[Includes 2 tables, 3 charts, 21 maps and 88 illustrations]On 3 October 1944 American forces in the Pacific Ocean Areas received a directive to seize positions in the Ryukyu Islands (Nansei Shoto). Okinawa is the most important island of the Ryukyu Group, the threshold of the four main islands of Japan. The decision to invade the Ryukyus signalized the readiness of the United States to penetrate the inner ring of Japanese defenses. For the enemy, failure on Okinawa meant that he mus...

On 1 April, 1945, the largest amphibious assault of the Pacific Theater began.The battle for the island of Okinawa would last for the next eighty-two days.Through the course of this dramatic battle over 20,000 Americans would lose their lives and over 75,000 Japanese were killed in one of the bloodiest clashes of World War Two.Okinawa: The Last Battle is a remarkably detailed account of this monumental event by four soldier...

By mid-1942 the Japanese forces were threatening to take the colonial capital of Port Moresby and therefore gain a base to launch their proposed invasion of Australia.The allied forces needed to blunt the Japanese thrust toward Australia and thus protect the transpacific line of communications, as well as to secure a favorable position to take the offensive to the Japanese.Yet this was easier planned than executed; the Australians had been battered through two years of comb...