The Battle of Okinawa 1945

The American campaign to capture Okinawa, codename Operation ICEBERG was fought from 1 April to 22 June 1945. 350 miles from Japan, Okinawa was intended to be the staging area for the Allied invasion of the Japanese mainland.

The Japanese Thirty Second Army defenders were on land and the Imperial Navy at sea fought tenaciously. They faced the US Tenth Army, comprising the US Army XXIV Corps and the US Marines’ III Amphibious Corps.

As the author of this superb Images of War book describes in words and pictures this was one of the most bitterly fought and costly campaigns of the Second World War. Ground troops faced an enemy whose vocabulary did not include ‘surrender’ and at sea the US Fifth Fleet, supported by elements of the Royal Navy, had to contend with kamikaze (‘divine wind’) attacks by air and over 700 explosive laden suicide boats.

The Okinawa campaign is synonymous with American courage and determination to defeat a formidably ruthless enemy. The campaign was the subject of Hacksaw Ridge, the recent Hollywood blockbuster – this is the real story.