War & StrategyBook note
Bloody Okinawa
Description. A short description of a book from my bookshelf, not a review.
Wheelan recounts the battle for Okinawa between April and June 1945, the last great battle of the Second World War and one of its bloodiest. He follows the American soldiers and Marines on the ground, the sailors who endured waves of kamikaze attacks offshore, and the Okinawan civilians caught between the two sides.
The narrative draws heavily on first-hand testimony and does not soften the brutality of the fighting. It also explains why the scale of losses at Okinawa weighed so heavily on American planning for an invasion of Japan, and so on the decision to use the atomic bomb.
From the bookshelf · read 2021