But Allied submarines spotted the Yamato and alerted the fleet who then launched a crippling air attack. On April 7, Japan’s mighty battleship Yamato was sent to launch a surprise attack on the Fifth Fleet and then annihilate American troops pinned down near the Shuri Line. It was different along the Shuri Line where they had to overcome a series of heavily defended hills loaded with firmly-entrenched Japanese troops. Battleship YamatoĪmerican troops who headed North to the Motobu Peninsula endured intense resistance and over 1,000 casualties but won a decisive battle relatively quickly. Japanese troops had been instructed not to fire on the American landing forces but instead watch and wait for them, mostly in Shuri, a rugged area of southern Okinawa where General Ushijima had set up a triangle of defensive positions known as the Shuri Defense Line. What they didn’t know was the Japanese Imperial Army had them just where they wanted them. After obliterating Japanese troops in the brutal Battle of Iwo Jima, they set their sights on the isolated island of Okinawa, their last stop before reaching Japan.Īs they moved inland, American troops wondered when and where they’d finally encounter enemy resistance. In the Pacific theater, however, American forces were still painstakingly conquering Japan’s Home Islands, one after another. Allied and Soviet troops had liberated much of Nazi-occupied Europe and were just weeks away from forcing Germany’s unconditional surrender. Okinawa Islandīy the time American troops landed on Okinawa, the war on the European front was nearing its end. Though it resulted in an Allied victory, kamikaze fighters, rainy weather and fierce fighting on land, sea and air led to a large death toll on both sides. The invasion was part of Operation Iceberg, a complex plan to invade and occupy the Ryukyu Islands, including Okinawa. Marine Corps troops descended on the Pacific island of Okinawa for a final push towards Japan. On April 1, 1945-Easter Sunday-the Navy’s Fifth Fleet and more than 180,000 U.S. The Battle of Okinawa (April 1, 1945-June 22, 1945) was the last major battle of World War II, and one of the bloodiest.

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