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Contact Info
Home Town Lawrenceburg Anderson County KY
Date of Passing Dec 15, 1968
Location of Interment U.S. Naval Academy Cemetery and Columbarium (VLM) - Annapolis, Maryland
US Navy Four Star Admiral. Wooldridge graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1920. Following tours with submarines based in New London, Connecticut and the Panama Canal Zone he served as an instructor at the naval academy. During World War II he commanded the battleship New Jersey in the Iwo Jima and Okinawa campaigns and in the first naval raid on Tokyo. Earlier in the war he served with the Atlantic Fleet and in the Navy Department. For a year after the war, Wooldridge commanded the occupation forces in northeastern Japan. Then he was named as the assistant chief of naval operation post in Washington. He left Washington for tours with the Atlantic Fleet, then returned to become commandant of the National War College. He held that post from 1955 to 1958 and on April 6, 1959 he was promoted to full Four Star Admiral. Wooldridge was assistant chief of naval operations after the war and Commander Striking Fleet, Atlantic, a NATO command under Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic. He also represented the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the National Security Council. He received 15 decorations for his wartime service. He retired in 1961.
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.
