A report on Battle of Okinawa

US Marine from the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines on Wana Ridge provides covering fire with his Thompson submachine gun, 18 May 1945.
A map of US operations at Okinawa
Tekketsu Kinnōtai child soldiers on Okinawa
The battleship USS Idaho (BB-42) shelling Okinawa on 1 April 1945
Generals Mitsuru Ushijima, Isamu Chō and other officers of the Thirty-Second Army in Okinawa, April 1945
US Marine reinforcements wade ashore to support the beachhead on Okinawa, 1 April 1945.
A 6th Marine Division demolition crew watches explosive charges detonate and destroy a Japanese cave, May 1945.
US Marines pass a dead Japanese soldier in a destroyed village, April 1945.
American soldiers of the 77th Infantry Division listen impassively to radio reports of Victory in Europe Day on 8 May 1945.
Soldiers of the 96th Infantry Division attack Japanese positions on Big Apple Ridge.
Lt. Col. Richard P. Ross Jr., commander of 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines braves sniper fire to place the United States' colors over the parapets of Shuri Castle on 30 May. This flag was first raised over Cape Gloucester and then Peleliu.
A Japanese prisoner of war sits behind barbed wire after he and 306 others were captured within the last 24 hours of the battle by 6th Marine Division.
Two US Coast Guardsmen pay homage to their comrade killed in the Ryukyu Islands.
Two wounded American soldiers make their way to a medical aid station on Okinawa, 20 April 1945.
Two US M4 Sherman tanks knocked out by Japanese artillery at Bloody Ridge, 20 April 1945
The last picture of US Army Lt. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr. (right), taken on 18 June 1945. Later in the day, he was killed by Japanese artillery fire.
The last picture of US Army Brig. Gen. Claudius Miller Easley, taken on 19 June 1945. He was later killed by Japanese machine-gun fire.
A group of Japanese prisoners taken on the island of Okuku in June 1945
A US Marine Corps Stinson Sentinel observation plane flies over the razed Naha, capital of Okinawa, in May 1945.
Two US Marines share a foxhole with an Okinawan war orphan in April 1945.
Overcoming the civilian resistance on Okinawa was aided by US propaganda leaflets, one of which is being read by a prisoner awaiting transport.
The Cornerstone of Peace Memorial with names of all military and civilians from all countries who died in the Battle of Okinawa
Marines celebrate Victory over Japan Day on Okinawa, August 1945
Japanese commanders of Okinawa (photographed early in February 1945). In center: (1) Admiral Minoru Ota, (2) Lt. Gen. Mitsuru Ushijima, (3) Lt. Gen. Isamu Cho, (4) Col. Hitoshi Kanayama, (5) Col. Kikuji Hongo, and (6) Col. Hiromichi Yahara
Japanese soldiers arriving on Okinawa
Japanese high school girls wave farewell to a kamikaze pilot departing to Okinawa
A US military diagram of typical Japanese hill defensive tunnels and installations
A Japanese Type 89 150mm gun hidden inside a cave defensive system
A map of Okinawa's airfields, 1945
The super battleship {{Ship|Japanese battleship|Yamato||2}} explodes after persistent attacks from US aircraft.
American aircraft carrier {{USS|Bunker Hill|CV-17|6}} burns after being hit by two kamikaze planes within 30 seconds.
Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm Avengers, Seafires and Fireflies on {{HMS|Implacable|R86|6}} warm up their engines before taking off.
{{HMS|Formidable|67|6}} on fire after a kamikaze attack on May 4. The ship was out of action for fifty minutes.

Major battle of the Pacific War fought on the island of Okinawa by United States Army (USA) and United States Marine Corps (USMC) forces against the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA).

- Battle of Okinawa
US Marine from the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines on Wana Ridge provides covering fire with his Thompson submachine gun, 18 May 1945.

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7th Infantry Division Shoulder sleeve insignia

7th Infantry Division (United States)

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Active duty infantry division of the United States Army based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord charged with sustaining the combat readiness of two Stryker brigade combat teams, a combat aviation brigade, a division artillery headquarters, and a National Guard Stryker brigade combat team, as well as participating in several yearly partnered exercises and operations in support of U.S. Army Pacific and the Indo-Pacific region.

Active duty infantry division of the United States Army based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord charged with sustaining the combat readiness of two Stryker brigade combat teams, a combat aviation brigade, a division artillery headquarters, and a National Guard Stryker brigade combat team, as well as participating in several yearly partnered exercises and operations in support of U.S. Army Pacific and the Indo-Pacific region.

7th Infantry Division Shoulder sleeve insignia
Men of the 64th Regiment, 7th Division, celebrate the news of the Armistice with Germany, November 11, 1918.
7th Infantry Division troops negotiate snow and ice during the battle on Attu in May 1943.
7th Infantry Division soldiers attack a blockhouse during the Battle of Kwajalein.
Invasion of Leyte Map, October 1944.
Soldiers from the 184th Infantry advance on a machine gun nest during the Battle of Leyte.
Men of Co. B, 184th Inf. Regt., inspect a Japanese 75-mm gun they captured on Okinawa. 29 May 1945.
Map of the Okinawa invasion.
The Inchon Landings
Lieutenant Colonel Don C. Faith Jr., leader of Task Force Faith
Corpsmen assist wounded from the 31st Regiment during the Battle of Triangle Hill.
Tactical map of Operation Just Cause.
Soldiers of the 7th Infantry Division resting on board a C-141 while on their way to El Toro Air Station in preparation to combat the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
7th Infantry Division (Light) 1989 (click to enlarge)
7th Infantry Division organization 2021

The Battle of Okinawa began on 1 April 1945, L-Day, when the 7th Infantry Division participated in an assault landing south of Hagushi, Okinawa alongside the 96th Infantry Division, and the 1st, and 6th Marine Divisions.

Shoulder sleeve insignia

96th Sustainment Brigade (United States)

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Unit of the United States Army that inherited the lineage of the 96th Infantry Division that served in the Asia-Pacific theater during World War II.

Unit of the United States Army that inherited the lineage of the 96th Infantry Division that served in the Asia-Pacific theater during World War II.

Shoulder sleeve insignia
Triangular Division example: 1942 U.S. infantry division. The brigades of the Square division have been removed, and there are three regiments directly under divisional control.
Brig. Gen. Claudius Miller Easley personally supervised the 96th's marksmanship training, earning it the nickname "Deadeyes". He was later killed on Okinawa.
Machine gun crew of the 1st Bn., 381st Infantry, keep on the alert for enemy movement on Okinawa. 19 April, 1945
Riflemen of the 2nd Bn., 381st Regiment of the 96th Division peer cautiously ahead as they advance across the summit of Yaeju-Dake escarpment (Big Apple Ridge) on Okinawa. 14 June, 1945.

Beauford T. Anderson, Technical sergeant – 381st Infantry Regiment (Battle of Okinawa)

Five of the six fleet aircraft carriers of the British Pacific Fleet c. 1945

British Pacific Fleet

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Royal Navy formation that saw action against Japan during the Second World War.

Royal Navy formation that saw action against Japan during the Second World War.

Five of the six fleet aircraft carriers of the British Pacific Fleet c. 1945
Melbourne, 13 December 1944. First conference of the staff of Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser's new British Pacific Fleet, held in Melbourne. Left to right: Lieutenant Commander G. P. Vollmer (Secretary to Chief of Staff); Lieutenant Commander R. N. Heard; Vice-Admiral C. S. Daniel (seated) Vice Admiral (Administration); Commodore W. G. Andrews; Captain E. H. Shattock (concealed); Captain R. C. Duckworth; Lieutenant S. G. Warrender.
Fleet Air Arm Grumman Avengers, Supermarine Seafires and Fairey Fireflies on the deck of warm up their engines before taking off. Other British warships in the background.
on fire after a kamikaze hit.
passing through the Sydney Harbour anti-submarine boom net in 1945. The blackened funnel was the result of the kamikaze attack pictured above, in which a Japanese aircraft crashed on the flight deck.

The fleet took part in the Battle of Okinawa and the final naval strikes on Japan.

A U.S. 37 mm M3 anti-tank gun fires against Japanese cave positions in the north face of Mount Suribachi.

Battle of Iwo Jima

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Major battle in which the United States Marine Corps (USMC) and United States Navy (USN) landed on and eventually captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) during World War II.

Major battle in which the United States Marine Corps (USMC) and United States Navy (USN) landed on and eventually captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) during World War II.

A U.S. 37 mm M3 anti-tank gun fires against Japanese cave positions in the north face of Mount Suribachi.
Location of Iwo Jima
Lieut. Gen. Tadamichi Kuribayashi
The battleship USS New York (BB-34) firing its 14 in main guns on the island, 16 February 1945 (D minus 3)
LVTs approach Iwo Jima.
19 February 1945 air view of southern part of Iwo Jima
19 February 1945 air view of Marines landing on the beach
19 February 1945 air view of Marines landing on the beach
Marines landing on the beach
U.S. Army Soldiers engaging heavily fortified Japanese positions
U.S. Marines of the Second Battalion, Twenty-Seventh Regiment, wait to move inland on Iwo Jima, soon after going ashore on 19 February 1945. An LVT(A)-5 amphibious tractor is in the background. Red Beach One.
Members of the 1st Battalion 23rd Marines burrow in the volcanic sand on Yellow Beach 1. A beached LCI is visible upper left with Mount Suribachi upper right.
U.S. Marines (Left to Right), PFC. J. L. Hudson Jr. Pvt. K.L. Lofter, PFC. Paul V.Parces, (top of blockhouse), Pvt. Fred Sizemore, PFC. Henrey Noviech and Pvt. Richard N. Pearson pose with a captured Japanese flag on top of enemy pillbox.
Culvert serves as command post for 23d Marine Regiment on Iwo Jima
U.S. flag over Mount Suribachi
U.S. postage stamp, 1945 issue, commemorating the Battle of Iwo Jima
Sketch of Hill 362A, made by the 31st U.S. Naval Construction Battalion. Dotted lines show the Japanese tunnel system.
A U.S. Marine firing his Browning M1917 machine gun at the Japanese
Two Marines using a "Hotch Kiss" from the Japanese, 1945
A flamethrower operator of E Company, 2nd Battalion 9th Marines, 3rd Marine Division, runs under fire on Iwo Jima.
The CB-H2 flamethrower seen here on Iwo Jima had a range of 150 yards
Lieutenant Wade discusses the overall importance of the target at a pre-invasion briefing.
American supplies being landed at Iwo Jima
Marines from the 24th Marine Regiment during the Battle of Iwo Jima
Harry Truman congratulates Marine Corporal Hershel Williams of the Third Marine Division on being awarded the Medal of Honor, 5 October 1945.
The U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington with the Washington Monument and the United States Capitol in the distance.
Iwo Jima cemetery entrances built by the 133rd Seabees, with the 3rd Marine Division foreward and the 4th Marine Division opposite.
Internments of the 4th Marine Division.
4th USMC Division Cemetery Iwo Jima
5th USMC Division Cemetery entrance built by the 31st CB with Mt. Suribachi center.
The memorial on top of Suribachi
The 60th anniversary reunion at the Japanese part of the memorial
The 67th anniversary ceremony sponsored by the U.S. Marine Corps, the government of Japan, and the Iwo Jima Associations of America and Japan
Commencement of the 71st commemoration of the anniversary
U.S. and Japanese color guard teams stand at attention during the 72nd Reunion of Honor ceremony.

At the end of the Battle of Leyte in the Philippines, the Allies were left with a two-month lull in their offensive operations before the planned invasion of Okinawa.

USS Bunker Hill (CV-17), an aircraft carrier, was hit by two kamikazes on 11 May 1945, resulting in 389 personnel dead or missing and 264 wounded.

Kamikaze

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Kamikaze, officially Shinpū Tokubetsu Kōgekitai (神風特別攻撃隊), were a part of the Japanese Special Attack Units of military aviators who flew suicide attacks for the Empire of Japan against Allied naval vessels in the closing stages of the Pacific campaign of World War II, intending to destroy warships more effectively than with conventional air attacks.

Kamikaze, officially Shinpū Tokubetsu Kōgekitai (神風特別攻撃隊), were a part of the Japanese Special Attack Units of military aviators who flew suicide attacks for the Empire of Japan against Allied naval vessels in the closing stages of the Pacific campaign of World War II, intending to destroy warships more effectively than with conventional air attacks.

USS Bunker Hill (CV-17), an aircraft carrier, was hit by two kamikazes on 11 May 1945, resulting in 389 personnel dead or missing and 264 wounded.
The Mongol fleet destroyed in a typhoon, by Kikuchi Yōsai, 1847
Lt. Yoshinori Yamaguchi's Yokosuka D4Y3 (Type 33 Suisei) "Judy" in a suicide dive against USS Essex (CV-9) on 25 November 1944. The attack left 15 killed and 44 wounded. The dive brakes are extended and the non-self-sealing port wing tank trails fuel vapor and/or smoke.
Model 52c Zeros ready to take part in a kamikaze attack (early 1945)
A kamikaze aircraft explodes after crashing into Essex flight deck amidships 25 November 1944.
Rear Admiral Masafumi Arima
26 May 1945. Corporal Yukio Araki, holding a puppy, with four other pilots of the 72nd Shinbu Squadron at Bansei, Kagoshima. Araki died the following day, at the age of 17, in a suicide attack on ships near Okinawa.
St Lo attacked by kamikazes, 25 October 1944
Starboard horizontal stabilizer from the tail of a "Judy" on the deck of USS Kitkun Bay (CVE-71). The "Judy" made a run on the ship approaching from dead astern; it was met by effective fire and the aircraft passed over the island and exploded. Parts of the aircraft and the pilot were scattered over the flight deck and the forecastle.
An A6M Zero (A6M2 Model 21) towards the end of its run at the escort carrier USS White Plains (CVE-66) on 25 October 1944. The aircraft exploded in mid-air moments after the picture was taken, scattering debris across the deck.
An A6M5 "Zero" diving towards American ships in the Philippines in early 1945
USS Louisville (CA-28) is struck by a Mitsubishi Ki-51 kamikaze at the Battle of Lingayen Gulf, 6 January 1945.
USS Missouri (BB-63) shortly before being hit by a Mitsubishi A6M Zero (visible top left), 11 April 1945
Aircraft carrier after being struck by a kamikaze off the Sakishima Islands. The kamikaze made a dent 3 m long and 0.6 m wide and deep in the armored flight deck. Eight crew members were killed, forty-seven were wounded, and 11 aircraft were destroyed.
Ugaki, shortly before taking off in a Yokosuka D4Y3 to participate in one of the final kamikaze strikes, 15 August 1945
A crewman in an AA gun aboard the battleship USS New Jersey (BB-62) watches a kamikaze aircraft dive at USS Intrepid (CV-11) 25 November 1944. Over 75 men were killed or missing and 100 wounded.
Japanese Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka ("cherry blossom"), a specially built rocket-powered kamikaze aircraft used towards the end of the war. The U.S. called them Baka Bombs ("idiot bombs").
First recruits for Japanese Kamikaze suicide pilots in 1944
Chiran high school girls wave farewell with cherry blossom branches to departing kamikaze pilot in a Nakajima Ki-43-IIIa Hayabusa.
Kamikaze damage to the destroyer USS Newcomb (DD-586) following action off Okinawa, Newcomb was damaged beyond economical repair and scrapped after the war.

The peak period of kamikaze attack frequency came during April–June 1945 at the Battle of Okinawa.

The League of Nations assembly, held in Geneva, Switzerland, 1930

World War II

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Global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945.

Global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945.

The League of Nations assembly, held in Geneva, Switzerland, 1930
Adolf Hitler at a German Nazi political rally in Nuremberg, August 1933
Benito Mussolini inspecting troops during the Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935
The bombing of Guernica in 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, sparked fears abroad in Europe that the next war would be based on bombing of cities with very high civilian casualties.
Japanese Imperial Army soldiers during the Battle of Shanghai, 1937
Red Army artillery unit during the Battle of Lake Khasan, 1938
Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler, Mussolini, and Ciano pictured just before signing the Munich Agreement, 29 September 1938
German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop (right) and the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, after signing the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, 23 August 1939
Soldiers of the German Wehrmacht tearing down the border crossing into Poland, 1 September 1939
Soldiers of the Polish Army during the defence of Poland, September 1939
Finnish machine gun nest aimed at Soviet Red Army positions during the Winter War, February 1940
German advance into Belgium and Northern France, 10 May-4 June 1940, swept past the Maginot Line (shown in dark red)
London seen from St. Paul's Cathedral after the German Blitz, 29 December 1940
Soldiers of the British Commonwealth forces from the Australian Army's 9th Division during the Siege of Tobruk; North African Campaign, September 1941
German Panzer III of the Afrika Korps advancing across the North African desert, April-May 1941
European theatre of World War II animation map, 1939–1945 – Red: Western Allies and the Soviet Union after 1941; Green: Soviet Union before 1941; Blue: Axis powers
German soldiers during the invasion of the Soviet Union by the Axis powers, 1941
Soviet civilians leaving destroyed houses after a German bombardment during the Battle of Leningrad, 10 December 1942
Japanese soldiers entering Hong Kong, 8 December 1941
The USS Arizona (BB-39) was a total loss in the Japanese surprise air attack on the American Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Sunday 7 December 1941.
US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British PM Winston Churchill seated at the Casablanca Conference, January 1943
Map of Japanese military advances through mid-1942
US Marines during the Guadalcanal Campaign, in the Pacific theatre, 1942
Red Army soldiers on the counterattack during the Battle of Stalingrad, February 1943
American 8th Air Force Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombing raid on the Focke-Wulf factory in Germany, 9 October 1943
U.S. Navy SBD-5 scout plane flying patrol over USS Washington (BB-56) and USS Lexington (CV-16) during the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign, 1943
Red Army troops in a counter-offensive on German positions at the Battle of Kursk, July 1943
Ruins of the Benedictine monastery, during the Battle of Monte Cassino, Italian Campaign, May 1944
American troops approaching Omaha Beach during the invasion of Normandy on D-Day, 6 June 1944
German SS soldiers from the Dirlewanger Brigade, tasked with suppressing the Warsaw Uprising against Nazi occupation, August 1944
General Douglas MacArthur returns to the Philippines during the Battle of Leyte, 20 October 1944
Yalta Conference held in February 1945, with Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin
Ruins of the Reichstag in Berlin, 3 June 1945.
Atomic bombing of Nagasaki on 9 August 1945.
Ruins of Warsaw in 1945, after the deliberate destruction of the city by the occupying German forces
Defendants at the Nuremberg trials, where the Allied forces prosecuted prominent members of the political, military, judicial and economic leadership of Nazi Germany for crimes against humanity
Post-war border changes in Central Europe and creation of the Communist Eastern Bloc
David Ben-Gurion proclaiming the Israeli Declaration of Independence at the Independence Hall, 14 May 1948
World War II deaths
Bodies of Chinese civilians killed by the Imperial Japanese Army during the Nanking Massacre in December 1937
Schutzstaffel (SS) female camp guards removing prisoners' bodies from lorries and carrying them to a mass grave, inside the German Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, 1945
Prisoner identity photograph taken by the German SS of a Polish Catholic girl who died in Auschwitz. Approximately 230,000 children were held prisoner and used in forced labour and Nazi medical experiments.
Polish civilians wearing blindfolds photographed just before their execution by German soldiers in Palmiry forest, 1940
Soviet partisans hanged by the German army. The Russian Academy of Sciences reported in 1995 civilian victims in the Soviet Union at German hands totalled 13.7 million dead, twenty percent of the 68 million persons in the occupied Soviet Union.
B-29 Superfortress strategic bombers on the Boeing assembly line in Wichita, Kansas, 1944
A V-2 rocket launched from a fixed site in Peenemünde, 21 June 1943
Nuclear Gadget being raised to the top of the detonation "shot tower", at Alamogordo Bombing Range; Trinity nuclear test, New Mexico, July 1945

American naval and amphibious forces also moved towards Japan, taking Iwo Jima by March, and Okinawa by the end of June.

22nd Marines insignia

22nd Marine Regiment (United States)

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Inactive United States Marine Corps infantry regiment.

Inactive United States Marine Corps infantry regiment.

22nd Marines insignia

It took part in fighting at the battles of Eniwetok, Guam, and Okinawa.

Buckner in 1940

Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr.

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Lieutenant general in the United States Army during World War II who served in the Pacific Theater.

Lieutenant general in the United States Army during World War II who served in the Pacific Theater.

Buckner in 1940
Buckner (sitting, 3rd right) with Vice Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid (sitting, 2nd left) during the Aleutian Islands Campaign
Buckner on Okinawa, 1945
Buckner (foreground, holding camera), photographed with Major General Lemuel C. Shepherd Jr., USMC, on Okinawa.
The last picture of Buckner (right), taken just before he was killed by a Japanese artillery shell.
Plaque on Fort McClellan building

He was killed during the closing days of the Battle of Okinawa by enemy artillery fire, making him the highest-ranking United States military officer lost to enemy fire during World War II.

F4U Corsairs from VMF-323 flying over Okinawa

Tactical Air Force, Tenth Army

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F4U Corsairs from VMF-323 flying over Okinawa
F4U Corsairs from VMF-323 flying over Okinawa
MajGen Francis P. Mulcahy, first Commanding General of the Tactical Air Force, Tenth Army.
SCR-270 Radar from Air Warning Squadron 6
AWS-8 radar vans on Aguni Shima
A Marine Corps F4U Corsair fires its rockets at a Japanese stronghold on Okinawa.

The Tactical Air Force, Tenth Army (TAF) was a joint aviation command of the Tenth United States Army that was responsible for commanding all land-based aviation and aviation command and control units during the Battle of Okinawa.

Japanese Commanders on Okinawa: (photographed early in February 1945). In center: (1) Admiral Minoru Ota, (2) Lt. Gen. Mitsuru Ushijima, (3) Lt. Gen. Isamu Cho, (4) Col. Hitoshi Kanayama, (5) Col. Kikuji Hongo, and (6) Col. Hiromichi Yahara.

Thirty-Second Army (Japan)

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Army of the Imperial Japanese Army during the final stages of World War II.

Army of the Imperial Japanese Army during the final stages of World War II.

Japanese Commanders on Okinawa: (photographed early in February 1945). In center: (1) Admiral Minoru Ota, (2) Lt. Gen. Mitsuru Ushijima, (3) Lt. Gen. Isamu Cho, (4) Col. Hitoshi Kanayama, (5) Col. Kikuji Hongo, and (6) Col. Hiromichi Yahara.

It was annihilated during the Battle of Okinawa.