Science, saved hundreds??????

How about saved 100's of thousands Oz.

Remember we had superiorty at Okinawa the last step to the
japanese mainland. And we had it at ever island we jumped on the way
to the mainland. Okinawa was the largest amphibious invasion of the
Pacific campaign and the last major campaign of the Pacific War. More
ships were used, more troops put ashore, more supplies transported,
more bombs dropped, more naval guns fired against shore targets than
any other operation in the Pacific. More people died during the Battle
of Okinawa than all those killed during the atomic bombings of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Casualties totaled more than 38,000 Americans
wounded and 12,000 killed or missing, more than 107,000 Japanese and
Okinawan conscripts killed, and perhaps 100,000 Okinawan civilians who
perished in the battle.

The battle of Okinawa proved to be the bloodiest battle of the Pacific
War. Thirty-four allied ships and craft of all types had been sunk,
mostly by kamikazes, and 368 ships and craft damaged. The fleet had
lost 763 aircraft. Total American casualties in the operation numbered
over 12,000 killed [including nearly 5,000 Navy dead and almost 8,000
Marine and Army dead] and 36,000 wounded. Navy casualties were
tremendous, with a ratio of one killed for one wounded as compared to
a one to five ratio for the Marine Corps. Combat stress also caused
large numbers of psychiatric casualties, a terrible hemorrhage of
front-line strength. There were more than 26,000 non-battle
casualties. In the battle of Okinawa, the rate of combat losses due to
battle stress, expressed as a percentage of those caused by combat
wounds, was 48% [in the Korean War the overall rate was about 20-25%,
and in the Yom Kippur War it was about 30%]. American losses at
Okinawa were so heavy as to illicite Congressional calls for an
investigation into the conduct of the military commanders. Not
surprisingly, the cost of this battle, in terms of lives, time, and
material, weighed heavily in the decision to use the atomic bomb
against Japan just six weeks later.


Japanese human losses were enormous: 107,539 soldiers killed and
23,764 sealed in caves or buried by the Japanese themselves; 10,755
captured or surrendered. The Japanese lost 7,830 aircraft and 16
combat ships. Since many Okinawan residents fled to caves where they
subsequently were entombed the precise number of civilian casualties
will probably never be known, but the lowest estimate is 42,000
killed. Somewhere between one-tenth and one-fourth of the civilian
population perished, though by some estimates the battle of Okinawa
killed almost a third of the civilian population. According to US Army
records during the planning phase of the operation, the assumption was
that Okinawa was home to about 300,000 civilians. At the conclusion of
hostilities around 196,000 civilians remained. However, US Army
figures for the 82 day campaign showed a total figure of 142,058
civilian casualties, including those killed by artillery fire, air
attacks and those who were pressed into service by the Japanese army.

Saved a few hundred ay?

Capt. Suzy & Admiral Thomas
35s5
NY