WWII

Admiral Minoru Ota is dead. In a cave overlooking the completely levelled installations of the Naha harbor, with only the masts and stacks of sunken ships showing, the commanding officers of the Japanese Okinawa base forces committed suicide.

Now that censorship has been lifted on the details of flame-throwing tanks, it’s possible to tell how they clicked during the largest-scale tank action of the Okinawa campaign.

Her superstructure was a flaming shambles, her skipper and 76 of her complement were dead, her wounded had to be placed in life jackets and cast overboard, but the destroyer Hazelwood refused to go down.

An infantry replacement who cracked a Japanese defense line that whole battalions couldn’t even dent is rapidly becoming a legend hereabouts.

Using every mountain climbing and flame-throwing tactic in the book, 7th division doughfeet have stormed and burned through the fortifications atop Yaeju-Dake plateau in what may turn out to be the final battle for Okinawa.

The going is easier now on Okinawa – and whatever hopes the Japanese had of stopping the avalanche of American fighting men is gone.