Word: buckners
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...Like myself, you are an infantry general long schooled and practised in infantry warfare," wrote Lieut. General Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr., to the Japanese commander on Okinawa. "You fully know that no reinforcements can reach you. I believe, therefore, that you understand as clearly as I that the destruction of all Japanese resistance on this island is merely a matter of days, and that this will entail the necessity of my killing the vast majority of your remaining troops. ... I will acquaint [your representatives] with the manner in which an orderly and honorable cessation of hostilities may be arranged...
Planes parachuted three copies of the note into the enemy positions. But the likeness which Buckner saw between himself and the unnamed Japanese commander was not even skin-deep. The enemy, with 32½ hours in which to decide, let the opportunity pass. The surrender proposal was ignored; Buckner's troops went on with the killing...
Attacker's Defense. Lieut. General Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr. took time out to defend his conduct of the campaign against rear-area criticism (TIME, June 18). He had studied the possibility of an amphibious "end run" around the Japanese lines, to the southern beaches. The idea had been rejected because the reefs and beaches would have made it impossible to supply a large enough force. Such a landing "could have turned into another Anzio beachhead, or worse," declared Buckner. At his advance headquarters on Guam, Fleet Admiral Nimitz endorsed Buckner's decisions without qualification...
...whom 3,877 are dead and 2,611 missing. At sea at least 25 ships, most of them light units, have been sunk; many more, including some major units, have been damaged. "We will take our time," said the Tenth's Lieut. General Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr., "and kill the Japanese gradually." Meanwhile the ship-plane battle went on. Admiral Nimitz's communique announced that a major warship had been damaged during an air attack...
With words of praise for work well done, Lieut. General Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr. pulled the battle-weary 27th and 96th Divisions out of the line on Okinawa last week, replaced them with the 1st Marine and 77th Army Divisions. But there was no rest for the weary. In a wild night and morning of tactical razzle-dazzle the Japs struck by land...