Word: okinawa
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...TIME on Okinawa...
Last week "Pete" Mitscher came home from the Okinawa campaign. He was "embarrassed" by rumors that he had been killed; he was tired but very much alive. He had fought long & hard for the past five months in the Pacific...
...even these two able strategists could know precisely what sort of campaign they must prepare for. Japan supposedly has 1,750,000 men under arms, ready to defend the homeland. Would they fight to the same bitter end as the 85,000 on Okinawa? Would they exact the same toll, of one U.S. soldier killed for every ten Japanese? Must the U.S. prepare for at least 175,000 killed-twice as many as in the European Theater of Operations? Would the enemy succeed in mobilizing into the People's Volunteer Corps 100,000,000 automatons for suicidal defense...
...bomb at night with greater precision. U.S. Army officers announced that fleets of 1,000 planes would soon smite Japan. Tokyo warned its medium and small-size cities to expect the worst. The big bombers were not the only planes that struck Japan. Kyushu Island, whence enemy planes attack Okinawa, was worked over for several days by U.S. fighters from carrier decks and land bases...
...enemy on Okinawa had been com pressed into a minute fraction of the island's area - no more than 20 of its 485 sq. mi.- and U.S. ground forces called for fire support from the fleet's guns to soften another stubborn line, the last on which the enemy could stand. Along the Yaeju-Dake escarpment, 3,000 yds. long, 600 ft. high, including a 300-ft. cliff, perhaps half of the 15,000 or so surviving Japanese were dug in. They had scores of fortified caves, from each of which they would have to be burned...