readx; On 13 April, when the news of President Roosevelt's death reached the US forces attacking Okinawa, the flagship "New Jersey" broadcast over a loudspeaker:

"Please note! Please note! Attention all US officers and soldiers! Now broadcast the news that our Supreme Commander-in-Chief, President Roosevelt, passed away yesterday! Repeat"

The naval and army forces attacking Okinawa were shocked, and all warships lowered their flags and fired their guns in unison to express their condolences to the president who had died 4,000 nautical miles away. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 info Almost all the officers and soldiers did not believe that this was true, and Lieutenant General Spruance had to confirm it again. All the generals expressed their concern in the midst of their grief that the death of President Roosevelt would have a bad effect on the course of the war. Will his heir, Harry S. Truman, also demand that he surrender without order?

Only Gao Fei, a Chinese general in Chongqing, knew that Truman would follow all of Roosevelt's policies, and the vice president, who did not even know about the "Manhattan Project," had no time or ability to change anything, so he could only use Roosevelt's own national policy and plan to continue the war. He was hastily recalled to Washington to take over the presidency, and everything was so sudden and unprepared that he could only follow the path pioneered by Roosevelt, and nothing could be changed!

General Ushimanjima took full advantage of the death of President Roosevelt to engage in psychological warfare and propaganda offensives. He distributed a large number of leaflets printed on low-quality paper, and found a few broken horns and shouted loudly to the Americans:

"We express our deep condolences over the death of President Roosevelt, his death is a tragedy for you American officers and soldiers, stop fighting! Let's go home! You can't win! Seventy percent of your aircraft carriers and seventy-five percent of your warships were either sunk or damaged. Treasure your lives! You have lost 150,000 lives on the island of Okinawa, and now your president is dead, and you have lost your command and become a bunch of abandoned orphans. We will soon launch a counteroffensive, and our invincible navy will wipe out all your remaining warships, and not a single destroyer will be left. It's all going to happen. Let's go back! It's still too late."

Not a single American would have believed these words, and the American naval guns responded with even more intense artillery fire. The carrier-based aircraft group showed its outrage with bombs and rockets. Once again, the island of Okinawa was drowned in fireworks. A Marine shouted:

"The president has passed away. But he said we were going to keep fighting until you damn bastards surrendered, or we wouldn't stop!" Go to hell! Little devils! ”

The soldier's words may have really spoken to Roosevelt's heart, and although he did not leave such a will, he must have thought so!

The death of the President of the United States had little effect on the conduct of the war. There was no other memorial ceremony except for the lowering of the flag and the firing of guns by the US fleet. You must know that this is in Okinawa, and if you want to put your family's funeral at someone else's doorstep, the two sides will definitely fight you to the death, and your head will be broken and bleeding. What's more, the two sides have already opened, and the battle is raging, and every moment of the day is dying, either by the person who dies, or by the American soldiers. Although the method of death was different from that of President Roosevelt, they all went to God to report, but they ended up in the same place. The Americans, on the other hand, saw that they did not slow down their bent on capturing Okinawa, except for shouting and shouting when they first received the news. I said that I would not come out of the cave and surrender because of the death of President Roosevelt, on the contrary, the Japanese fought more vigorously.

"This battle is too hard to fight! He said that he was too stubborn, and it is said that many people were killed and few were taken prisoner. ”

Lieutenant Colonel Kauft saw two brightly white ambulances with huge red crosses on the strings of the ship sailing from the bandaging place on the shore towards the hospital ship swimming two nautical miles away. There can be no doubt that the ambulance boat must have been filled with brave and good young citizens of the United States of America who were disemboweled, missing arms and legs, and bleeding heads. He said with great emotion:

At this time, the chief of staff of the air force, who does not know how to fly an airplane, was standing with Liu Xirui at the barricade of the large observation platform on the third floor of the "Enterprise" island, looking at the dense sea of various types of warships, at the column of smoke rising from Okinawa Island in the distance, and occasionally flashing a few clusters of red light, accompanied by a muffled sound like rolling thunder. The sound of explosions coming from the island, mixed with the rumbling guns of warships and the motors of planes taking off and landing on aircraft carriers, was not very prominent. However, one thing is absolutely inevitable, the American GIs on the island, whether they are Army or Marines, are fighting with Yu himself inextricably, and the battle situation is unprecedentedly fierce.

Putting on the face of a fortune-teller, Kauft exclaimed:

"At the southern end of this damned broken island, it is said that 65,000 to 70,000 soldiers are cowering in caves there, more than there are crabs on the beach and rats in the mountains. Unless Okinawa is wiped off the charts with shells and bombs, and turns himself into a dead rat and a rotten crab, the landlubbers are busy, and they have to blow him up yard by yard, and there is no other way to do it. That's a lot of work! I'm so worried about them! ”

Mr. Mack, who was standing behind Kauft, glanced at the talkative chief of staff, and thought to himself evilly:

"If you kick this scrooge into the sea, I wonder how endurance will be? Will you be able to hold out until the ambulance arrives? If I were General Barnack, I would throw this bastard who can't even fly an airplane to Okinawa, and let this lieutenant colonel take a company to dig up inch by inch, and it would be a miracle that he didn't finish his life in 3 days! It was even more surprising than Roosevelt crawling out of his coffin to continue to be president! ”

Major Mack was repaired by the Lieutenant Colonel's Chief of Staff five minutes ago, for the simple reason that it was repaired. Yesterday afternoon, Mike wanted to write a letter to his parents at home in Hela Homa, but he didn't have a pen, and just as he passed by the command room of the air force, he saw a ballpoint pen on the desk of the chief of staff of Kauft, but the Kauft was not there. Mike, who was in a hurry to write the letter, took the pen away. He wanted to return the letter when he had finished writing it, or to run into the lieutenant colonel and tell him that it would be fine. Halfway through the letter, the order to take off came, and Mike threw the letter and pen and climbed into the bomber. When he returned home from his mission of supporting the army, he couldn't find the pen, and half of the letter was still there. When this was over, Mr. Kauft, the lieutenant colonel's chief of staff, relentlessly lectured Major Mack, saying that he did not care for public property, and that he had to pay two dollars and 25 cents, and threatened to deduct it from his salary. And so on to hurt self-esteem and damage reputation. It made Mike very angry.

A certain lieutenant colonel standing next to Liu Xirui suddenly had a cold war for no reason.

Liu Xirui glanced at his chief of staff with concern, and he pointed to a large line of warships moving toward the shore of Okinawa three nautical miles away and said:

"It's going to be shelled again, how many times has this been? Looks like the Army and Marines are in big trouble on the island! ”

It was 9:20 a.m., and in the distance, six battleships, eight cruisers, and 12 destroyers were lined up. These warships were the commander of the 24th Army Corps, John. At the request of Major General Hodge, he was prepared to bombard his defensive system about five miles deep across the island, and 20 minutes later, at about 9:40 a.m., the shelling began. The 354 cannons on 20 warships fired almost simultaneously. The earth-shattering sound of shells echoed through the air like thunder. Liu Xirui felt the huge aircraft carrier trembling in the shock wave of the air on the "Enterprise", and although it was broad daylight, the bright red light of the muzzle flame was still very dazzling. At 10:15 a.m., the guns on these warships were lowered again, and this time it was the forward positions of the Japanese army that began to be bombarded. The artillery bombardment lasted about 30 minutes, and the army did not return fire. A large cloud of smoke rose from Okinawa, which rolled up into the air and spread out in all directions, as if a huge black quilt was trying to wrap the island. Mr. Liu estimated that it was the heaviest shelling he had ever seen, more than any U.S. offensive in the Pacific islands. As far as the Pacific War is concerned, this shelling is probably the most explosive in a single shelling. In fact, Liu Xirui's estimate was correct, and more than 19,700 rounds of large-caliber shells were fired in this shelling.

On the island of Okinawa, two divisions of the Marine Corps and the Army attacked under the cover of naval gunfire. The focus of the attack of the 4th Marine Division was on the central part of the defensive line, and the 7th Division of the Army attacked to the east. Forty minutes after the two divisions attacked, the third division, the Army's 27th Division, also launched an assault from the west on the Jiashu Heights.

Although the shelling was unprecedentedly fierce, the effect was not good, and the troops had been prepared for a long time and hid in the caves, and the flying shrapnel and the flying stones did not cause them a large number of casualties, and it can be said that there were almost no losses. As soon as the three attacking units of the US army approached the defensive positions of the Japanese army, he was no longer polite, and his machine guns, light mortars, grenadiers, and intensive rifle fire made the American soldiers realize that the artillery did not help them much. He said that he did not buy the powerful artillery fire that was quite large, and it seemed that half the world would be blown away, just as they no longer cared about the US carrier-based planes flying all over the sky. The attack was repulsed again. And there were heavy casualties. The 27th Division dispatched a total of 24 tanks and 7 armored vehicles during the attack on the Jiashu Heights, more than half of which were destroyed by the Japanese army, and the rest fled back in a hurry. Fight until dusk, John. General Hodge's 24th Army suffered more than 1,200 casualties, but it did not advance an inch.

Over the next three days, the 7th Division and the 4th Marine Division were also making slow progress, not even keeping up with the distance that an old turtle could crawl in the same amount of time, and the results were insignificant, but the number of American weapons that "captured" their own casualties was considerable. The officers and men of the 2nd Marine Division, which was attacking from the east, stubbornly advanced for about 1 mile under the cover of tanks, but they had to stop. Although they had approached the heart of the Shouri defensive line, they had encountered an insurmountable obstacle. Here, the mountains are steep, and the straight rock walls are not too high, but they resemble the walls of the Great Wall of China, as if they were cut with knives. This hill is called Maeda Highland, and the terrain is very favorable to the defenders, making it a real fortress. The 2nd Marine Division launched four consecutive attacks, but all of them returned in vain. With the blue sea behind the heights, a staff officer suggested an amphibious landing from the far side of the heights, but General Barnack flatly rejected the idea. Because on the coast, the large and small hideous reefs will tear the landing craft to pieces like waves that crash on them, and then throw the fragments into the depths of the sea, and I will definitely not cooperate and will do my best to make trouble, so the possibility of success is almost zero.

Even if they can barely reach the shore, assuming that a beachhead can be built, the larger ships will not be able to dock, and supplies and supplies will not be delivered, and the landing American troops will be in a difficult situation. Of course, I am glad to see this, and they will calmly surround the American regiment ashore and happily wipe out the besieged to the point where there is no one left.

General Barnack's theory is sound and correct, but this reason does not correspond to reality. In fact, what the Yue army feared most was that the US military would take this kind of action, because there were not many Yue troops defending the Maeda Heights, and it would be difficult for them to repel the US attack head-on, and if they divided a part of their limited forces to defend the coastline and were attacked by the US forces in front and rear, the battle would soon be over. General Ushijima saw this, and he was very worried about this situation, so he had no choice but to transfer part of the rearguard division of his general reserve here. On 25 April, the reinforcements joined up with the already heavy casualties of the guards under the cover of night.

As soon as they entered the position, the U.S. forces launched another attack on Maeda Heights, and this unit repelled the American offensive at the cost of 84 casualties. The U.S. military retreated. Then came the overwhelming artillery fire, which lasted for more than 20 minutes, and the reinforcements, who were not very familiar with the terrain and the US combat methods, suffered a great loss. The U.S. artillery bombardment was very accurate, and the shells seemed to have eyes, and they smashed hard at the fortifications and cliffs, choking people with smoke and dust, flying rubble, and scorching air waves, turning the Maeda Heights into a purgatory of fire. Shells rained down, and the Americans were determined to completely reshape the terrain with steel and explosives. Finally the shelling stopped, and before I could catch my breath, a swarm of US planes appeared again over Maeda Heights.

Liu Xirui led more than 40 fighters to cover two squadrons of dive bombers to launch an air attack on the Maeda Heights, rockets and bombs fell invariably, and the fires on the Maeda Heights flashed continuously, and the dust and smoke billowed out. Liu Xirui's "shrew-style" swooped very low, and he wanted to see what it looked like to let the Yankees of the three divisions have tens of thousands of sharp teeth gnawed for nearly 5 days without gnawing on the hard bones. This is the eastern end of Maeda Highland. His warplanes skimmed against a cliff.

"Tsk! Tut! This terrain is really a bit like the Great Wall, and the cliffs are the city walls. No wonder the American GIs suffered! said that he was shrunk in the hole like Wang Ba, no matter how the plane bombed and how the artillery bombed, the husband couldn't say it if he couldn't get out of the bed! Just waiting for the Americans to rush closer, and the aircraft artillery could not be used, a grenade plus a light and heavy machine gun, the Americans had to obediently retreat. If you really want to attack and fight hard regardless of casualties, I am afraid that there is no other harvest except for erecting hundreds of more crosses, damn it, I will really choose the turtle cave. Well! What's going on here? ”

Liu Xirui found that the nose of his plane was facing a relatively low rock wall, which had been blown up by heavy artillery fire by the US military. Here, the terrain becomes a slope, and it is estimated that the slope will not be greater than about 45 degrees, and if the rock in the middle is blown away, a passage will be formed here, and the American tanks can definitely attack it. At this time, when the air raid was in full swing, he said that he was still hiding in the cave, and probably had not yet discovered this 'rock collapse incident' that was enough to kill them.

The US commander of the ground attack seems to have discovered this situation, but he cannot continue to bombard with naval guns, the distance of the naval guns is too far, and the area shelling is okay, if the artillery on the warship is required to accurately hit this rock, it is too difficult for a strong man! Aren't there ready-made tools now? Carrier-based bombers in the air! If you can't even hit such a large target bomb, I really don't know what these flying GIs are eating. This task naturally fell to the group of planes led by Liu Xirui, who were in the air.

As a result, the anti-aircraft liaison group let out a wolf-like howl like tearing a throat, countless signal flares fluttered wildly, and several officers stood up desperately, pointing at the rocks that were flickering in the smoke of the explosion 700 meters away, and roaring with their own strength. There was only one purpose, to get the plane to blow up the rocks as quickly as possible before he woke up.

The fighter plane was lost in a moment, how could Liu Xirui not know, he pulled up the plane and issued an order loudly:

"Attention all! Attention all! Stop bombing the positions of the Japanese army. See that rock? Follow me and blow it up! Repeat"

Liu Xirui swooped downward, "shrew-like" lightning through the diffuse gray fog, and the three remaining rockets shot out with a long flame in tow, and the rockets accurately hit the standing rock, and the flames and flying stones burst out. The target indication was clear, and the bombers of about 80 bombers in the two squadrons repeated the same course as if they were tied together by an invisible long rope. Bombs fell one after another, the earth trembled, gunpowder smoke and dust covered a radius of several hundred meters, and the sound of violent explosions continued to be deafening. After 20 minutes, the bombing ended. The landscape at the eastern end of Maeda Highlands was brutally modified by the Americans with bombs. A ramp passage about 6 meters wide and about 40 degrees of slope, full of craters, but which did not affect the passage of tanks, appeared. The pilots did not disappoint the attacking troops, the rest was up to them.

A company of the 96th Division seized the opportunity, and after the bomb of the last bomber landed and exploded, the soldiers of this company rushed forward, and by the time the defenders came out of the rubble, the Americans had already rushed in front of them. The army was too few in number, but they put up a brave and desperate resistance. The attacking American troops and 3 tanks broke through the defense line of the Japanese army, and after paying the price of 18 casualties, this company completely annihilated the Japanese army on this section and occupied the breakthrough. Immediately after that, 14 tanks and 6 flamethrower armored vehicles rushed up. A regiment of American troops also poured up, and a small high ground next to it was occupied. The Americans rushed all the way to Highway 5 at the foot of the hill at the eastern end. General Barnack was not in a hurry to expand the results of the battle, but mobilized troops to firmly consolidate this breakthrough, and the more than 500 Japanese troops who attempted to counterattack were all annihilated by the crossfire of the American army, and the eastern end of the Maeda Heights was occupied by the American army.

General Ushijima was in a hurry, and the loss of the eastern position meant that the American army could outflank the central and western positions with heavy troops. If the position at the eastern end is not recaptured, the gap is blocked, and the defensive line is restored, which will cause the Shuri defense line to collapse completely. Commander Ushijima gave a firm order to the 62nd Division, which said:

'The enemy, led by tanks and followed by infantry, has broken through to the eastern part of our front. The 62nd Division needs to immediately send troops in this direction to attack the American troops advancing on the eastern end of the Fronta Heights and resolutely repel them! To be on the safe side, Ushijima ordered the 24th Division, which was defending the center, to assist in driving out the American forces together with the attacking troops of the 62nd Division, and sealing the breach. He also ordered the reserve to deploy its main force to the east of the Shuri defense line to prevent the American army from continuing to invest its forces to attack in depth. In short, Lieutenant General Ushijima Mitsuru was determined to hold the Maeda Heights at all costs, and the top priority at the moment was to repel the American forces on the breach, reseal the gap, and restore the defensive line.

Before the troops of the 62nd and 24th Divisions of the Japanese Army could begin to move, the Americans took the lead. In the early morning of April 27, two regiments of the 7th Division of the US Army, under the cover of tanks and flamethrower armored vehicles, again launched an attack from the eastern end of the Maeda Heights to the west. The artillery shells of various calibers of the two artillery battalions were conscientiously cultivating every inch of land, and the more than 120 dive bombers and torpedo attack planes covering the attack in the smoke kept putting on a show -- an earth bombing contest that would never miss the target. Any military fortifications that are exposed to the surface, or that look like fortifications, will have the honor of calling for bombs and shells to come again and again. In this case, the soldiers of the army wisely chose the method of hiding in the cave and not coming out. In fact, in front of this three-dimensional wall of fire, which is full of shells and bombs, flamethrows, machine gun fire, tanks crawling on the ground, and airplanes flying overhead, no living thing can only be wiped out, not even the bushes, let alone people! My choice should be absolutely correct. But the American GIs had their own code of conduct, and when they found a cave, the Americans would block it with machine guns under the cover of tanks, followed by tons of explosives, until the cave was sealed with crumbling rocks and mud, and it was certain that not a single rat could get out. Although the progress seems to be slower, the method is effective, and I can't fight back at all. The battle lasted until dark, and the U.S. forces captured four more hills. Parts of the eastern and central parts of Maeda Highlands fell into the hands of U.S. forces. On this day, the U.S. military suffered fewer than 20 casualties.

General Ushijima finally lost his breath, and the Maeda defense line was in danger of total collapse. If we can't launch a counterattack as soon as possible, recapture the position at the eastern end, and lose the whole line, it will be a matter of time. Unable to allow the war to develop according to the Americans' plan, Ushijima used the General Reserve. A wing of the 24th Division received an order that they must attack that night, restore the line of defense, and drive the Americans back from the breach. General Ushijima's remedy seems to be a little bit late, not to mention whether it is effective or not, it remains to be seen.

Captain Shibayashi Komura set off with his brigade. The brigade consisted of 600 people, but most of them had never fought, and some of them had even been students at Shuri Normal School a few weeks earlier. Like all young people, it is time to defend the country, and it doesn't matter whether you read or not. These students were drafted into the army, they had only received less than a month of hasty training, they had just learned to shoot, and they wanted to lead this so-called army to attack the Americans. When it was dark, the brigade silently marched east through the Shuri Tunnel, an ancient capital now bombed by American planes, with hundreds of corpses, both military and civilian, lying between the collapsed buildings, with blood and what appeared to be human flesh stuck to some of the walls. This is a masterpiece left behind by American artillery and aircraft. At the beginning, the troops can also line up in two lines and follow the dirt road. But as soon as they left the city, they were attacked by US planes, accompanied by the screams of planes as they dived and the explosions of bombs landing, these boy scouts were all in disarray, some threw their guns and ran indiscriminately, some lay on the ground and refused to get up even if you punched and kicked them to death, some howled and cried, and some of the more daring ones shot blindly at the sky

This is not an army at all, but a flock of birds. Captain Komura and several other officers took great difficulty to assemble the team again after the US plane flew away, but this team had less than 500 people left, and somehow lost one-sixth of its troops. Not even the face of the American GIs was seen. It is estimated that the Americans could not have killed so much, and it is unknown whether the rest of the students panicked and became deserters in the chaos, but now is not the time to pursue these. The village decided to stop and tidy up the troops, and the troops spread out in the fields to rest, and each soldier was given a small piece of rice ball, and many people thought that maybe this was their last meal before they died.

A little after 12 o'clock in the evening, this student army, which was doomed to flee or be wiped out by the enemy before the start of the battle, finally arrived at the front line, and it was not until after 3 o'clock that preparations for the attack were finally completed. The village launched an attack with two squadrons totaling about 300 people. Like a crowd of moviegoers pouring out of the cinema just after the show, they stumbled forward with their mouths shouting meaningless syllables that only God knew to them. There was no artillery preparation before the charge, and there was no cover for tanks, armored vehicles, etc., so they rushed forward with their waists straight. All the officers were so anxious that they scolded Baga! But no one could make these attacking units, which had only been trained for less than a month, mainly composed of students, more in line with tactical requirements.

One after the other, sometimes several, flares of the U.S. military rose into the night sky, and everything turned white-green. The mortar shells of the American army smashed over, and the shells exploded directly in the charging team, and many soldiers went to see Amaterasu in a daze, and the village and the officers had no choice but to lead the soldiers to continue to rush forward. As soon as they approached the breach, a large group of American tanks rushed out from Highway 5 on the right, and these tanks opened fire almost simultaneously, killing at least 100 more soldiers at once. Captain Shibayashi Komura's team collapsed, and in the dark night, these baby soldiers in military uniforms cried and shouted for their mothers. Some soldiers jumped into bomb craters or broken fortifications to hide, some lay on the ground and pretended to be dead, some simply jumped into Chinese-style graves that had been blown open by shells, and some hid behind broken rocks with their heads in their hands

No one cares about any counteroffensive, it's still important to save their lives. Captain Komura took 6 of his subordinates and hid in a grave as the living dead for another day. It was only when it was dark again that the American tanks were scattered. The village crawled out of the grave with a few of his men, and finally they found their way back to the starting point of the attack, and the tired and hungry captain commander gathered the remaining troops, and he found that his 600-strong brigade had only about 200 people left, but the order from his superiors had not stopped, so they had to attack again. The few remaining officers also reluctantly admitted this fact. They must recapture the positions they did not lose, so as to restore the defensive front, otherwise the Maeda defense line is likely to collapse completely because of this, and the responsibility is heavy! Komura tied a white cloth around his back as a symbol, and he asked the other officers to do the same, and the soldiers only had to follow the white cloth shadow, which was a good idea. After putting the team in order, as soon as it got dark, the remnants of the army moved forward again. They walked cautiously along a dry river. In the middle of the process, in a group of graves, only 50 soldiers who had been hiding all day joined in, which restored the confidence of the village captain a little. The village led the troops quietly to the edge of a high ground, where they lurked and waited silently.

Dawn is the time when the defenders are at their least focused and physically tired. Captain Komura gave the signal, and the group of soldiers threw grenades in unison, and rushed to the top of this small highland road with their 38 rifles loaded with bayonets in their hands. At the highest point of the heights there was a lone pointed rock, which the Americans called the needle, and a machine gun suddenly opened fire from the needle, and the bullets frantically tore through the bodies of the soldiers. The distance was so close that it was a genuine 'close shot', and the downed soldiers were hit by at least 5 bullets each. It was precisely because of the proximity that the army rushed forward after the fall of more than 20 people, and the grenade blew up the machine gun, and the few American soldiers near the needle rock were stabbed to death with bayonets. The village quickly commanded the soldiers to disperse among the rocks and hurriedly began to build fortifications. This army actually recaptured a small hill next to the breach, and its machine gun and rifle fire could already threaten the American troops on the breach. On the one hand, the reason why they were able to succeed was that the sudden attack of their attack was not a night attack, but an attack at dawn, and the Americans, who had been on guard all night, were already physically and mentally exhausted, and their vigilance was much lower. Second, after a long period of fierce fighting, the US military suffered relatively large losses and its combat effectiveness dropped considerably. In fact, there were only 16 people left in the platoon of the US army defending 'Needle Rock', so Captain Komura and his subordinates were able to get away with it.

The occupation of this hill did not mean how successful the brigade commanded by the small village was. Although the superiors praised them again and told them to continue the attack. Captain Hayashi Shishi of Komura complained bitterly. This success was really accidental, there were less than 300 people left in the troops, what to attack in broad daylight? Whether or not you can hold this place is a big problem! Sure enough, at about 9:20 a.m., the US troops began shelling, and this hill is such a big place, it has not even had time to dig a hole for defense artillery, there is no cover, and most of the subordinates in the small village are "broilers", and the lack of combat experience is not generalized. Under the overwhelming shells of the US army, except for Lin Zhi of Komura and more than 40 soldiers who hid in a small cave and escaped death, the rest of the officers and soldiers were gone. A battalion of American soldiers rushed up, and the village could only lead the team to flee. In total, they had only been on the 'needle' for less than four hours, and the hill changed hands again.

It has been almost a month since the coalition forces landed on Okinawa, and their total strength has reached 170,000, far exceeding the number of troops defending the island. He said that he was hiding in a cave, and during the day it was the world of the coalition army, and there were coalition soldiers and military facilities everywhere. The roads were widened to facilitate the movement of tanks, artillery, vehicles, gas stations were set up; supply points; medical points; Zero supply library; repair stations; Large-caliber artillery positions can be seen at the communications station at any time, and the telephone lines of the command organs at all levels have also been opened. The Americans pay attention to the method of warfare, which is based on a huge and abundant material base. The U.S. military is equipped with practical equipment, and the supply of ammunition, food, and medical supplies is sufficient, and even too much to be squandered. The soldiers were shocked by the equipment of the American soldiers. The Americans cherished the lives of their officers and soldiers, which was very different from the suicide attacks that took place at every turn, and the soldiers despised the Americans for their lack of bushido, and although the Americans were also brave, these were definitely two different things. War is sure to kill people, and that's the same for me or for the Americans. In his own eyes, war is nothing more than an outdoor sport that adventurous Americans engage in after they have had enough to eat. It is undeniable that the soldiers are far behind the American GIs in all respects. Except, of course, loyalty to the emperor.

The battle was fought very hard, and the two sides fought repeatedly on the Maeda Heights, and each hill changed hands several times. The land was stained red with blood. The US 307th Infantry Regiment suffered half of its men killed and wounded in 8 days, and even lost 8 company commanders in 36 hours. However, his own losses were even more severe, and the 600-man brigade of Captain Hayashi Komura was the most typical example, and now his brigade had only more than 150 people left, and most of them were wounded. Captain Komura was no exception, a bullet pierced his left shoulder and a shrapnel cut his back, but he still tried to counterattack the hill they had captured. On 12 May, General Ushijima ordered all attacking troops to retreat, but Komura refused the order, saying that he intended to die in battle where most of his men, who were very young students, and that he could not go back to meet their parents. But the captain insisted that he lead the team back. A staff officer of the 24th Division, who delivered the order, handed him a letter written by the division commander himself, which stated:

"If you want to die, you have to find a battlefield worth dying, and now it is likely not to be"

However, Komura has never thought so, and if blind defense can certainly cause large losses to the Americans, it will be a matter of time before he is eliminated. He conveyed the order to his subordinates, saying:

"If you want to stay with me, please stay, I will fight guerrilla here, but there is a word first, this is certain death! Those who don't want to stay can go! ”

The soldiers looked at each other, and as a result, 12 people were willing to stay. The rest of the soldiers evacuated the area, and after another four days, Maeda Heights fell into the hands of the Americans.

After the capture of Maeda Highland, the U.S. offensive on Okinawa was in full swing, and progress was still very slow but resolute. The 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions were to the east, the 5th Marine Division and the 7th Army Division were to the west, while the 6th and 14th Army Divisions were in the center. The Americans march slowly, no matter what the Chocolate Hills; Mesa; The Magic Valley couldn't stop the attacking coalition soldiers. By May 21, the capital of Okinawa, Shuri, had been surrounded by American troops from three sides, and Naha had fallen. But after dark, it rained heavily, and all the valleys suddenly became reservoirs, and the roads became mud pools, not to mention the trucks, and even the tanks could not climb. Hot food could not be delivered, and the sick and wounded could not be evacuated. It rained heavily for a week, and they could only sleep in the rain, and the American troops were forced to stop their advance.

The heavy rain gave me time to breathe, but it didn't seem to work! Okinawa is an isolated island surrounded by American troops, and it is impossible for the defenders to receive the slightest support from the outside world. General Ushijima had already lost 60,000 men, and the core forces of the garrison, the 62nd Division, the 24th Division, and the 44th Reading Mixed Brigade had suffered huge losses under the three-dimensional attack of the Americans' naval guns, ground artillery, tanks, and aircraft, and were about to collapse. Lieutenant General Ushijima ordered all troops to retreat and abandon Shuri, and although this order was strongly opposed by some people, it was resolutely carried out. Everyone could see that if they continued to hold on to Shuri, which could not be held at all, they would lose more troops and hasten the fall of Okinawa.

On May 31, the Allied Army and Marine Corps cautiously rushed into Shuri from two directions. Under the bombardment of nearly 1,000 mortar shells, more than 500 500-pound aerial bombs, and more than 2,000 large-caliber naval artillery shells, this ancient capital has been reduced to a pile of rubble. Only two buildings remain, the reinforced concrete Shuri Normal School and the church of the Guild of Supervisors. There was smoke and flames everywhere.

Thousands of civilians and their property were buried under the rubble.

The air was filled with the pungent smoke and the smell of rotting corpses, and Shuri, which had been built by more than 10,000 construction workers over eight years, was destroyed by American artillery and bombs, and at least now it does not look like a city at all, only place names and building blocks, crumbling large chunks of the wall, and nothing else!

(To be continued)