Okinawa

Yontan Airfield

Yoshida, Masaru

Yoshida, Mitsuru

zaibatsu

Zampa Cape

About the Author

Robert Leckie was the author of more than thirty books, most of them on military history, which include Helmet for My Pillow, a personal narrative of World War II. He joined the U.S. Marine Corps the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor and served nearly three years in the Pacific as a machine gunner and scout of the First Marine Division, and was wounded and decorated.

Copyright

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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published in the United States of America by Viking Penguin,

a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 1995

Published in Penguin Books 1996, 2010

Copyright © Robert Leckie, 1995 All rights reserved

All photograph: AP/Wide World Photos

eISBN : 978-1-10119629-8

1. World War, 1939-1945—Campaigns—Japan—Okinawa Island.

2. Okinawa Island (Japan)—History. I. Title.

D767.99.O45L43 1995

940.54’25—dc20 94-39145

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Notes

1

When Spruance commanded this enormous concentration of naval striking power, it was called “Task Force Fifty-eight”; when Bull Halsey’s flag was flown it was “Task Force Thirty-eight.”

2

Because there is no hard-and-fast rule for translating Japanese geographical terms— shoto, meaning various islands or group of islands; gunto or retto, a group of islands; shima or jima, an island; or ie, an islet—this narrative will use the general English words for the same.

3

Japanese warplanes were divided into feminine names for bombers and masculine ones for fighters.

4

This means “regiment,” not division. In American military parlance a regiment formed by three battalions is known by its “arm.” Thus the First Regiment of the First Marine Division is called “First Marines,” or the Seventh Regiment of the First Cavalry Division “Seventh Cavalry.” Too often historians with no military experience mistake these designations to mean division, a much larger formation that—whether infantry, cavalry, or Marine—is usually formed by three “line” regiments and an artillery regiment with other special troops.

5

This comment in no way is intended to demean these gallant GIs—or anyone who has looked upon the horrid Medusa face of battle—but appears only because it might be asked why other nicknames are mentioned but not the Ninety-sixth’s.