The battle of Okinawa was a major battle fought by the US Army and US Marines. The initial assault in April 1945 was the largest amphibious assault of WW2 in the Pacific. The battle lasted until June 1945. US suffered bet. 76,000 and 84,000 casualties. About 20,000 Army, 19,000 Marines, 11,000 Navy and about 30,000 non- battle casualties. Japan had bet. 105,000 and 110,000 casualties. To this day, the US Navy and US Marines have bases in Okinawa.
The Soviets were not kept completely from partitioning Japan in spite of the US use of the Nuclear bomb and ending the war as quickly as it could. They managed to take the Kuril Island chain that extends south from Sakhalin and was formerly Japanese territory, and they hold them still.
Hey Luka...just so you know, the British were DEEPLY involved with the Invasion and Battle of Okinawa. As the War in Europe was winding down, the UK began to send their naval forces to the Pacific as the initial part of their commitment to shifting forces over to assisting with the planned Allied Invasion of the Japanese Home Islands that was set to start in November of 1945. So there were 5 British fleet aircraft carriers at Okinawa...with around 250 aircraft total...along with an escort of 2 battleships, 7 light cruisers, and over 100 other screening, support and repair ships along to pitch in. I was not going to comment more, but this seemed like information you would definitely be interested.
Absolutely. The Brits, the Aussies, and the Kiwis fought along side the US all through the pacific theater. My great Uncle fought in the pacific and made sure I knew how brave the Aussies and Kiwis were. Don't worry too much about not knowing that part of British history. Indeed, history in the US pretty much focused on what American's did, with not nearly enough credit given to our brothers and sisters in arms.
It's curious that for a video which supposedly explains why Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, almost all of it is about the events after the attack. Before WW2, for the most part, the European powers and the U.S. still considered colonies to be acceptable. But that's only if the colonial power was a white Christian nation and the colonized people were not white. Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam were French colonies; Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, and all of South Asia were British; Indonesia was Dutch; the Philippines, Guam, and other Pacific islands were American; and Papua New Guinea was Australian, despite Australia itself still sort-of a a colony (actually a "dominion") of the UK. It was not unreasonable for Japan, as a growing power, to think it should have its own colonies. The colonial powers had the normal concerns that another country would steal what they considered their property, but there was also a degree of racial animosity. In fact, both the Japanese and Americans believed their enemy was racially inferior. We no longer do, but the U.S. had so many shipyards during WW2 that in just 3 years we built more than 3000 "Liberty" and "Victory" cargo ships, warships for the Royal Navy and other Allies, and a U.S. Navy that was larger than every other navy in the world combined. One of my grandfathers worked as a "steamfitter" in construction. This entitled him to a draft deferment, as long as he worked at the local shipyard. Among the ships he helped build were all 21 of the "Colony"-class frigates for the Royal Navy. They were quickly and cheaply built, because large numbers of them were needed to protect convoys against U-boats.
Hirohito didn't go "around" his generals. He was the one in command OF his generals. A myth was created that he was just a puppet not knowing what was happening with his military during the war. His prime minister Hideki Tojo was blamed for all of the war crimes committed during Japan's occupation of the lands they conquered and in the treatment of POWs. This allowed Hirohito to escape any blame and remain as the figurehead Emperor. His people thought of him as a god. Who knows what would have happened if they had prosecuted him and removed him from the throne?
I learned from someone who had a Japanese wife from that era an interesting fact. Before Pearl Harbor, Japanese immigrants to America were forced to send money to their families still in Japan. This "familial piety" ended after that. Don't ask on the whole details for "familial piety" since I don't even do any of that as a first generation American.
13:08 there were some atrocities committed on okinawans, but compared to what the axis and Soviets did after their victories, the marines were relative saints
When the War was won with Germany the Bombers returned destroy Dresden. It is called to The Victor Goes The Spoils. Dresden was not in any way involved in the war but was one of Germany’s most beautiful cities. When the Bomb was dropped on Hiroshima another was dropped on the beautiful city of Nagasaki. War is full of horrible traditions and tragedies.
14:06 Some of the most brutal and crazy battles/fights were in the pacific. You should check out some other vids about some of them. It is crazy how brainwashed the Japanese were and how willing they were to throw away their lives. It's actually the reason the USA decided to drop atomic bombs on them. They knew how brutal and costly the fights were on the islands and they were expecting more of the same, if not worse if they were to invade the main islands of Japan. So the allies believed that by killing a few hundred thousand in the atomic blasts, they'd save millions more. The plans they had to invade Japan would have beach landings that would have made D-Day in Normandy look like a small operation.
I spent 13 months on Okinawa with the US Marine Corps. At the southern end of the island is a place now called "suicide cliffs". It is a tall cliff and at the end of the battle, a substantial number of remaining Japanese soldiers and civilians chose to jump off the cliff and die rather than surrender. Today, there are monuments from each Japanese prefecture at the top of the cliff as a memorial to people from that prefecture who died there.
This was a very generalized video it makes a lot very broad statements without going into any complexity or detail. But I guess its not bad for a 20 minute video to summarize everything.
My birthday is August 5, if they dropped the first one on the 6th thennn they probably made the decision on the 5th... damnnn.... i couldve gone without making that connection! 😖😣
Johnny "CIA" Harris always makes the US out to be better than we are. If you're getting upset by his videos I feel so bad for you should you ever open an actual history book without all the propaganda in it.
I didn't see a slap. I've been studying the pacific theater my entire life and, while brief, I think his synopsis was pretty fair. Nearly every country writes history to favor itself, and the US is no different--especially when it comes to the causes of WWII. The history I was taught in High School was definitely shaded by rose colored glasses. It was only in college and then later after reading memoirs and "scholarly" historical articles produced by people dedicated to the truth that i began to learn that the average person only knows a small part of what happened.
@@TheArkDoc Really? I've always been under the impression that it's common history that Japan felt it was forced into war by Roosevelt's embargo on oil and other vital materials, more or less as this video says. From the American viewpoint, that didn't justify the attack and especially the way they did it, sending Ambassadors pretending to respond to Roosevelt's most recent peace proposal even as the attack was underway. But it's not an obscure view that Japan didn't act gratuitously.
@@TheArkDoc i am saying why did he start in the 1800s instead of just ww2 and the japanese rape of nanking anf attack on chinese people that made us cut the oil tap in the first place. this johnny guy always has to start his videos out with “USA BAD OK”
Japan’s problem was that they were kind of douches. By no means for the colonies good places to live, yet Japan managed to be a magnitude worse in a few years than the other empires were in decades to centuries of rule, somehow doing worse to the Philippines in 3 years than we did for the first 3 decades of rule. Maybe this is a problem when you conquer territories that hate you, and maybe Japan could’ve had millions more manpower and much better defended logistics if they didn’t have to constantly fight resistance groups.
