Word: buckners
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...Buckner was still in Alaska, still watching, when Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz launched the drive across the Central Pacific that was to cut a fiery path through Tarawa, Makin, Kwajalein, Eniwetok, Saipan, Tinian, Guam, Peleliu, Angaur, Iwo Jima. Battles were fought with companies, regiments, divisions. That march was still in progress last June, when Buckner at last got the word to go to Washington, then to Hawaii to organize a full-fledged army...
Initial Gains. Buckner's first target turned out to be Okinawa, central and largest island in the Ryukyu chain stretching from Japan to Formosa. There Admiral Nimitz mounted an amphibious operation, surpassed only by those of Sicily and Normandy, to hurl the troops ashore. And by week's end Buckner knew that his Tenth had caught the Japanese by surprise and had scored a smashing initial success...
...Japanese defenses, "Buck" Buckner knew, would grow even stiffer; tough fighting was bound to come. But he knew, too, that Japan's best chance to turn back this invasion-the period when the first troops were coming ashore-was gone. Perhaps counting too much on a three or four months' delay between the end of the Iwo Jima fighting and the start of the next U.S. operation, the Japs had delayed reinforcing Okinawa's garrison. Certainly the Japanese commander had pulled a major blunder; he had prepared for attack from the east and south, found himself fighting...
Belatedly the island empire awoke to its peril. With Buckner on Okinawa, even medium U.S. bombers could soon roam Japanese skies. Communications with China would be endangered. The homeland itself faced invasion. In Japanese, "Okinawa" means "Rope off in the Sea"; in any language, it now spelled doom...
First Aims. General Buckner had been born for this job. His father, Simon Bolivar Buckner ST., named for the South American liberator, had served with distinction in the Mexican War and worn a lieutenant general's stars in the Confederate Army. As a brigadier he had been forced to surrender Fort Donelson to his old West Point classmate, U. S. Grant. But he was exchanged, twice promoted, and wound up the war still fighting...