Killing Ground on Okinawa: The Battle for Sugar Loaf Hill

by James H. Hallas

A key point in the Japanese defensive line on Okinawa in May 1945, Sugar Loaf Hill was the site of a tenacious seven-day battle that inflicted heavy casualties on the U.S. Marines attacking the hill. In this emotionally compelling account of the fierce fight, James H. Hallas chronicles the extraordinary courage and tactical skills of the 6th Marine Division's junior officers and enlisted men as they captured a network of sophisticated Japanese defenses on Sugar Loaf while under heavy artillery fire from surrounding hills. To give human dimensions to the story, the author draws on his many interviews with participants and skillfully weaves together their individual stories of the sustained close-quarter fighting that claimed more than 2,000 Marine casualties. Pushed to their physical and moral limits during eleven attempts to capture the fifty-foot-high 300-yard-long hill, the Marines' proved their uncommon valor to be a common virtue, and this detailed record of their courage and commitment assures them a permanent place in history.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, World War II, Military Fiction, Military History

272 pages, Paperback

First published March 30, 1996

Reviews

['Aussie Rick' · Rating 5 out of 5]

James H. Hallas's book Killing Ground on Okinawa is one of those books that should be in any decent military history library. Having previously read his account of the fighting on Peleliu, The Devil's Anvil I couldn't wait to read this account of the battle for Sugar Loaf Hill. I am happy to say that I was not disappointed in this book.

The author allows the Marines who took part in the fighting tell the story and its incredible to read what these blokes went through for what looks like a very small piece of Pacific Island real estate. The accounts of the fighting men are detailed and to the point and you are forced to sit back and think of how these men endured this hell, it is almost beyond the comprehension of today's generation.

The narrative is full of details but the real guts of the book is the first-hand accounts by the men involved in the assaults against the well constructed Japanese defensive positions. Not only were the Japanese well dug in and protected but they used their firepower and weapons to great advantage. They wrought destruction upon the advancing marines. Men and machines were continually being knocked out with no gain being made against the determined Japanese defence.

Finally after a heroic night attack the marines secured a toehold on Sugar Loaf but then had to hold against Japanese counter attacks and massive counter fire from artillery, mortars, machine guns and snipers. The casualty list for the marine units were massively high causing some questioning of the strategy and tactics used by the Army High Command. In over seven days of fighting the 6th Marine Division suffered over 2,000 casualties fighting for this pimple of a hill which secured the Japanese Shuri Line.

The only fault that I could find with this book was the standard of the maps and photographs. I am sure that they could have been of a higher calibre. Overall this is a great story of combat, dedication, bravery and espirt de Corp. I think it is one of the better combat accounts of the Pacific Theatre that I have read in some years and I am certain that anyone interested in the Pacific War would be fascinated by this account.

[Jamie Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a difficult book for me to finish. I have read a lot of military history, but this had the same effect as reading about Verdun or Stalingrad. It is largely composed of first person narratives from survivors of the battle, and they are so unrelentingly violent, brutal, and chaotic that I had to set it aside at times and do something else until I was ready to start reading again. There is a searing, nightmarish quality to these accounts: agony, death, dismemberment, exhaustion, confusion, and hopelessness, but there is also courage, comradeship, and resolve. When ordered to go forward into the valley of death again and again the Marines always went, because they were Marines. In the end they were victorious, but at such a terrible cost: companies reduced to platoon size, and led by corporals or PFCs. It is a sobering thought that if the war had not ended a few weeks later, the horrors of Okinawa would have been repeated throughout Japan.

[Brendan Steinhauser · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is about the Battle of Okinawa in World War Two, which was the bloodiest battle in the Pacific Theater of the war. It covers the Marines and the hand to hand fighting that they did in order to help defeat the Japanese military that was dug in and prepared to fight to the death. My grandfather was in the Army and fought on Okinawa, and I have also read books about the Army's role in the battle. So this was a good book to supplement that reading with something about the Marines, who fought bravely and took sever casualties on Okinawa. This book went beyond military strategy and tactics and focused on the individual warriors who did the fighting. The author interviewed many of them and really gave them a voice to tell their stories about what they saw, and what they did. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to not only understand the Battle of Okinawa, but the brutality and horror of war, and what soldiers must go through in order to obtain final victory.

[Fredrick Danysh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okinawa was the last invasion by the Americans in the Pacific during World War II. It was the last step toward invading the Japanese home islands and some of the most intense fighting of the war. The battle for Sugarloaf Hill was some of the fiercest fighting of the campaign. A good read.