Posted on 04/01/2018 8:30:33 PM PDT by BBell
Best recruitment for Republicans, NRA and Arby's.
My grandfather went ashore on D-Day with the 6th Marines. The 6th was to clear the North end of the island and encountered little resistance in so doing. Then they hit the Surri line.
In the end Japanese soldiers often took their own lives while making sure the civilians with them did the same.
An excellent account of this battle is documented in “Tennozan: The Battle of Okinawa and the Atom Bomb”. I found this history riveting. The author told the story from the US, IJ and Okinawan perspective. It is a gritty account of the suffering on all sides.
This history convinced me that if the bomb jarred a surrender loose from Japan, then it most likely saved the Japanese culture from extinction. It would have been senselessly sacrificed to stop the invaders.
The NappyOne
These men and women are a national treasures we can t replace. Their stories are for the most part lost. A true shame for us but a blessing to them for not having to relive the events. I met a man that had landed on the third day of the battle for Iwo Jima. We never talked about it. He was an artillrymen in the USMC. Survived Iwo Jima and three women over nearly ninty years. All we ever talked about was his wives and his career and hunting elk.
Near constant bombing of Japan started in November 1944 with the fall of Saipan and Tinian to the USA. The first B-29 targets were industrial factories in Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya mainly. High altitude precision bombing was not effective, but Japanese citizens in large cities certainly knew things were starting to go badly
Things turned much worse for urban Japanese starting in February 1945 when Curtis LeMay began low-level (more accurate), concentrated firebombing of major Japanese cities. In the most devastating firebombing raid of March 9-10, 16 square KM of Tokyo was destroyed, and 100,000 killed. The average Japanese in major cities certainly knew from experience at that point they were in deep trouble.
Indeed. In the end it did save a lot more Japanese lives than American lives.
Another thing, it also avoided the Soviet Union getting involved and getting their share of Japan, which most likely would have led to a Civil War, like Korea.
“My father was on standby orders with the Chemical Warfare Service to go to Australia to help oversee our Chemical weapons already prepositioned there in case the Japanese resorted to them in their final homeland stand.”
I would love to learn more about that. WWII. in the Pacific especially, has always fascinated me.
My Dad was at Saipan and Okinawa.
Saipan he was on a troopship (Warhawk).
Okinawa he was on a cargo ship that brought in supplies during the battle.
He might have been a Democrat, but I still have to give some thanks to Harry Truman for dropping those bombs. If not, my Dad would have been on a boat to Japan, along with many others. We didn’t need another two years of that carnage.
Okinawans largely turned on the Japanese, not with arms, but with intel, and as guides for US troops.
My dad was there.
I understand the focus of your post but point out a technicality.
By 1945, the Kwantung army was just a shell of it's former self having had it's best units stripped from it and sent to fight the allies.
In August 1945, the battle hardened Red Army did take on the Kwantung army and cut through it like a hot knife in warm butter.
Even at full strength, I don't believe the Kwantung army could have put up much resistance against the Soviets since it never had the sort of heavy weapons required to deal with red armour.
It was reality in the Philippines...
Sagamihara and Yokohama 1951-1961.
I read both Leckie’s and Sledge’s books last year after watching “The Pacific” on Amazon Prime. Fascinating books and I highly recommend both if you are interested in the history of WWII. My brother in law said that he thought the scenes of death and destruction in Hacksaw Ridge seemed a bit over the top. I told him that it seemed quite accurate based on the accounts in Eugene Sledge’s book. He did describe it as hell on earth.
I particularly recall his account of digging into the rotting, maggot-infested corpse of a Japanese soldier.
Whenever I think my job’s bad, I contemplate that.
OK, even Mike Rowe wouldn't take that job!
I’m currently stationed here with my family. It’s a beautiful island and has been the highlight of my career. My son leaves for PI in July.
I knew a guy who served in the artillery in the ETO, who was on a train headed for Nice, France, and eventually to the Pacific to take part in the invasion of Japan when the news came out that a wonder weapon, a giant bomb had just been used against Japan and it destroyed a whole city.
Thanks for link. Never read about this incident before...
This is what you get when you ‘re write’ history to suit your own agenda.
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