after night, the suicide boats creeping from Naha harbor out to sea. They would catch the boats in their sights and shoot streams of fire from every angle.

General Ushijima had left behind the weak 6th Organized Regiment in the ruined city which tried unsuccessfully to detain the onward march of the Division through the capital.

The casualty lists had been long; the Division was tired, weary and dispirited. Colonel Woodhouse, whose battalion had first weakened the Japanese at Sugar Loaf, was shot in the head by a sniper in the streets of Naha." Uncommon Valor

OBJECTIVE: The Oroku Peninsula
The Prized Naha Airfield

"The Japanese had moved south from Naha for another strong stand. It was believed that the Oroku Peninsula, south of Naha, contained heavy defenses to protect its prized possession - Naha Airfield. Aerial photographs showed heavy anti-aircraft installations. The Sixth Marine Division, after what seemed a terribly short rest, was given the nod.

The five day fight for Oroku was not easy. Ushijima had placed his weapons on the high ground. From there was waged an 'efficient and tenacious defense.'

Many generations back, there had been a mighty castle at Tomigusuku, one of Oroku's towns. Among its ruins and in its hills the Japs had constructed complex defenses - the Twenty-second came on a hill with deep corridors and rooms large enough to house six hundred Jap officers and men.

Systematically, the Sixth Marines with the Fifteenth Marines reduced the pocket on Orahu. By June 14, Oroku's end was near. Near the finish, the Japs went wild. Vain and reckless Banzi charges were common, although a large number of Japs and Korean labor forces did surrender, hundreds of others blew themselves up with demolition charges when approached by interpreters.

Whole hills were tunneled through and contained chambers for living quarters and ammunition. Japanese troops had been holding thousands of Okinawan civilians virtual prisoners in their cave defenses." Uncommon Valor