82 Days on Okinawa: One American’s Unforgettable Firsthand Account of the Pacific War’s Greatest Battle

The retired Shaw, a former unit commander in the U.S. Army’s 361st Artillery Battalion, debuts with a comprehensive and action-packed memoir of the Battle of Okinawa. Considered the last stepping stone for the Allied invasion of the Japanese home islands, Okinawa hosted nearly 100,000 Japanese ground troops and local draftees. Shaw claims to have been “the first actual fighting man” to set foot on the island, on April 1, 1945; the next morning, the 96th Infantry and eight other army and marine infantry divisions came ashore. The initial beach landings were unopposed, but as Shaw’s field artillery unit and the 96th Infantry advanced further inland, they encountered stiff resistance from Japanese forces dug into heavily fortified positions. Shaw served as his unit’s reconnaissance officer and visited the front lines regularly, where he witnessed fierce hand-to-hand combat and nighttime ambushes by Japanese fighters. As a unit commander, he also took part in the strategic planning behind the Allies’ advance. This dual perspective gives the book a wide-angled view that’s unusual in a soldier’s battle memoir. Though the reconstructed dialogue occasionally rings false (“ ‘Hara-kiri is an ancient form of the ultimate surrender in the Japanese art of war,’ I said”), this account gives a satisfying presentation of the bloodiest battle in the Pacific Theater of WWII.[em] (Mar.) [/em]