Bloody Okinawa, by Joseph Wheelan ⭐️⭐️⭐️☆☆
Joseph Wheelan’s new book, Bloody Okinawa, a comprehensive look at the Battle of Okinawa, the bloodiest, most destructive single campaign of World War II, is a detailed, extensively researched account of the battle for this strategic island, an important stepping stone in the Allies’ march to Japan—but it goes overboard, in my opinion, in the depiction of the more grisly details of the campaign. The bitterly stubborn defense of the island of Okinawa by Japanese forces was prosecuted as a purposefully attritional campaign to give Japan time to prepare the defenses of the home islands, or to force the Allies to the bargaining table before they could get into a position to invade. Japanese soldiers, sailors, airmen, and many Okinawan civilians saw it as their duty to lay down their lives for the Emperor, and to take as many U.S. personnel with them as possible. The incomprehensively brutal fighting, when battlefields became muddy charnelhouses as U.S. Army and Marine forces struggl