Word: ryukyu
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...western Pacific U.S. forces stormed into the key Ryukyu Islands, less than 400 miles from Japan's heartland, against opposition which was, at least in the beginning, fantastically light. Ice-calm Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz relaxed his studied reserve enough to admit: "Our final decisive victory is assured...
Descendants of the ancient Ainus,* now mixed with Japanese, Chinese and Polynesian strains, the 600,000 people of the Ryukyu Islands had been treated as second-class citizens by the Japanese, and have little reason to love their rulers. But they have also been taught that Americans were barbarians who would violate and torture their women, torture and kill their men. And then the Americans came...
...attack narrowed down to the main objective: poverty-stricken, malaria-ridden, snake-infested Okinawa, largest and staunchest rung in the Ryukyu ladder. Once firmly established on Okinawa, Americans could climb up the 370 miles to Kyushu, Japan's southernmost main island, or climb down 365 miles to Formosa, potential springboard for landings in China...
...three island chains which constitute steppingstones to Japan (see map), the Ryukyu line is the most inviting. Iwo, already serving as an advanced base for fighter bombers, is too small; the rocky Bonin and Izu Islands, which would be defended as savagely as Iwo, are also too small. The Kurils, extending northeast toward Russian Kamchatka, are not much larger, and are blanketed by weather almost as foul as that in the Aleutians...
...question stood out: granted that . tactical air assaults on airfields, seaports and naval bases are designed primarily to isolate a battlefield, what battlefield was being isolated? Southwest of the target areas lay the Ryukyu Islands, Formosa* and the China coast. The Japs could take their choice and pay the price...