Robert Leckie’s book, Okinawa: The Last Battle of World War II, is entirely about one of World War II’s most brutally fought battles. On April 1, 1945, the U.S. invaded Japan, attacking the island of Okinawa with 540,000 U.S. Army and Marines, and 1,600 ships. “ L Day” was the official name for this day. The L stood for “Landing,” but the Americans who invaded the Hagushi Beaches that day without any trouble from the Japanese, called it “Love Day.” This battle was the last battle of World War II and lasted a whopping eighty-three days. This invasion greatly outnumbered D-Day in weapons and in men.
Former Marine and Pacific War veteran, Robert Leckie describes this battle in depth, not only telling you about the Americans, but showing the…show more content… Given the assumption that nuclear weapons would add nothing to success, the battle of Okinawa was necessary to end World War II. If this battle never took place, there could have been a chance that the war would have lasted longer, which would dramatically increase all of the costs of the war. War is very costly, so the fact that Okinawa was the battle that ended the war proves that it was a rational decision to end all of these costs.
Okinawa: The Last Battle of World War II, is an accurate story of how the Americans invaded the island of Okinawa and fought the Japanese in one of the bloodiest battles of all times. According to Leckie, the Japanese lost 100,000 of their soldiers to this battle and 10,000 were taken prisoner. The American casualties totaled 49,151. There was not much left of the Japanese airpower after losing around 3,000 planes. 1,900 of these losses were made up of the suicide attack units, the kamikazes. This is compared with the 763 planes the Americans lost and 36 ships sunk and another 368 damaged. However, the Americans still had plenty left to invade Japan.
After eighty-three days of fighting the battle between the Americans and the Japanese was over. This battle was a crucial part of World War II because it ultimately ended the war. Although the author describes this battle successfully, he fails to display an understanding of the rational
