Word: okinawa
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When the next-to-last major enemy pocket on Okinawa (on Oroku Peninsula) was being mopped up, as many as 145 Japs surrendered in a single day. It almost seemed that the lower ranks might be seeing the light. But the prisoners were mostly Okinawan and Korean service troops, far from typical of Jap fighting men. The typical attitude was shown by Jap officers who shot their enlisted men for trying to surrender. And for each soldier who even tried, there were many more who willingly killed themselves...
...slowly growing haul of Japanese prisoners, observed on both Okinawa and Luzon, was characteristic of the last days of campaigns in which the Japs have been defeated. Cut off without hope of relief, often half-starved, with few officers left, some enemy enlisted men decide to live.* There was no sign yet that any large number of enemy troops would be ready to surrender until total national defeat was upon them. And Premier Suzuki was intensifying his efforts to pump the savage military code of Bushido into civilians at home, men and women alike...
...last Japanese defense line on south ern Okinawa, along the Yaeju-Dake escarpment, was no more. A handful of ene my troops had manned its deep caves, hid den artillery and automatic weapons for a few days; then U.S. weight and power col lapsed them...
Marine Lieut. Lawson Brammer thought he saw something dark hurtling through the Okinawa sky. Before he could duck it slapped him on the shoulder, spun him around, threw him eight feet and sent his gun flying. Then it plowed a gash in the ground, ricocheted, hit again 300 yards away and exploded. Unbruised, Lieut. Brammer had cold-shouldered a Japanese shell...
...days on Okinawa the 96th Division had stood stymied before Hen Hill, a knobby 450-ft. crag just northeast of Shuri. Crouching in foxholes, trenches and caves, the Japanese could rake the flanks of any unit attempting to move around the hill. Two battalions had taken turns charging up; both had failed-with heavy casualties...