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Okinawa and the Philippines
- Okinawa is an island located in the Ryuku Island chain in Japan. - The battle that took place there from April-June, 1945 was the largest air-sea-land battle in history. The operation, code named Operation Iceburg, was fought to cut of Japan’s access to the southern islands, which would cut off their supplies because all their goods came from the southern islands. -The US would also want to use Okinawa as an air base that was closer to Japan so they could fulfill their plans for defeating Japan. - This battle is known to be the last of World War II. - About one-third of the civilian population on the island was killed during the battle and at least one-half of the remaining were injured. -The island officially fell on June 21, 1945 . -Very few Japanese were taken prisoner because committing suicide instead of falling into enemy hands as a prisoner was more acceptable.
-The Philippines were bombed almost immediately after Pearl Harbor on December 8, 1941. -The attack was a surprise and caused extensive damage to the air field and destroyed half of the heavy bombers. The next day, the Japanese struck again and hit the main naval base and crippled any chance of retaliation. -Manila was taken over shortly afterward and the Philippines were occupied by the Japanese until October 20, 1944, when the campaign to liberate the Philippines was launched, led by General Douglas MacArthur. -The fighting was slow and took a year to fully rid the Philippines of Japanese soldiers. There were only pockets of Japanese soldiers by June 1945, but they continued fighting until they all surrendered on September 2, 1945 .
