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OPPOSITE US marines in Okinawa, June 1945. It proved one of the most gruelling and costly battles of the Pacific War, filling US leaders with grim anxiety about the likely casualties in the event of a landing on the Japanese mainland. ABOVE Major-General Mitsuru Ushijima (1887-1945), the Japanese commander on Okinawa during the battle. He committed suicide on the final day. BELOW The USS Idaho shells Japanese positions on Okinawa. The US fleet played a key role in providing heavy artillery support to US ground forces.
Endgame in the Pacific: The Battle of Okinawa, 1 April – 22 June 1945
Marking the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in the Pacific, Alexander Izza analyses the ferocious last stand of the Japanese Empire.
The war in the Pacific, which ended 75 years ago, lasted three months longer than the war in Europe.
Hitler’s Nazi Germany had refused to surrender. An empire that in the winter of 1941/42 had stretched from the Atlantic to the gates of Moscow, from the Arctic Circle to the Sahara, had, three years later, been reduced to little more than Germany itself.
Four US Marine Corps Goodyear FG-1D Corsairs strike against Japanese positions south of the front lines on Okinawa, June 1945.
The massive preponderance of force on the Allied side was overwhelming. The outcome was inevitable. Yet the Nazi leadership was determined to fight to the bitter end.
This was the madness of fascism. Rat
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