| A Marine of the First Marine Division aims at a Japanese sniper with his tommy-gun as his companion ducks for cover during the three-month Battle of Okinawa in 1945. Though the Americans finally prevailed on 22 June 1945, 13,000 soldiers were killed and 37,000 wounded. The tenacity of the Japanese forces, whose entire garrison was wiped out, convinced President Harry Truman to drop the atomic bomb on Japan rather than invade and suffer potentially horrendous losses to his own troops. |
[National Archives] |
