82 Days on Okinawa82 Days on Okinawa

On Easter Sunday, April 1, 1945, 1.5 million men gathered aboard 1,500 Allied ships off the coast of the Japanese island of Okinawa, to launch the largest amphibious assault on the Pacific Theater. Then-Major Shaw was the first American officer ashore, a unit commander in the U.S. Army's 361st Field Artillery Battalion of the 96th Infantry Division, nicknamed the Deadeyes. For the next three months their artillery proving decisive against a phantom enemy who had entrenched itself in the rugged, craggy island. This is his unprecedented soldier's-eye view of the Pacific War's bloodiest battle-- the climactic final land battle of World War II.