James Day, 73, Hero in Battle for OkinawaBy WILLIAM H. HONANPublished: November 04, 1998

James L. Day, a former Marine Corps squad leader who belatedly won a Medal of Honor earlier this year for almost single-handedly killing more than 100 advancing Japanese at the height of the Battle of Okinawa and went on to become an unofficial ambassador of good will on the island, died on Oct. 28 at his home in Cathedral City, Calif. He was 73.

The cause was a heart attack, family members said.

Mr. Day did not receive the medal until President Clinton presented it to him last January at a White House ceremony because most of the men who witnessed his gallantry were soon killed in another battle.

There were snags as well. Over the years, paperwork got lost, then discovered and then lost again. But by 1995, statements from eight witnesses were assembled telling how Corporal Day, who retired from the Marine Corps as a major general, repelled enemy attacks by hurling hand grenades and blazing away with his carbine and a light machine gun. All this despite suffering white phosphorus burns over much of his body (from friendly fire) and fragmentation wounds on his hands when his machine gun overheated and exploded.

Some waves of enemy infantry consisted of as many as 40 men, according to the citation, and nearly a dozen of them came to within a few feet of Corporal Day's fox hole.

After being knocked unconscious by an artillery shell, Corporal Day was found surrounded by the bodies of the more than 100 Japanese infantrymen he had killed.

''There was really no good reason for me to fall back,'' he said in an interview. ''I expected help to come at any time. It just never came, so I kept doing what I was doing.''

The action took place on May 14 and 15, 1945. Corporal Day was then a member of the Second Battalion, 22d Marines, Sixth Division, which bore the brunt of the fighting.

The battle for Okinawa, which began on Easter Sunday, was not only the last but also one of the bloodiest battles of the Pacific war. American and Japanese commanders recognized that the island, only 350 miles south of the nearest of the Japanese home islands, was the final barrier to an invasion of Japan.

In 81 days of intense fighting, with a sharp increase in the use of kamikaze aircraft, American losses came to 12,500. The Japanese death toll rose to 120,000, and more than 150,000 civilians died.

General Day returned to Okinawa in 1984 as commanding general of United States Marine Corps bases in the Far East with headquarters in Okinawa. On that tour, he said, he became aware of how little Okinawan cultural property had survived.

Since his discharge in 1986, he played a major role in returning more than 130 works of art and artifacts that had been removed by Americans during and after the war.

One of his most important recoveries came in 1991, when General Day secured approval for the return of a 15th-century temple bell seized by marines on Okinawa in June 1945; for the next 45 years, it was exhibited as a war trophy at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington.

General Day was praised for his efforts to recover lost Okinawan cultural property by Shizuo Kishaba, president of the Ryuku-America Historial Research Society in Okinawa who flew from Japan to California to attend the funeral.

''Our culture was in danger of being erased from the earth,'' Mr. Kishaba said. ''General Day spared us that fate.''

General Day is survived by his wife, Sally; a daughter, Gayle Eustice, of Barstow, Calif.; and three sons, Bill Day, of Atlanta; Jim Day, of Honolulu, and Matt Day, of San Diego.

Battle of OkinawaApril 1, 1945-June 21, 1945

Last and biggest of the Pacific island battles of World War II, the Okinawa campaign involved the 287,000 troops of the U.S. Tenth Army against 130,000 soldiers of the Japanese Thirty-second Army. At stake were air bases vital to the projected invasion of Japan. Japanese forces changed their typical tactics of resisting at the water's edge to a defense in depth, designed to gain time. In conjunction with this, the Japanese navy and army mounted mass air attacks by planes on one-way "suicide" missions; the Japanese also sent their last big battleship, the Yamato, on a similar mission with a few escorts. The "special attack" kamikaze tactics the Japanese used on these missions, although not especially sophisticated, were so determined that Allied forces perhaps faced their most difficult Pacific campaign. The net result made Okinawa a mass bloodletting both on land and at sea, and among both the island's civilian population and the military.

A series of defense lines across the island, both north and south of the American landing beaches, enabled the Japanese to conduct a fierce defense of Okinawa over many weeks. Using pillboxes and strongpoints, caves, and even some ancient castles, the Japanese defense positions supported one another and often resisted even the most determined artillery fire or air strikes. Mounting few attacks themselves, the Japanese conserved their strength for this defense. Caves or pillboxes often had to be destroyed individually with dynamite charges. This battle took place in an environment much more heavily populated than most Pacific islands, with civilian casualties of almost 100,000 and equally heavy losses for the Japanese army. "It was a scene straight out of hell. There is no other way to describe it," recalls Higa Tomiko, then a seven-year-old girl, who survived the battle.

The commanding generals on both sides died in the course of this battle: American general Simon B. Buckner by artillery fire, Japanese general Ushijima Mitsuru by suicide. Other U.S. losses in ground combat included 7,374 killed, 31,807 wounded, and 239 missing in action. The navy suffered 4,907 killed or missing aboard 34 ships sunk and 368 damaged; 763 aircraft were lost. At sea and in the air, the Japanese expended roughly 2,800 aircraft, plus a battleship, a light cruiser, and four destroyers, with losses that can be estimated at upwards of 10,000.

WWII veteran recalls bloody Battle of Okinawa

By Melanie Tucker | (The Daily Times)

Ask U.S, Marine veteran Ralph Irwin about his heroics during World War II and he will politely set you straight.

“I am no hero,” he explains. “I was just one of the lucky ones.”

Irwin was enjoying his life here in Blount County and attending school at Porter High School back in 1943 when the U.S. military required his service. He was able to get a deferment until after high school graduation, but left soon after for his call of duty. He was 18.

The first stop for this new recruit was Parris Island, then a naval ammunitions depot in Charleston, S.C., before heading to Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. Irwin said then it was on to Guadalcanal for a while before they loaded up for their real mission: Okinawa, Japan.

“I was there on the first day of battle,” Irwin recalled. “I was wounded and was out for five days.” Then he quickly returned to the battlefield, at his own insistence.

The bloodiest battle

The Battle of Okinawa lasted for 87 days and Irwin was in the throes of that conflict for all but those five days. He was a member of the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines. Four divisions of the U.S. Army and two Marine divisions fought on the island.

The battle was code-named Operation Iceberg and lasted from early April to mid-June in 1945. It resulted in the highest number of casualties in the Pacific Theater during World War II. American casualties were listed at more than 38,000, with 12,000 Americans killed. More than 100,000 Japanese soldiers lost their lives.

More people died during the Battle of Okinawa than all of those killed during the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That included countless civilians. Kamikazes sunk a large number of Allied ships and damaged others. The Navy suffered the greatest loss of life.

Irwin, who just turned 88, still recalls days of fierce fighting. He remembers one commanding officer’s request that he go out and bring in a Japanese prisoner.

Following orders

“As we came around a hill, we saw a Japanese soldier lying there with just a loin cloth on,” Irwin said. “He wasn’t carrying anything. He just staggered and got up.”

Irwin said the man had apparently taken poison to kill himself but hadn’t taken enough. After giving the man a drink of water, Irwin and his comrades took him to their superiors for interrogation.

“That night, my lieutenant came to see me and said the man was Japanese naval intelligence,” Irwin said. “He told me the man died but he told them everything they wanted to know.”

It was common, Irwin explained, for the enemy soldiers to take their own lives instead of facing imprisonment. He said he watched from atop a hill one day as a group of them got into a huddle as a grenade went off.

Then there was the time Irwin said he woke in the middle of the night to hear rounds of gunfire. At daylight he and his company came down the trail and saw a soldier carrying a baby. Further down the path was a young woman and two children, dead. The baby had been with them.

“We couldn’t even open our mouths,” Irwin said. “That hurt more than anything. No one said a word. They later came and told us the Japanese were doing that to try and locate us. They would send children through and when we opened fire, they knew exactly where we were. That is one memory I wish I didn’t have.”

When he enlisted, Irwin weighed in at a mere 133 pounds. His rifle alone weighed 22 pounds. Then there were the two canteens of water he hauled around, ammunition and a 15-pound steel helmet. He recalled having to walk for miles with all of that gear as his unit went to relieve another one. They would walk for an hour and rest only five minutes. Some simply collapsed and couldn’t take one more step.

At one point, Irwin said he sat down and wasn’t sure he would be able to get back up. But a song quickly came to mind, “All the Way My Savior Leads Me.” To this day, whenever hard times arrive, so, too, do those words.

Fewer comrades remain

He used to gather with men from his platoon every year for a reunion, meeting from California to the East Coast. But their numbers have dwindled. Irwin said there is one other man from his platoon still living. He lives in Battle Creek, Mich.

When the Battle of Okinawa was over, Irwin went to Guam for some much-needed rest. He said an officer came to get him in a Jeep and asked him to come to the firing range and observe. One soldier was on the ground, firing his weapon at a target and missing every time. Irwin said he discovered the young man had never fired a weapon.

The captain told Irwin not to worry, that changes were coming. Two days later the first atomic bomb was dropped. He said when he awoke to the military band playing “California Here We Come” a few days later, he knew the war was over.

Leaving Guam, Irwin thought he was finally going home, but found his next destination to be China. He was at the Japanese surrender there as they laid down their swords. “The band played our national anthem and every Japanese soldier saluted,” he said.

While in China. Irwin was sure he would be on the next boat home. But others kept going ahead of him. He finally asked his colonel about the delay. “I know you are on the list to go home, but we’ve got to have somebody that knows what’s going on,” the colonel told him.

Home sweet home

He did finally get his discharge papers. Irwin went back to the West Coast and made his way back East. He was seen by a doctor at Camp Lejeune upon arrival there. “He felt of me and I was still warm,” Irwin said.

Before taking off for home, Irwin said he was given $100. He had been making $24 a month when he started out and $50 by the time his duty was met.

Back in Blount County, Irwin got a job at ALCOA Inc., and met and married his wife of 65 years, Dee. He later got a job with the U.S. Postal Service, where he retired. The couple has two daughters.

He retrieved a worn envelope with his name and incorrect address scrawled across the front, dated 1990. Inside was a letter from the wife of Irwin’s captain, informing him of Capt. Mabie’s death. Somehow despite having been sent to Knoxville, the letter reached its destination. That letter, Irwin said, means more to him than anything.

There are medals Irwin earned for his bravery, like the Purple Heart. He keeps all of them in boxes, hidden away. Not because he’s unappreciative of them. He just feels like there were too many who never came home.

“The heroes are the ones that are buried on the bottom of the ocean somewhere over there,” he said.