Easter Sunday to remember


The Okinawa D-Day invasion which fell on April 1, 1945, Easter Sunday, as well as April Fools Day, is a day which will “forever live in my infamy.”

It was the second largest invasion of World War II, second only to the Normandy D-Day invasion. Sixty-seven years later, it seems as vivid as yesterday, yet it’s a lifetime away. It was the largest amphibious invasion of the Pacific Theater. I have always called it D-Day, but the code name was I-Day or Operation Iceberg.

Dawn’s early light

We arrived just before the dawn’s early light. Our ship the U.S.S. LST 582, was nestled between the battleships West Virginia off our port side and the Idaho and Tennessee off our starboard side. We were not in the most envious position, since the battleships were main targets of Japanese Kamikaze planes.

We had a precious cargo of 450 marines of the First U.S. Marine Division. One enemy plane jettisoned his bombs between our ship and the battleship West Virginia and missed us both. Another plane aimed at the battleship Idaho and fortunately crashed into the water just off her stern and went to rest in Davy Jones’ locker on the ocean floor.

Within less than half an hour, four out of four Japanese suicide planes were shot down or crashed missing their targets. This was just one section of the invasion area. It was a harbinger of things to come, since many suicide planes appeared daily.

Our ship remained in the Okinawa area for two weeks and left for Guam on April 14.

Internet search

Recently while researching World War II on the Internet, I learned that both the West Virginia and Tennessee were on battleship row and damaged on Dec. 7, 1941, at Pearl Harbor. President Franklin D. Roosevelt called that “a day which will live in infamy.”

Michael J. Lacivita is a Youngstown retiree and member of the Ohio Senior Citizens Hall of Fame and Ohio Veterans Hall of Fame.

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