Okinawa · Chapter 6 of 9
The fleet under attack
The ships off Okinawa were not a distant supporting cast. They landed and supplied the troops, fired on inland positions, evacuated casualties, and defended the sea approaches. Their need to remain in the area made them an enduring target. A naval campaign ran alongside the ground campaign from the opening stages to the end.
Japanese special attacks concentrated against this exposed force. Radar-picket destroyers and smaller support craft stood away from the main anchorage to detect incoming aircraft and help direct interception. That warning protected other ships but placed the pickets among the first targets attackers encountered. Fighters, radar, antiaircraft guns, lookouts, and damage-control parties became parts of one defensive system.
The first mass Kikusui attacks began in early April. On 7 April, the battleship Yamato and accompanying ships attempted a sortie toward Okinawa. American carrier aircraft attacked and sank Yamato before she could reach the island. The operation demonstrated the gulf between the symbolic weight of a great battleship and its vulnerability without effective air protection.
USS Laffey’s survival on 16 April and USS Bunker Hill’s fires on 11 May represent different scales of the same struggle. On a destroyer, repeated attacks could overwhelm a very small working space. On a fleet carrier, burning fuel and aircraft threatened a much larger concentration of men and machinery. Keeping a damaged ship afloat required organized labor under extraordinary conditions, not merely the survival of its hull.
The British Pacific Fleet also supported the campaign, striking airfields in the Sakishima Islands to reduce their use against the Okinawa force. Its operations belong in the story alongside those of the U.S. fleet and land-based aviation. The companion Kamikaze collection follows the attackers, weapons, pilots, and picket ships in greater detail; this chapter shows why those attacks mattered to the men and civilians on the island.
Explore the companion Kamikaze atlas, ship profiles, and pilot records →