U.S. landing craft hit the beach at Okinawa. U.S.

U.S. landing craft hit the beach at Okinawa. U.S. landing craft loaded with heavily armed soldiers and Marines move toward the beach of Okinawa Island on March 31, 1945, at the start of the American invasion of the strategic Japanese outpost. Fourteen hundred ships and 1,500 carrier based planes supported the landing of the U.S. 10th Army on the island, which belongs to the Ryukyu (loochoo) group and is only 375 miles (600 km.) south of Japan. Five days later, U.S. forces had control of more than one-sixth of the island. Okinawa possesses one of the best harbours in the western Pacific, and airfields from which fighter planes can range to Japan and the China coast and heavy bombers to points as distant as Manchuria. NI 6561