Battle of Okinawa 1945
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Year | 1945 | Wikidata P585 (point in time) |
|---|---|---|
| Era | World War II era (1939–1945) | derived from year |
| Location | Japan | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Asia | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Volcano and Ryukyu Islands campaign, World War II | Wikidata P361 |
| Participants | Australia, Canada, Chester W. Nimitz, Claudius Miller Easley, Empire of Japan, Eren Yeager, Isamu Chō, Joseph Stilwell, Minoru Ōta, Mitsuru Ushijima, New Zealand, Raymond A. Spruance, Roy Geiger, Seiichi Itō, Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr., United Kingdom, United States, William Halsey Jr. | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 26.5000, 128.0000 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Battle of Okinawa (Japanese: 沖縄戦, Hepburn: Okinawa-sen), codenamed Operation Iceberg, was a major battle of the Pacific War fought on the island of Okinawa by the United States Army and United States Marine Corps forces against the Imperial Japanese Army. The initial invasion of Okinawa on 1 April 1945 was the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific Theater of World War II. The Kerama Islands surrounding Okinawa were preemptively captured on 26 March 1945 by the U.S. Army 77th Infantry Division. The 82-day battle on Okinawa lasted from 1 April 1945 until 22 June 1945. After a long campaign of island hopping, the Allies were planning to use Kadena Air Base on the island as a staging point for Operation Downfall, the planned invasion of the Japanese home islands,
340 mi (550 km) away.
The United States created the Tenth Army, a cross-branch force consisting of the U.S. Army 7th, 27th, 77th and 96th Infantry Divisions with the 1st, 2nd, and 6th Marine Divisions, to secure the island. The Tenth Army was unique because it had its own Tactical Air Force (joint Army-Marine command) and was supported by combined naval and amphibious forces.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of Okinawa (revision 1377209886), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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