Battle of Okinawa
Dakota hoover
Background
The battle of Okinawa began over 50 years ago in the pacific United States and japan fought. The battle of Okinawa lost over 250,000 men that fought on that horrible day. Approximately japan lost 150,000 men and lost a third of their population. The American estimated about 65,000 Japanese troops on the island with the bulk in the southern sector of the island. In fact 130,000 Japanese troops on the island and more then 450,000 civilians on the island.
The battle has been referred to as the "typhoon of steel" in English.
- The island of Okinawa was crucial for the Americans to win, so that they could use the island's airfields and harbors for a potential future strike on the Japanese mainland. The military referred to the battle as Operation Iceberg.
They expected the Americans to land 6–10 divisions against the Japanese garrison of two and a half divisions; the staff calculated that superior quality and numbers of weapons gave each U.S. division five or six times the firepower of a Japanese division; to this would be added the Americans' abundant naval and air firepower.
In real life, US troops swept through the sparsely populated northern areas within a few weeks, but it took months of nightmarish fighting to capture the southern part of the island.
There are two types of tombs you will see while on Okinawa: the turtleback tomb (kameko-baka) and the gable type. The turtleback tomb is easy to spot due to its distinctive shave (resembling the back of a turtle's shell). The tombs line the hills and streets and can be seen in a variety of sizes nearly everywhere on the island.