The 713th Armor Battalion in Okinawa.

[tigre]

Hello to all ; a short history which awoke my interest...................

The 713th Armor Battalion
(Provisional Flamethrower)

In early November 1944, the 713th was pulling outpost duty in the Hawaiian Islands. On the tenth of that
month, LTC Thomas McCrary, the battalion commander, received orders to reorganize his unit as a provisional battalion of flamethrowing tanks.The transition was going to be a local one.

He was directed to convert his 54 M4 Sherman medium tanks to flamethrowers using a shop which had been set up at Schofield Barracks, Oahu. Training had to be conducted for personnel who would be required to tactically employ, operate, and maintain these systems. The U.S. Army Pacific Area of Operations Chemical Section coordinated and directed an intensive period of training for the personnel of the 713th.

After its notification on 10 November 1944, the 713th Tank Battalion required less than four months to make the conversion to flame tanks and embark for the invasion of Okinawa. The 713th Tank Battalion (Provisional Flamethrower) was to be attached to the XXIV Corps as part of the 20th Armored Group for the Ryukyus Campaign. The XXIV Corps SOP did not include a section on how to employ the main armament flamethrowers.

Source: Flamethrower Tanks on Okinawa. ARMOR - January-February 1994.

Cheers. Raúl M .

[tigre]

Hello to all ; more follows...................

The 713th Armor Battalion
(Provisional Flamethrower)

The Okinawa Campaign.

Loading the ships for transport to the objective began on 22 February 1945 and was completed on the first of March. As the battalion had been given no specific mission in the Tenth Army operations order for Operation ICEBERG (the code name for the invasion), the battalion staff attempted to load the ships to meet any possible contingency.

The basic unit for loading the landing ships was a flame tank platoon with its supply and maintenance
complement of vehicles aboard one ship. This would enable the piecemeal, but effective, introduction of the battalion into the fray, one platoon at a time. Crucial items of ammunition, fuel, rations. and supply were divided up among the ten ships.

Although the battalion arrived off Okinawa on the second of April, it did not begin unloading until the seventh. Almost the entire battalion came across the Hagushi beaches – Orange #1 and Purple #1 and #2 - on the 7th, where they were placed in an assembly area.

One C Company tank was lost when it drove into a hole on the reef and was deemed unrecoverable. The battalion would begin the battle with only 53 flamethrower tanks.

Source: Flamethrower Tanks on Okinawa. ARMOR - January-February 1994.

Cheers. Raúl M .

[tigre]

Hello to all ; more follows...................

The 713th Armor Battalion
(Provisional Flamethrower)

The Okinawa Campaign.

First Actions.

The first action for the flame tanks occurred on April 19th, when the 7th Infantry Division faced the Japanese 1lth Independent Infantry Battalion among the Rocky Crags and along Skyline Ridge (Appleman, Bums, etal., 196). The 711th Tank Battalion, in support of 7th Infantry Division, had
A Company of the 713th attached on the tenth day of the fight.

The Japanese were using underground tombs as pillboxes in the vicinity of Skyline Ridge, and could not
be suppressed or overrun by unsupported infantry. The force of tanks and infantry “quickly moved into position at the tip of Skyline Ridge. They poured shot and flame into a cluster of enemy-occupied tombs and emplacements at the lower extremity of the ridge. The infantry were able to move forward and complete the destruction of these emplacements without taking the horrendous casualties that would have been suffered without the use of the flame tanks.

The flame tanks were usually attached as a section (3 tanks) to a standard medium tank platoon. The
flame tanks would remain in a forward assembly area until called forward by the tank platoon leader. They would join with the standard tanks and the infantry to accomplish the assigned mission.


It was important for the infantry to remain close in support of the tanks because the Japanese employed suicide squads with satchel charges as a key to their antitank tactics. The Japanese attempted “to drive the U.S. infantry away from the tank using small arms and mortars. This left the tanks “blind” ... The attackers tried to remain concealed until the first volley of small arms had driven off American infantry, then they assaulted the tank.

Source: Flamethrower Tanks on Okinawa. ARMOR - January-February 1994.

Cheers. Raúl M .

[tigre]

Hello to all ; last part follows...................

The 713th Armor Battalion
(Provisional Flamethrower)

The Okinawa Campaign.

The flame tank had great psychological impact on the battlefield. According to the men on Okinawa, the armored flamethrower’s “value lies in its ability to drive the Jap out of his prepared positions into the open to be killed by supporting troops.

The results that the 713th Tank Battalion achieved on Okinawa during the period 7 April to 30 June 1945 were incredible. The battalion was credited with killing 4,788 and capturing 49 of the enemy, not including Japanese soldiers killed by escorting infantry or estimates of those trapped and sealed in caves or fortifications.

These figures, when balanced against the battalion’s losses of only seven men killed and one reported missing, speak to the flame tank’s destructive power as well as its survivability. Of the 54 tanks which began the operation, 41 were knocked out of action. Twenty-six of these were returned to duty.

On the last day of the operation, 30 June 1945, the battalion had 37 operational tanks and two others in maintenance (713th AAR, 6-38). The ingenuity and hard work of the mechanics had kept the battalion at over 70 percent strength after almost three months of combat. No mechanized flamethrowers could have been replaced considering that there were no others in the theater.

Source: Flamethrower Tanks on Okinawa. ARMOR - January-February 1994.

Cheers. Raúl M .

[Reb]

Raul

Yeide in his "Steel Victory" describes the effort to use flame thrower Shermans in Europe as essentially a failure - Allied officers (including Patton) considering a regular Sherman fireing white phosphorus to be as deadly but more accurate and with more range. I think they missed the psychological value of such tanks. Flame is a terror weapon - it took a lot to frighten the Japanese!

cheers
reb

[der alte Landser]

Co B, 713th Armored Flamethrower Battalion (minus First Platoon) was awarded the Navy Presidential Unit Citation for its work with the 1st Marine Division on Okinawa.

First Platoon, Co B, 713th Armored Flamethrower Battalion was awarded the Navy Presidential Unit Citation for its work with the 6th Marine Division on Okinawa.

[tigre]

Hello to both of you Reb and der alte Landser ; first thanks for joining and second I agree with you Reb the psychological effect of such weapon was the most taking in account that kind of fight which took place in the Pacific islands and the enemy's psycho. I think it would be worthy in the seto's fight. Cheers. Raúl M .

[der alte Landser]

It's great that you are interested in the armor of the Pacific War. The role of tanks in the Pacific is often overlooked, and even more so is the fact that Army units of many types were often attached to Marine units in many of the war's campaigns.

[tigre]

Thanks for your comment der alte Landser . Cheers. Raúl M .