WWII U.S. Navy landing craft unloading supplies at Okinawa - photo

[Altair]

U.S. Navy landing craft unloading supplies and military equipment onto the beach at Okinawa in 1945.




Previously:

WWII Supermarine Spitfire fighter delivering beer - photo
WWII DUKW ladder amphibious transport - GIF
WWII heavy cruiser kamikaze imprint - photo
WWII German amphibious tank - photo
WWII Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka kamikaze aircraft - photos

[mklotz]

There were more than 1600 ships involved in the battle of Okinawa...

https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-...f-okinawa.html

Looking out to the horizon on that photo sure makes that astounding figure seem completely plausible.

[Toolmaker51]

I600 vessels, incalculable volume of supplies, and more in production; immediately queued up behind.
All of it unfathomable.
But here we are!

[drivermark]

Yeah it's amazing what we humans can accomplish in the quest to kill each other ain't it.

[Toolmaker51]

Yeah it's amazing what we humans can accomplish in the quest to kill each other ain't it.

That's a perspective.
Staving off a conquest is another.
Not uncommon when "we're gonna" fanaticism is opposed by "like hell you are", dogged determination.

[mklotz]

Yeah it's amazing what we humans can accomplish in the quest to kill each other ain't it.

The severe death toll at Okinawa, Hiroshima and Nagasaki is directly attributable to the insane stubbornness of the Japanese government in that era. Their navy was emasculated, their air force reduced to suicide squadrons and they were facing massive combined military forces that had driven them back across most of the Pacific. Any leader with a sense of humanity and a brain would have surrendered.

[Toolmaker51]

Through history it's proved over and over, fanaticism capitulates to more balanced opposition; they often become more balanced themselves.
This goes until individual subversives undermine 'good' purely to position themselves higher than they'd attain naturally, never the whole society, nor are 'they' the operatives. They excel coercing weak-minded souls do their bidding, probably lack stomach to conduct evil past the point of attaining real power.
So, there are now scattered regimes, flexing in efforts to intimidate others.
Not hard to spot and identify, but aren't willing to allow outsiders inspect the "terrific" conditions they flaunt actually exist; nor tolerate resistance from within.

[drivermark]

I seem to have not made my point clear. I was not disparaging the effort or the operation or the reasons for it at all. I was pointing out (or at least trying to) the mass concentrated effort of the operation and that, that type of effort rarely (if ever) happens for peaceful reasons.

[Toolmaker51]

It's perfectly reasonable to expect solutions before conflict. I think the contrary sounding comments were of the historical perspective.
I have all my body parts and (questionable, lol) sanity and volunteered 23 of 26 years.
All told, would rather have stayed ashore and started what I'm finally getting off the ground.

[EnginePaul]

I knew a few people who were on Okinawa, including two Chinese Americans that were seriously wounded. Both said they would do it again and that is from two guys that weren't even allowed to own land in many places before the war.
With all our detractors, we are still considered great by those who do things.