Ulithi Atoll, Caroline Islands, Western Pacific • January 9, 1945 Toward the end of 1943, the Japanese high command in Tokyo recognized the unfavorable progress of the war that shrank their nation’s watery outer defense perimeter closer and closer to the 4 Home Islands themselves as the Allies seized one Pacific island after another. Seemingly overnight…
Ulithi Atoll, Caroline Islands, Western Pacific • November 20, 1944 On this date in November 1944, an hour before daybreak, 3 Japanese Kaitens—human-piloted torpedoes—wakelessly and silently motored eastward through an opening in the coral reef that surrounded the 212‑sq. mile/596‑sq. km Ulithi lagoon in the Caroline Islands. Up until early 1945 Ulithi Atoll was the U.S….
Aboard Admiral Spruance’s Flagship USS Indianapolis • April 1, 1945 For weeks the largest Allied fleet since Operation Overlord 10 months earlier—nearly 1,500 U.S. and British vessels—fired 2.3 million shells onto Okinawa, the largest island in the Ryukyu archipelago and a little more than 300 miles/483 kilometers from Kyūshū and Shikoku, the southernmost Japanese Home Islands. (Tokyo was 550 miles/855 kilometers away.)…
U.S. Navy Offshore Okinawa, Ryukyu Islands • March 26, 1945 Late in 1944 Vice Admiral Takijirō Ōnishi, recently appointed commander of the First Air Fleet in Japanese-held Manila, the Philippine’s capital, championed a special attack force (tokubetsu kogeki tai, abbreviated as tokkotai) that would inflict maximum damage on Allied naval vessels squeezing the island empire: Japan’s…
Aboard Admiral Spruance’s Flagship USS Indianapolis · April 1, 1945 For weeks the largest Allied fleet since D‑Day—nearly 1,500 U.S. and British vessels—fired 2.3 million shells onto Okinawa, the largest island in the Ryukyu archipelago and a little more than 300 miles/483 km from Kyūshū and Shikoku, the southernmost Japanese Home Islands. Kyūshū and Shikoku were home to many…
U.S. Navy Offshore Okinawa, Ryukyu Islands · March 26, 1945 Late in 1944 Rear Admiral Takajiro Ohnishi, commander of the First Air Fleet in Japanese-held Manila, the Philippine’s capital, championed a special attack force (tokubetsu kogeki tai, abbreviated as tokkotai) that would inflict maximum damage on Allied naval vessels squeezing the island empire: Japan’s food…
Aboard Admiral Spruance’s Flagship USS Indianapolis · April 1, 1945 For weeks the largest Allied fleet since D‑Day—nearly 1,500 U.S. and British vessels—fired 2.3 million shells onto Okinawa, the largest island in the Rykuyu archipelago and a little more than 300 miles from Kyūshū and Shikoku, the southernmost Japanese home islands. Kyūshū and Shikoku were home to many…
U.S. Navy Offshore Okinawa, Ryukyu Islands · March 26, 1945 Late in 1944 Rear Admiral Takajiro Ohnishi, commander of the First Air Fleet in Japanese-held Manila, championed a special attack force (tokubetsu kogeki tai, abbreviated as tokkotai) that would inflict maximum damage on Allied naval vessels squeezing the island empire: Japan’s food supply and fuel reserves…