The Fleet that Brought Them Home

U.S. Naval Institute ^ | October 2025 | Ed Offley

[Retain Mike]

On that Monday, 6 August, Americans who had survived the Battle of Okinawa were not celebrating the final rout of the Japanese defenders seven weeks earlier. They were still stunned at the carnage they had both unleashed and endured. For 82 days without letup, Okinawa—one-third the size of Rhode Island—had been shredded by a maelstrom of bombs, artillery shells, and small-arms fire. The casualties on both sides were horrific. In all, nearly 250,000 people died in the battle, including 12,520 American servicemen, 110,000 Japanese and conscripted Okinawan defenders, and more than 100,000 Okinawan civilians caught in the crossfire. The American battle losses were the country’s heaviest in any theater of the war to date, but now they would be going home.

While the task group started operations with the Saratoga and 18 escort carriers, Operation Magic Carpet steadily expanded as more vessels were added. By 15 December 1945, Kendall had 369 warships and auxiliaries under his command. The primary challenge in organizing and carrying out the operation was the sheer “tyranny of distance” in the vast Pacific operating area. After three years of deployment and dozens of major battles, more than 3.1 million U.S. servicemen were scattered from the Aleutians to Australia and from Midway to the Marianas.

During the first four weeks of Magic Carpet, Kendall’s ships brought 259,856 servicemen and civilians home from the Pacific. The volume steadily increased over the next six months as more ships were added to the operation: 446,715 in October; 574,069 in November; and peaking at 695,486 in December. The numbers gradually shrank during the first three months of 1946, with 601,561 servicemen returned in January: 401,753 in February, and 143,954 in March.

[dadfly]

thanks for your story, brother. as crushing and evil as that war was, i believe God’s hand was in and through all of it. Japan was forever welded by a thermonuclear torch to the heart of America. i’ll remember your dad and brother, they may have fought side by side with mine.

[packrat35]

Yet some debate whether we really need to drop the atomic bombs. Can you imagine the losses if we invaded the home islands?

[Verginius Rufus]

If we had invaded Japan and after 2 million American troops and 10 million Japanese civilians had died, and the news came out that Truman could have ended the war in August 1945 but refused to use the bomb, he would have been looking for a country he could flee to which had no extradition treaty with the US.