By the end of April 1945, the battle for Okinawa, which started off so promisingly for the Americans and their allies, had degenerated into a repeat of Peleliu and Iwo Jima, only on a larger and more lethal scale. Although the Marines of Gen. Geiger’s III Corps were making steady progress clearing out the northern, and less defended, two-thirds of the island, Gen. Hodge’s XXIV Corps found themselves in a death grip with Ushijima’s Thirty-Second Army dug into and under the five miles-wide by four miles-deep Shuri defense zone. Progress was measured in yards, and despite the avalanche of U.S. artillery, naval bombardment, and constant air strikes, ultimately, the battle was one pitting tanks and infantry against each other, often leading to medieval hand-to-hand combat.
US Marines of the 1st Division wait on the crest of a hill in southern Okinawa as they watch phosphorous…
