The last great battle of World War II began on Easter Sunday, April
1, 1945, when more than 184,000 began landing on the only Japanese
home soil invaded during the Pacific war. The island of Okinawa was
just 350 miles from mainland Japan, and the Allies planned to use
it as its forward base for its invasion. On the island, nearly
140,000 Japanese and auxiliary soldiers resisted the US-led assault
with suicidal tenacity from a Gibraltar of hollowed-out, fortified
hills and ridges. Under constant fire and in the rain and mud, U.S.
troops fought ferociously, battered the Japanese with artillery,
aerial bombing, naval gunfire, and every infantry tool. The battle
also marked the apotheosis of kamikaze air attacks, which sank 36
warships, damaged 368 others and killed almost 5,000 seamen. When
the brutal slugfest ended, more than 125,00 enemy had been
killed--and 7,500 American ground troops had died. And tragically,
at least hundred thousand Okinawa civilians died violently while
trapped between the battling armies. The Japanese had succeeded in
preventing invasion, but the bloody campaign had convinced US
leaders that only an atomic bomb could end the war. Utilizing vivid
accounts written by US combatants, along with previously unused
Japanese sources, Joseph Wheelan brings a strong human dimension to
this rich story of the war's last great battle waged against an
determined enemy and extreme conditions.
General
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