Okinawa Odyssey

Okinawa Odyssey PDF Author: Bob Green
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
"On April 1, 1945, sixty thousand troops landed with little initial opposition on the shores of Okinawa, Japan. It was the beginning of Operation Iceberg, a battle that would prove to be the largest amphibious invasion of World War II. It was also the deadliest." "Young, ranch-raised Texan Bob Green took part in this immensely important conflict as a second lieutenant in the 763rd Tank Battalion, attached to the 96th Infantry Division. In poignant letters home to his family, Green paints a picture of the Battle of Okinawa from the point of view of a front-line tank soldier. Yet, through Green's gentle, but wry humor, the stark realities of war are offset by the naivete of the Texas cowboy." "Okinawa Odyssey presents those letters and Green's memories of the last great battle of the Pacific Theater in a story of war and remembrance, homesickness and fear, and ultimately, triumph."--BOOK JACKET.

Okinawa Odyssey

Okinawa Odyssey PDF Author: Bob Green
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Get Book

Book Description
"On April 1, 1945, sixty thousand troops landed with little initial opposition on the shores of Okinawa, Japan. It was the beginning of Operation Iceberg, a battle that would prove to be the largest amphibious invasion of World War II. It was also the deadliest." "Young, ranch-raised Texan Bob Green took part in this immensely important conflict as a second lieutenant in the 763rd Tank Battalion, attached to the 96th Infantry Division. In poignant letters home to his family, Green paints a picture of the Battle of Okinawa from the point of view of a front-line tank soldier. Yet, through Green's gentle, but wry humor, the stark realities of war are offset by the naivete of the Texas cowboy." "Okinawa Odyssey presents those letters and Green's memories of the last great battle of the Pacific Theater in a story of war and remembrance, homesickness and fear, and ultimately, triumph."--BOOK JACKET.

Bloody Okinawa

Bloody Okinawa PDF Author: Joseph Wheelan
Publisher: Hachette Books
ISBN: 0306903210
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
A stirring narrative of World War II's final major battle—the Pacific war's largest, bloodiest, most savagely fought campaign—the last of its kind. 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 defenders with artillery, aerial bombing, naval gunfire, and every infantry tool. Waves of Japanese kamikaze and conventional warplanes sank 36 warships, damaged 368 others, and killed nearly 5,000 US seamen. When the slugfest ended after 82 days, more than 125,000 enemy soldiers lay dead—along with 7,500 US ground troops. Tragically, more than 100,000 Okinawa civilians perished while trapped between the armies. The brutal campaign persuaded US leaders to drop the atomic bomb instead of invading Japan. Utilizing accounts by US combatants and Japanese sources, author Joseph Wheelan endows this riveting story of the war's last great battle with a compelling human dimension.

Uniquely Okinawan

Uniquely Okinawan PDF Author: Courtney A. Short
Publisher: Fordham University Press
ISBN: 0823288404
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Uniquely Okinawan explores how American soldiers, sailors, and Marines considered race, ethnicity, and identity in the planning and execution of the wartime occupation of Okinawa, during and immediately after the Battle of Okinawa, 1945–46.

Zen Odyssey, An Okinawan Karate & Martial Arts Journey

Zen Odyssey, An Okinawan Karate & Martial Arts Journey PDF Author: Mark D Bishop
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 132690521X
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description
An entertaining odyssey by all means, which all readers, not only karate-ka, can enjoy. The work describes a fascinating 'voyage of discovery' through the Okinawan martial arts during the author's younger years. Both informative & factual, the work leads the reader on a journey of initiation from the preliminary stages of being a 'live-in disciple' of Goju-ryu & trainee of Matayoshi Kobudo in post-Reversion Okinawa, as he travels with the reader through the exploration of Uechi-ryu, Shorin-ryu & Okinawan te; also of a vast spectrum of connected Ryukyuan cultural entities. His attention to detail is commendable, as the shared expedition becomes an esoteric odyssey to find the zen spark of enlightenment that evades so many seekers, but which can be found within one's own nature. Mark D Bishop is arguably the foremost authority on historical Okinawa karate & martial arts. He continues to write, travel, research and teach extensively on various aspects of these, including its related anma bodywork & zen.

To the End of the Earth

To the End of the Earth PDF Author: John C. McManus
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593186885
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 465

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Book Description
From the liberation of the Philippines to the Japanese surrender, the final volume of John C. McManus's trilogy on the US Army in the Pacific War “Brilliant [and] riveting… a truly great book.”—Gen. David Petraeus • “Triumphant [and] compelling.”—Richard Frank • “McManus is one of the best—if not the best—World War II historians working today.”—World War II magazine The dawn of 1945 finds a US Army at its peak in the Pacific. Allied victory over Japan is all but assured. The only question is how many more months—or years—of fight does the enemy have left. John C. McManus, winner of the Gilder Lehrman Prize for Military History, concludes his magisterial series, described by the Wall Street Journal as being “as vast and splendid as Rick Atkinson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Liberation Trilogy,” with this brilliant final volume. On the island of Luzon, a months-long stand-off between US and Japanese troops finally breaks open, as American soldiers push into Manila, while paratroopers and amphibious invaders capture nearby Corregidor. The Philippines are soon liberated, and Allied strategists turn their eyes to China, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and the Japanese home islands themselves. Readers will walk in the boots of American soldiers and officers, braving intense heat, rampant disease, and a by-now suicidal enemy, determined to kill as many opponents as possible before defeat, and they will encounter Japanese soldiers faced with the terrible choice between capitulation or doom. At the same time, this outstanding narrative lays bare the titanic ego and ambition of the Pacific War’s most prominent general, Douglas MacArthur, and the complex challenges he faced in Japan’s unconditional surrender and America’s lengthy occupation.

Big Guns, Brave Men

Big Guns, Brave Men PDF Author: Rodney E Walton
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
ISBN: 1612511317
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
Although it was the largest and final battle of the Pacific War, the Battle for Okinawa has long been overshadowed by other dramatic events in 1945. The books that have been written about it emphasize the role of infantrymen, armor, and U.S. Marines. This work takes a fresh perspective and focuses on the vital role played by the U.S. Army’s forward artillery observers—the eyes and ears of American artillery who were among the least recognized heroes of the war. According to Rodney Earl Walton, U.S. artillerymen matched Japanese gunners in intensity and surpassed them in effectiveness because their forward observers were able to provide a much shorter response time to requests for artillery support. Divided into teams consisting of four or five men led by an artillery lieutenant, these observers would spend three days on the front lines directing artillery against enemy positions, return to their artillery battery for three days, and then rotate up to the line of battle again. While trying to maximize the damage inflicted on the enemy, the men had to deal with the ever-present possibility of firing on their own forces. The ability to shift artillery fire throughout the battlefield was a new development in World War II, and its evolution is fully examined in the book. Walton, the son of one of the forward observers on Okinawa, spent more than twenty years investigating what happened to his father and other artillerymen during the conflict. Interviews with the artillerymen and the infantrymen they supported are central to his story, which is filled with gripping and sometimes humorous accounts of what happened. The work stands as a stirring tribute from the “baby boom generation” to the “greatest generation.

The Ultimate Battle

The Ultimate Battle PDF Author: Bill Sloan
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0743292472
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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Book Description
The Ultimate Battle tells the full story of the Battle of Okinawa as it has never been told before, utilizing the same up-close narrative style and "grunt's-eye" view of the action that distinguishes Sloan's Brotherhood of Heroesfrom other war books. It is a gripping story of heroism, sacrifice, and death in the largest land-sea-air operation in US history. From April through June 1945, more than 250,000 American and Japanese lives were lost (including those of nearly 150,000 civilians who either committed suicide or were caught in the crossfire). The Ultimate Battle is a searing re-creation of the Okinawa campaign as seen through the eyes of men who were in the midst of it, and it is filled with fresh insights that only these men can provide.

Devil Dogs

Devil Dogs PDF Author: Saul David
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1639362002
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 483

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Book Description
Award-winning historian Saul David reveals the searing experience of the Devil Dogs of World War II and does for the U.S. Marines what Band of Brothers did for the 101st Airborne. The “Devil Dogs” of King Company, Third Battalion, 5th Marines—part of the legendary 1st Marine Division—were among the first American soldiers to take the offensive in World World II—and also the last. They landed on the beaches of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands in August 1942—the first US ground offensive of the war—and were present when Okinawa, Japan’s most southerly prefecture, finally fell to American troops after a bitter struggle in June 1945. In between they fought in the “Green Hell” of Cape Gloucester on the island of New Britain, and across the coral wasteland of Peleliu in the Palau Islands, a campaign described by one King Company veteran as “thirty days of the meanest, around-the-clock slaughter that desperate men can inflict on each other.” Ordinary men from very different backgrounds, and drawn from cities, towns, and settlements across America, the Devil Dogs were asked to do something extraordinary: take on the victorious Imperial Japanese Army, composed of some of the most effective, “utterly ruthless and treacherous” soldiers in world history—and defeat it. This is the story of how they did just that and, in the process, forged bonds of brotherhood that still survive today. Remarkably, the company contained an unusually high number of talented writers, whose first-hand accounts and memoirs provide the color, emotion, and context for this extraordinary story. In Devil Dogs, award-winning historian Saul David sets the searing experience of the Devil Dogs into the broader context of the brutal war in the Pacific and does for the U.S. Marines what Band of Brothers did for the 101st Airborne.

Island Infernos

Island Infernos PDF Author: John C. McManus
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0451475062
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 657

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Book Description
In Fire and Fortitude—winner of the Gilder Lehrman Prize for Military History—John C. McManus presented a riveting account of the US Army's fledgling fight in the Pacific following Pearl Harbor. Now, in Island Infernos, he explores the Army’s dogged pursuit of Japanese forces, island by island, throughout 1944, a year that would bring America ever closer to victory or defeat. “A feat of prodigious scholarship.”—The Wall Street Journal • “Wonderful.”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch • “Outstanding.”—Publishers Weekly • “Rich and absorbing.”—Richard Overy, author of Blood and Ruins • “A considerable achievement, and one that, importantly, adds much to our understanding of the Pacific War.”—James Holland, author of Normandy ’44 After some two years at war, the Army in the Pacific held ground across nearly a third of the globe, from Alaska’s Aleutians to Burma and New Guinea. The challenges ahead were enormous: supplying a vast number of troops over thousands of miles of ocean; surviving in jungles ripe with dysentery, malaria, and other tropical diseases; fighting an enemy prone to ever-more desperate and dangerous assaults. Yet the Army had proven they could fight. Now, they had to prove they could win a war. Brilliantly researched and written, Island Infernos moves seamlessly from the highest generals to the lowest foot soldiers and in between, capturing the true essence of this horrible conflict. A sprawling yet page-turning narrative, the story spans the battles for Saipan and Guam, the appalling carnage of Peleliu, General MacArthur’s dramatic return to the Philippines, and the grinding jungle combat to capture the island of Leyte. This masterful history is the second volume of John C. McManus’s trilogy on the US Army in the Pacific War, proving McManus to be one of our finest historians of World War II.

Confrontation Over Taiwan

Confrontation Over Taiwan PDF Author: Leonard H. D. Gordon
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 9780739118696
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
Confrontation over Taiwan: Nineteenth Century China and the Powers is a full and detailed account of international relations of Taiwan during the nineteenth century and specifically, the period between 1840 and 1895. During this time the western powers and Japan were engaged in imperialist designs seeking commercial and strategic gain in the South China Sea, which ultimately led to the Japanese colonization of Taiwan. Leonard Gordon, a diplomatic historian of East Asia, closely examines the foreign policies of China, Great Britain, the United States, France, and Japan. Also taking account of historic events on Taiwan and the mainland, Gordon has researched, in addition to the extensive published national records, unpublished archival materials in Taiwan, Japan, the United States, and Great Britain. Providing a context for understanding the current situation in Taiwan, the thorough research and historical analysis of Confrontation over Taiwan make this an essential book for students of East Asian History and International Affairs.