It directly influenced the American decision to use atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and therefore saved American lives who otherwise would have been involved in the invasion. The enormous casualties and the brutal fighting that occurred on Okinawa forced military planners to reconsider the invasion of Japan. Military thinking up to this time was that an assault on mainland Japan was inevitable. The factors and characteristics clearly demonstrate what the costliest battle was about and its impact on American military thinking. The Battle of Okinawa is singularly unique in so many ways and stands apart from all other battles in World War II.
At Truk, the Japanese naval base was virtually destroyed by American aircraft. The Japanese needed to retain Okinawa after the Japanese naval disaster at Truk in February, 1944, and to keep the defense of Japan as far removed from the homeland as possible. The Americans wanted control of Okinawa because it had four airfields and could support tactical and strategic air operations. It is about sixty miles long and ranges from two to eighteen miles wide and held strategic value for both the Americans and the Japanese. Okinawa is the largest of the Ryukyus Islands and lies 350 miles from mainland Japan. The Battle for Okinawa, April 1 to June 22, 1945, was the bloodiest battle of the Pacific War. Then, read up on Desmond Doss, the Hacksaw Ridge medic who saved dozens of soldiers’ lives during World War II.Some of the 1,500 ships and vessels that stretched to the horizon. Don’t mess with mother nature.Īfter this look at the Battle of Ramree Island that has been dubbed the “Ramree Island Massacre,” see some of the most powerful World War II photos ever taken. One thing is for certain: When given the choice of surrendering or taking chances in a crocodile-infested swamp, choose surrender. But exactly how many men died in the maws of the mighty crocs remains up for debate because no one knows how many troops succumbed to disease, dehydration, or starvation as opposed to predation. These Japanese troops told their captors about the crocodiles. What the British do know for sure is that 20 men came out of the swamp alive and were captured. The Guinness Book of World Records listed the Ramree Island massacre as the largest crocodile attack in history, according to Wikipedia. Of the 1,000 troops who entered the swamp on Ramree Island, only a reported 480 survived. At dawn the vultures arrived to clean up what the crocodiles had left.” The scattered rifle shots in the pitch black swamp punctured by the screams of the wounded men crushed in the jaws of huge reptiles, and the blurred worrying sound of spinning crocodiles made a cacophony of hell that has rarely been duplicated on Earth. With the ebb of the tide, the crocodiles moved in on the dead, wounded, and uninjured men who had become mired in the mud… The crocodiles, alerted by the din of warfare and smell of blood, gathered among the mangroves, lying with their eyes above the water, watchfully alert for their next meal.
“That night was the most horrible that any member of the M.L. The most prominent firsthand retelling of what happened comes from naturalist Bruce Stanley Wright, who participated in the Battle of Ramree Island and gave this written account: Several British soldiers said that the crocodiles preyed on the Japanese soldiers in the swamp. Even worse, saltwater crocodiles are nocturnal and excel at taking prey in the dark. Mosquitoes, spiders, poisonous snakes, and scorpions hid in the thick forest and picked off some troops one by one.Ĭrocodiles appeared when the Japanese got deeper into the swamp. Soon after entering the slimy mudhole, Japanese soldiers began to succumb to diseases, dehydration, and starvation. And in an incident not unlike the infamous U.S.S Indianapolis shark attack that befell American troops later that year, many of these troops didn’t survive. The Japanese understood that saltwater crocodiles have a reputation for eating humans but they went into the mangrove swamp of Ramree Island anyway.
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