Presumably everyone has seen Mel released in 2016. Gibson's film Hacksaw Ridge, which features brutal war and hand-to-hand combat, starred Dausmond. Dawes's fearless spirit of rescuing his teammates in front of the enemy in spite of his own comfort deeply shocked and touched us, making us truly realize the cruelty of war, so what was the real Hacksaw Ridge campaign like? Let's take a look at it.
The Battle of Hacksaw Ridge was the Battle of Okinawa between Japan and the United States, which at that time was an ordinary hill bag on the island of Okinawa, and Okinawa was formerly called Ryukyu. Okinawa is the largest island in the Ryukyu Islands, located at the midpoint of the island chain between Kyushu, Japan, and Taiwan, about 370 nautical miles away. Okinawa is about 100 kilometers long, more than 10 kilometers wide, and has a total area of about 1,100 square kilometers, which is a giant compared to the neighboring Iwo Jima. Okinawa is shaped like a reclining silkworm with its back arched, tailing Kyushu, Japan, and heading toward Taiwan, China, lying obliquely on the edge of the East China Sea. The island is densely forested, the terrain is rugged, and the limestone caves are densely packed throughout the island, which is especially suitable for defense.
Okinawa is the last gateway in the Pacific Ocean for Japan. Once Okinawa is lost, the sea and air supremacy over the mainland, Korea and the coastal areas of China will all be lost, and the Japanese army base camp judges that the US military must first land on Okinawa before attacking the Japanese mainland, so the Japanese army attaches great importance to the defense of Okinawa. So this battle is of great significance. The first is because Okinawa is Japanese territory, and the second is because on okinawa island, bombers flying from the new airfield of the US military can be 100% full of bombs, and then blow up Japanese strategic targets. Most importantly, the B-29, the atomic bomber that bombed Japan, took off from okinawa airfield.
In January 1945, the Japanese army on okinawa consisted of two divisions and a brigade of the Army, plus some of the Navy's garrison and Marine Corps, a total of about 100,000 people, under the command of Lieutenant General Ujima Man, commander of the 32nd Army of the Japanese Army. In order to win this battle, the US military spared no expense, almost mobilized most of the main forces of the navy and army in the Pacific Theater, and the British Navy's Far East Fleet also participated in the operation, with a total of 34 regular aircraft carriers and escort aircraft carriers, 2108 carrier-based aircraft, 22 battleships, 320 other combat ships, and 500 landing transport ships. The landing force was the U.S. 10th Army, commanded by Vice Admiral Buckner, under the command of the 3rd Marine Corps (1st, 2nd, 6th Divisions) and the 24th Army (7th, 27th, 77th, 96th Infantry Division), and the 81st Infantry Division served as a reserve, totaling about 180,000 people, twice the strength of the Japanese army on the island.
The ground force defending Okinawa was the Japanese Army's 32nd Army, commanded by Lieutenant General Ushijima Man, which originally had 3 divisions and 1 brigade, but in November 1944, the base camp transferred the most elite 9th Division to Taiwan, which greatly reduced the strength of the Okinawa defenders and seriously affected their morale. On 1 April, the U.S. army officially began to land, and the landing went very smoothly, because the Japanese did not shell the beachhead or come out of the tunnel to counterattack. The main fighting took place in the south of the island. The American army attacked south, the spearhead was pointed at Shurijo Castle, and finally encountered the stubborn resistance of the Japanese army. The fighting at Hacksaw Ridge took place during this period. The U.S. army needed to use explosive packs and flamethrowers to kill the Japanese bunkers, caves and tunnels one by one, and it was difficult to move and suffer heavy casualties. But the stupidity of the Japanese army did the American army a favor.
A large number of senior Japanese officers, represented by Lieutenant General Yong, chief of staff of the 32nd Army, all thought that it was very dishonorable to hide in the cave and run around like rats, and strongly demanded a decisive counterattack. On May 4, the Japanese poured out of the tunnels, launched a "banzai charge", and launched a full-scale counterattack, which resulted in exposure to the superior firepower of the American army, with heavy losses, especially more than half of the artillery losses, and was forced to retreat to the original defense line the next day. This death-defying counteroffensive caused great damage to the Japanese army.
On April 5, the Japanese Navy launched operation Kikusui-1, and took out the treasure at the bottom of the pressure box. The World's largest battleship, the Yamato, led a number of destroyers and cruisers toward Okinawa, hoping to wipe out the U.S. landing fleet on the beach with its huge guns. But this small fleet was soon discovered by the U.S. military. On April 7, Yamato was attacked by 386 U.S. carrier-based aircraft, hitting 10 torpedoes and five bombs, and eventually sank. 3,700 naval officers were buried at the bottom of the sea, and the Japanese suicidal special attack operations in the air and on the sea did not change the situation of the war, but only wasted the lives of soldiers.
The failure of such an evil regime to perish will only bring more disasters to the Japanese people and to the people of the whole world. In the face of the increasingly powerful offensive of the US army, the Japanese army gradually became difficult to support. On May 22, Ushijima finally decided to abandon Shuri on his own initiative and retreated to the Kiyatake Peninsula, the southernmost part of Okinawa. On the 29th, the US army occupied Shuri. The U.S. army continued to attack the Japanese army on the Kiyamu Peninsula to the south, fighting hard and compressing its position step by step. On June 18, Lieutenant General Buckner, commander of the U.S. 10th Army, was killed by a Japanese shell while inspecting the front line, becoming the highest-ranking U.S. general killed in the Pacific War. On the 22nd, the U.S. army had already attacked under the nose, and the Japanese commander, Lieutenant General Mannahina Ushijima, and the chief of staff, Lieutenant General Yong, committed suicide by caesarean section. The Japanese defenders were completely annihilated, and the Americans occupied Okinawa.
The Battle of Okinawa, code-named Operation Iceberg, was a battle fought on the main island of Okinawa in the Ryukyu Islands and the largest amphibious landing in the Pacific Theater of World War II. The 82-day battle began in early April 1945 and ended in mid-June. In this battle, the Japanese army lost more than 90,000 people, 7,400 prisoners, about 100,000 island residents died, lost 7,830 aircraft, sank 16 ships, and wounded 4. The Battle of Okinawa, the last large-scale amphibious operation of the Pacific War, sounded the death knell of the Japanese Empire.
Wars are all cruel, and we must learn from history and safeguard our hard-won peaceful life.