Okinawa

The Battle of Okinawa is recalled. Included: comments from veterans Dan Barton, Herman Buffington and Larry Delewski.

World War II American Army Medic Desmond T. Doss, serving during the Battle of Okinawa, refuses to kill people and becomes the first man in American history to receive the Medal of Honor without firing a shot.

The Japanese island of Okinawa is the site of the bloodiest fighting in the Pacific Ocean theater of World War II.

Anticipating an excessive commitment of resources to take and hold the island, American war planners abandon an invasion of Formosa and focus directly on the Japanese home islands. They set their sites first on Okinawa to serve as a forward base of attack. Japan, seeking time to build defenses, plans to sacrifice Okinawa by fighting to the last man to delay the Allied advance. The Japanese are well prepared with layered defenses forcing American troops to fight a series of difficult, costly battles while naval forces deal with large, organized kamikaze attacks.

The U. S. Army and Marines battle a huge army of ferocious, entrenched Japanese who are making their last stand on Okinawa.

A chronicle of the Battle of Okinawa (April-June 1945), the largest Allied amphibious assault of the Pacific campaign during World War II.

A detailed look at the invasion of Okinawa, the last great battle of World War II and the largest amphibious assault of the Pacific campaign. In the 82-day battle of attrition, more than 200,000 people died, including many Okinawan civilians.

Crusade in the Pacific looks at the battle of Okinawa. American Army and Marine forces land unopposed and meet little resistance as they split the island in half. Later, as armies move north and south, fighting grows more fierce. Allied forces eventually capture the north half of the island. In the southern half, stiff Japanese resistance and rain bog down offensive operations. After weeks of fighting the advancing American troops eventually overwhelm defenders. In the end, the Battle of Okinawa proves costly for both sides.

In the Philippines, Appari, the last port held by the Japanese, falls to U.S. forces, who now make contact with Filipino guerrillas. After three months of some of the most bitter fighting of the entire war, the Japanese finally cease trying to defend Okinawa against U.S. forces. At dawn the Japanese commander, Lt. General Mitsuru Ushijima emerges from his bunker in a cave and commits ritual suicide in front of his shocked and demoralized staff officers. Victory at Okinawa places U.S. forces just 400 miles from mainland Japan. Lt. General Simon B. Buckner, commander-in-chief of the U.S. 10th Army, is killed by shrapnel as he visits front line troops.

By the first week of April, 1944, tensions among the Allies were heating up. When Eisenhower decided to stop his advance at Elbe River, it let the Soviets take Berlin. In Bavaria, forces headed toward what they thought would be a Nazi final stand. And half a world away, men and machinery geared up for "Operation Iceberg," the Battle for Okinawa. 172,000 troops would meet staunch opposition from the island's fanatical Japanese defenders.

There have been larger land battles and more protracted air campaigns than Okinawa but this was a combined operation, unparalleled in size, scope and ferocity.

Berlin has been reduced to rubble, setting the stage for the Red Army's entry. Benito Mussolini's brutal murder forces Hitler to consider that his "Thousand Year Reich" is at an end, even though prisoners are still being marched to the death camps. And in the Pacific, the action at Okinawa comes to a boil as the Americans gradually infiltrate the forbidding Shuri region.

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