On April 1, 1945 with the battle of Okinawa beginning, fourteen-year-old native Okinawan Hideki, drafted into the Blood and Iron Student Corps, is handed two grenades and told to go kill American soldiers; small for his age Hideki does not really want to kill anyone, he just wants to find his family, and his struggle across the island will finally bring him face-to-face with Ray, a marine in his very first battle--and the choice he makes then will...

The last battle in World War II, Okinawa, where Japan's brutal last stand against overwhelming American force was one of the bloodiest conflicts of the Pacific theater with over twelve thousand killed, forty-five thousand wounded --- one hundred thousand Japanese soldiers and an equal number of Okinawan civilians died.

Describes the desperate struggle between American and Japanese forces for mastery of the Pacific island Okinawa towards the end of World War II.

History of the USS Hugh W. Hadley (DD774) which shot down more Japanese kamikaze aircraft than any other U.S. Navy ship, during the battle for Okinawa in 1945. This new book by a relative of a crew member killed that day off Okinawa, tells the story of the ship, and that fateful day, through the words of many of the survivors, which the author interviewed. This is not just a story about a ship, but about the men that made that ship a legend in the...

On Easter Sunday, April 1, 1945, more than 184,000 US troops began landing on the only Japanese home soil invaded during the Pacific war. Just 350 miles from mainland Japan, Okinawa was to serve as a forward base for Japan's invasion in the fall of 1945. Nearly 140,000 Japanese and auxiliary soldiers fought with suicidal tenacity from hollowed-out, fortified hills and ridges. Under constant fire and in the rain and mud, the Americans battered the...

"With Allied forces sweeping across Europe and into Germany in the spring of 1945, one enormous challenge threatened to derail American's audacious drive to win the world back from the Axis powers: Japan. Taking down Japan would require an unrelenting attack to break its national spirit, and launching such an attack on the island empire meant building an operations base just off its shores on the island of Okinawa. The amphibious operation to capture...

"As the new millennium opens, the greatest generation draws to a close. The December of their years are closing fast. Soon the men and women who lived through the war will only be memories. The Last Reunion depicts the experience and turmoil that they encountered through the years by using their unit (Seventy-Seventh Infantry Division) reunions as milestones. The central character is a platoon sergeant who leads them through the war years and remained...