| Subject: |
|
Bloodiest Encounter of the Pacific War |
| Name: |
|
Robert Leibold |
| Date Posted: |
|
Oct 19, 06 - 5:35 PM |
| Email: |
|
wwiivictory@usa.net |
| Message: |
|
I'm currently poring through more than forty books and hundreds of pages of battle action reports in an effort to research and better understand the battle for Okinawa, America's bloodiest--and least heralded--campaign of the Pacific War. What I'm steadily coming to realize is that Okinawa is less a single battle than a hundred vicious struggles wrapped into one, a sprawling, titanic battle which perhaps marks the scene of our armed forces' greatest combined effort of World War II, and perhaps our greatest hour of that war. With the increasing media publicity surrounding the heroic capture of tiny Iwo Jima and it's celebrated flagraising, I'm continually amazed that more Americans aren't inclined to take a closer look at Okinawa, a battle that indeed makes Iwo pale in comparison. With newspapers and Internet sites filled to the brim these days with photographs of mighty Mount Suribachi, I went browsing for similar photographs of Okinawa's Hill 50.2, a seemingly innocuous bump on the ground located just beyond the Asa River, in what was once known as "Target Area 7672George." That tiny bump, I was told by my First Marine Division father nearly fifty years ago, cost the lives and limbs of untold thousands of Marines and Japanese. "The final capture of Sugar Loaf," my father had noted, "had cost two countries thousands more men than were expended in the fight for Iwo's Suribachi, and the darkest thing of all is, battles like Sugar Loaf were to be repeated scores of times on Okinawa--over and over again."
In a search for modern-day photos of Hill 50.1, I happened on the following website, and was appalled at what the Okinawans have since done to Sugar Loaf, site of one of the most noteworthy struggles in Marine Corps history. To survivors of Sugar Loaf--and to survivors of Okinawa nationwide--I say God bless all of you, and thank you.
members.shaw.ca/nambuworld2/okinawa.htm |
|
Replies:
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
Forum
bravenet.com