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Contact Info
Home Town Cincinnati, Ohio
Last Address Former Governor Gilligan died at his home in Cincinnati, age 92. His body was donated to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center.
World War II/Asiatic-Pacific Theater/Okinawa Gunto Operation
From Month/Year
March / 1945
To Month/Year
June / 1945
Description The Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg. was fought on the Ryukyu Islands of Okinawa and was the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific War of World War II. The 82-day-long battle lasted from early April until mid-June 1945. After a long campaign of island hopping, the Allies were approaching Japan, and planned to use Okinawa, a large island only 340 mi (550 km) away from mainland Japan, as a base for air operations on the planned invasion of Japanese mainland (coded Operation Downfall). Four divisions of the U.S. 10th Army (the 7th, 27th, 77th, and 96th) and two Marine Divisions (the 1st and 6th) fought on the island. Their invasion was supported by naval, amphibious, and tactical air forces.
The battle has been referred to as the "typhoon of steel" in English, and tetsu no ame ("rain of steel") or ("violent wind of steel") in Japanese. The nicknames refer to the ferocity of the fighting, the intensity of kamikaze attacks from the Japanese defenders, and to the sheer numbers of Allied ships and armored vehicles that assaulted the island. The battle resulted in the highest number of casualties in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Based on Okinawan government sources, mainland Japan lost 77,166 soldiers, who were either killed or committed suicide, and the Allies suffered 14,009 deaths (with an estimated total of more than 65,000 casualties of all kinds). Simultaneously, 42,000–150,000 local civilians were killed or committed suicide, a significant proportion of the local population. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki together with the Soviet invasion of Manchuria caused Japan to surrender less than two months after the end of the fighting on Okinawa.
My Participation in This Battle or Operation
From Month/Year
March / 1945
To Month/Year
June / 1945
Last Updated: Mar 16, 2020
Personal Memories
Memories At Ulithi Lagoon in the Yap Islands, Gilligan was reassigned to Emmons' sister destroyer, the USS Rodman. At the battle of Okinawa, Americans faced the first mass suicide attacks by kamikazes, Japanese pilots assigned to intentionally crash their planes into American warships. Rodman and Emmons were targets of the Japanese in that first attack, Gilligan said.
"The sky was full of Japanese planes," Gilligan said. "The first one hit our ship."
The Rodman was hit by three enemy planes, heavily damaging it, and the nearby Emmons was struck by five suicide planes, Gilligan said. After the Emmons crew abandoned the burning and exploding ship, American gunfire sank it so it wouldn't fall into Japanese hands.
Aboard the Rodman, a fire in the forward part of the ship threatened to overheat and detonate ammunition. Gilligan and some crewmen took a fire hose below deck to hose down the ammunition so it would cool and not explode, he said.
Gilligan received a Silver Star for his action with the ammunition.
Due to Gilligan's quick transfer from the Emmons, his parents thought for a month that he was missing in action. A note from Gilligan dated after the ship sank notified them he was OK.
The damaged Rodman limped across the Pacific, passed through the Panama Canal and steamed into Charleston, S.C., for repairs.
