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OkinawaOkinawa was the scene of the last great U.S. amphibious campaign in World War II. U.S. army and marine forces landed there on Apr. 1, 1945, and fought one of the bloodiest campaigns of the war, while the navy offshore suffered heavy damage in resisting attacks by suicide planes (see kamikaze). The Japanese garrison, having lost 103,000 of its 120,000 men, ended organized resistance on June 21, 1945. U.S. casualties were 48,000, one fourth listed as dead. Okinawa was placed in Aug., 1945, under a U.S. military governor and remained under U.S. control until May, 1972, when it was returned to Japan. U.S. military bases were allowed to remain on the island; about three quarters of the American forces based in Japan are in Okinawa. Opposition to the bases from local residents grew in the mid-1990s, and in 2006 the United States and Japan agreed on a plan to redeploy 7,000 U.S. marines to Guam.
See J. Belote and W. Belote, Typhoon of Steel: The Battle for Okinawa (1970).
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