The Allies were closing in on the home islands of Japan. The liberation of the Philippines was well underway. The fight for Iwo Jima was drawing to a close after Japan's navy suffered a string of disastrous losses.
It seemed to US commanders that an invasion of the Japanese mainland was the only way to end the war because the Japanese had shown they were determined to fight.
The strategists made invasion plans. It was a prime location for a staging ground. The airfield could be used by the US Navy to cut off Japanese ships from the rest of Japan's empire, and Allied troops could gather there for the invasion of Japan.
The battle on Iwo Jima was the bloodiest battle of the war, with US casualties outnumbering Japanese casualties for the first time. They had prepared to defend it because it was five times larger than Iwo.
The Japanese commander mounted a defense.
Instead of trying to fight on the beaches, he focused most of his forces on defensive lines on the south of the island. The island's many reverse slopes allowed for the construction of 60 miles of underground tunnels and dozens of machine gun nest.
In the Pacific campaign, the American invasion force was the biggest. Over 180,000 soldiers and Marines from four US Army and two Marine Corps divisions were part of it.
More than 1,300 ships from the US 5th Fleet and British Pacific Fleet supported them.
The last day of the Battle of Iwo Jima is when the first landings at Okinawa took place. After a week of naval bombardments, US soldiers and Marines landed on central Okinawa.
It looked like it was going well at the beginning. The Americans didn't encounter any resistance. The airfields were easily taken on the first day. The north part of the island was being cleared by Marines and soldiers.
On April 6, the Japanese navy sent the largest and most powerful battleship ever built, the Yamato, on a suicide mission against the US Navy in order to protect the island.
More than 4,000 Japanese sailors were killed when they were hit by at least 15 bombs and eight torpedoes in an attack by 300 US Navy aircraft.
The Allies' initial success stopped suddenly.
The Americans walked into kill zones and ambushes as they advanced south. Cannons, mortars, and machine-guns from fortified and hidden positions slowed most progress.
There were fields of fire on the exposed American troops on the Shuri and Machinato defensive lines. The late April rains turned battlefields into mud pits. The tanks and armored vehicles were useless.
The battle was fierce at sea. The Japanese navy could not mount any resistance to the superior American fleet.
The first time they were launched at the same time was in the battle of Okinawa.
About 1,900 such attacks were conducted by thousands of planes from bases in Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan's main islands.
The MXY-7 Ohka is a new type of weapon that was used in the war.
More than 5000 sailors were killed when 13 aircraft carriers, 10 battleships, and hundreds of destroyers, transports, and other vessels were hit. The Laffey was the only destroyer to survive six attacks.
American troops advanced despite the resistance. The northern part of the island was cleared. Naha was captured at the end of May.
After three months of fighting, the Americans were able to capture the last part of the island on June 22.
Over 12,000 Americans were killed and over 35,000 were wounded. The overall commander and a brigadier general were among the dead. The two people were killed in the battle.
Almost all of the Japanese defenders were either killed in action or died by suicide. Three of the four Japanese officers took their own lives. Col. Hiromichi Yahara was ordered not to commit seppuku.
The Americans lost more ships with more damage. The aircraft and tanks were destroyed. More than 1,000 aircraft and about 20 tanks were lost by the Japanese.
The most horrible toll was suffered by the civilians.
The Japanese did not completely evacuate the civilian population. A third of the population died during the battle. Many people were killed in the fighting. They were used as human shields.
The local population was told by the Japanese that if they surrendered to the Americans, they would be killed or raped. Many people were forced to kill themselves or be captured by the Japanese.
American leaders reconsidered an invasion of the Japanese mainland because of the fanatical resistance and terrible casualties.
It would have been more expensive to fight. Estimates of American casualties ranged from 225,000 to 1 million troops, with the Japanese estimating as many as 20 million casualties.
President Harry Truman made it clear at a White House meeting in June that he wanted to prevent the island from being divided into two parts.
The invasion of Japan didn't happen. The Japanese realized that fighting to a negotiated surrender was impossible after Germany's surrender. Japan surrendered on September 2nd.
It was published in June 2020.
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