Kamikaze attacks USS Comfort hospital ship
Artwork by Frank Walsh
“Kamaretta red, smoke boat make smoke"
Introduction
The USS Comfort hospital ship was hit amidships by a Japanese kamikaze on April 28, 1945, during the Battle of Okinawa. Thirty people died, including six nurses and six doctors, and 48 were wounded. There were at least 700 people aboard, including over 500 battlefield casualties from the fighting for Okinawa. The ship sustained severe damage but managed to reach port in Guam and then proceeded to Hawaii.
There is no way to sugarcoat the Battle of Okinawa. The battles were meatgrinders.
The US organized the 10th Army with two corps for the invasion, about 111,000 men. The Navy employed about 1,500 ships, and Britain used about 50 ships to cover the landing. Army and Naval air forces used about 3,000 aircraft.
The Japanese had the 32nd Army garrisoned there, about 72,000, plus perhaps 40,000 locals drafted to serve the emperor. Japanese air power was exercised by kamikaze suicide attacks numbering over 2,000. Japan’s navy by this time was very small. The most powerful battleship, Yamato, was sunk early on, leaving a handful of destroyers to occupy the Allied navy. Nearly all Allied ships sunk or damaged were victims of kamikazes.
The Battle of Okinawa lasted over 80 days. Japanese defenders were still found in caves for weeks thereafter.
Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr, US Army (USA), was in command of the US invasion force of Army soldiers and Marines. He was killed on June 18, 1945, by shrapnel and coral that exploded from an artillery shell.
Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima, Imperial Japanese Army (IJA), commanded the garrison force on the island. He committed suicide with his knife to the belly on June 22, 1945.
Both sides had battle-tested combatants in the confrontation.
The US landings were generally unopposed. The US landed elements of all medical functions on the first day of the assault. Air evacuations were able to operate within six days of landing.
The hammer fell when Allied forces challenged the Japanese in the interior of Okinawa. Combat became ferocious and often in close quarters, face-to-face in caves, bunkers, pillboxes, and trenches.
The carnage was devastating, an indicator of what was to come if the US was forced to invade Japan’s home islands. “Operation Downfall” was the plan to do just that, but was not executed because of Japan’s surrender following the two US atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Five hospital ships supported American casualties. Surgical facilities were set up in the bays of six landing ships, hospital sheds were built in the early days, and field hospitals were established as US positions solidified.
Doctors, nurses, medical technicians, and corpsmen played a crucial role. They were aboard ships, on the front lines, and on the beaches.
This report is about the USS Comfort Hospital Ship (AH-6) because it was attacked and hit by a kamikaze, a clear violation of international law.
I am also writing this report because I live in Wisconsin, and three Army nurses from Wisconsin served on the USS Comfort, endured the attack, and one of them, Lt. Doris Gardner, left a historically valuable trail of memories:
Onsrud and Gardner were injured but returned to duty.
These courageous women represent many thousands, more than 60,000 nurses who served in WWII, both abroad and in the US, caring for their "boys" and "guys" in combat worldwide. They were angels of mercy.
Lt. Regina Benson has recalled that “the most rewarding part of her Army nursing career was to be able to tell the mother of a young service member that their son did not die alone, because she was there with them.”
After a kamikaze struck the Comfort, the men shuddered the most at the loss of the women, the nurses.
Click to zoom graphic-photo
Click to zoom graphic-photo
Ed Marek, editor
Marek Enterprise
224 N Barstow St Suite 426
Eau Claire, WI 54703
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