World Battlefronts: To the Death

The biggest and fiercest battle in the post-V-E world was in progress last week in Okinawa. U.S. troops were advancing in the oldfashioned, inescapable .way, one foot at a time, against the kind of savage, rat-in-a-hole defense that only the Japanese can offer. From the detached, historical point of view (a luxury no man in battle can afford), the whole thing was an elaborate real-estate transaction. The U.S. wanted so much ground for bases. The Japs fought to the death because of the obvious fact that if the Americans could take Okinawa, eventually...