BATTLEFIELD SERIES part 7 "It was the most ghastly corner of hell I had ever witnessed….Every crater was half full of water, and many of them held a Marine corpse. The bodies lay pathetically just as they had been killed, half submerged in muck and water, rusting weapons still in hand. Swarms of big flies hovered about them...maggots and decay. Men struggled and fought and bled in an environment so degrading I believed we had been flung into hell’s own cesspool."
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For almost 3 months, the island of Okinawa bared witness to the most intense and bloodiest fighting of the Pacific.The price of occupying the island as a strategic position against Japan would cost the Allies about 82,000 casualties, claim the lives of 110,000 Japanese soldiers and wipe out over 150,000 civilians; almost half of the pre war population. Not other island had seen so much death up to that point.
Army and Marine units were pitted against a slow and methodical fight of attrition. The ridges, draws and cliffs became death traps, with Japanese soldiers fighting to the last man. Torrential rains, artillery and naval gunfire turned the landscape into a stark image of the Great War. The Japanese use of civilians as human shields, conscriptions of children and ruthless tactics brought the morale of the Allies to an all time low. The psychological toll brought even the most hardened veteran to the brink. Over 1500 Kamikaze attacks brought terror on the naval forces supporting the fighting. Reports of mass civilian suicides became a dark pillar of the fighting.
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The island was eventually cleared out, but the carnage of Okinawa bore a preview of what was to be expected on the upcoming mainland invasion of Japan, bringing the use of nuclear weapons on a much more preferable scale to end the war. #bfseries #zerofoxtrot #stayzero #ww2