The bloody battle for Okinawa: Veterans recall the luck, grit that got them through
By Matthew M. Burke
Stars and Stripes
Published: August 5, 2015
http://www.stripes.com/news/special-reports/world-war-ii-the-final-chapter/features/the-bloody-battle-for-okinawa-veterans-recall-the-luck-grit-that-got-them-through-1.360127
“One night, after hunkering down with three others a short ways down the slope from Needle Rock, on Hacksaw Ridge, a Japanese grenade landed in the middle of them. The enemy had crawled up to their position under cover of darkness.”
Here’s something better:
“The eastern end of the Urasoe-Mura Escarpment dominated the 96th Division front in the center of the line. It loomed directly ahead on the division right-a huge, forbidding, sheer cliff. The part of the escarpment lying within the 96th Division zone was called by the division the “Maeda Escarpment” after the village of Maeda, situated just over the crest on the reverse (south) slope. It was also called “Hacksaw Ridge” and the “Big Escarpment.” The hill mass centering on the eastern end of the Urasoe-Mura Escarpment was often called Hill 196 in the official reports.9 (See Map No. XXX.)”’
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http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/okinawa/chapter11.htm
See page 274.
Thanks. I was in the Marine Corps, so my knowledge of army operations on Okinawa is lacking.