The Last Stepping Stone
Invasion
1st Marines On Wana Ridge, Okinawa
Staggering numbers, to put ashore elements of the U.S. 10th Army (the 7th, 27th, 77th , and 96th divisions) and the U.S. Marine Corps' 1st and 6th divisions (altogether, about 208,000 combatants, commanded by Lt. General Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr. at first, when 58-year-old Buckner is killed by artillery fire on 6/18/1945, the highest ranking American to die by enemy fire during World War II, he will be replaced by Marine Corps General Roy Stanley Geiger), the U.S. and British Navies come loaded for bear to the tune of an immense amphibious force that contains 13 fleet carriers, 22 escort carriers, 6 light carriers, 19 battleships, 34 cruisers, 44 destroyers, 170 fire support landing craft, 57 cargo attack transports, and 123 LST and support vessels ... almost 500 vessels, the largest invasion of the Pacific Theater. Dug in on the island awaiting the Allied onslaught are roughly 77,000 Japanese soldiers and sailors, along with 30,000 Okinawan conscripts (under the command of 57-year-old Lt. General Mitsuru Ushijima ... on 6/22/1945, Ushijima, along with his chief-of-staff, 50-year-old Lt. General Isamu Cho, will commit seppuku, disemboweling themselves a moment before aides decapitate the men in a cave during the last days of the battle).
Ushijima
Cho
Buckner At Right - Moments Before His Death
Geiger
Though American forces land almost unopposed (many Marines wonder if the lack of resistance is some kind of bizarre April Fool's joke played on the men by God), the island (and the air and sea around it) becomes an abattoir in the 82 days it takes American forces to capture Okinawa. In the fighting that occurs at places like Conical Hill, Cactus Ridge, Shuri Castle, The Pinnacle, Naha City, the Motobu Peninsula, Horseshoe Hill, and Sugar Loaf Hill (in the campaign, 23 Americans will win the Congressional Medal of Honor for valor, including 13 that give their lives winning the award), a butcher's bill of the combat dead will be rung up of 149,143 Okinawan civilians, 77,166 Japanese soldiers, 4,907 members of the U.S. Navy, 4,675 American soldiers, and 2,938 leathernecks of the U.S. Marine Corps (with an additional 70,000 wounded casualties). Beyond the men lost (on the nearby island of Ie Shima, 44-year-old Pulitzer Prize winning war correspondent Ernie Pyle will also be killed), 768 planes, 225 tanks, and 28 vessels will be lost by the Allies (with another 368 ships sustaining damage, mostly due to Kamikaze suicide attacks, including the destroyer USS Laffey, which survives kamikaze attacks lasting over an hour on 4/16/1945, that see the ship hit by four bombs and six kamikaze crashes while suffering 32 men killed and additional 71 men wounded), while the Japanese toll is 7,830 aircraft, 27 tanks, 743 artillery pieces, and 16 combat vessels (including the biggest battleship in the world, Yamato).
Rooting Out The Japanese
USS Laffey Stern Gun Mount
Sugar Loaf Hill
Pyle
The Colors At Shuri Castle
The Yamato Blows Up
Why today mattered? The men that began fighting and dying on this day on the island of Okinawa made it matter ... then, now, and forever.
Fighting for Sugar Loaf
Goodbye
Cornerstone Of Peace Memorial - Today
Okinawa - Contains The Names Of ALL The Dead Of
The Battle
A Marine Moves Forward
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