Why did the U.S. feel the need to take Okinawa in World War II?

by EroticEchidna

To me, strategically, taking Okinawa does not give the U.S. much. The firebombing raids and eventually, the nuclear strikes were staged from Saipan and Tinian. The explanations I can find say that Okinawa was going to be used as a staging base for the eventual invasion of Japan, but the original War Plan Orange did not call for such an invasion.

DBHT14

Okinawa offered several things to the US.

  1. As you mentioned its usefulness as an airbase. It could serve as an emergency landing field for damaged B-29's. It also allowed for more bombers to be in theater. In fact the 8th Air Force (which had led the bombing of Europe) was essentially being transferred as a unit to the Pacific during the summer of 1945 and most of their forces would be on the island to contribute to the bombings.

It also allowed smaller bombers like the B-26 to operate against Japanese targets, and additional fighters to operate as well.

  1. While most versions of War Plan Orange called for a blockade and starvation of Japan over an invasion the situation had changed by the summer of 1945. The IJN was already annihilated, the islands had already been virtually isolated by submarines and mines, but there was no sign that they were going to break the will to resist in anything like a timely manner, or without killing millions of civilians through starvation first.