with the name okinawa from this. as the setting for some of the most horrifyingly bloody battles of the second world war. how horrifying? for the allies there were more than 50,000 casualties with around 12,000 killed, or missing in action, over nearly three months of fighting. more than 100,000 japanese soldiers and okinawan conscripts were killed defending the island. civilians were stuck in the middle of the two armies and got crushed. no one will know for sure, but historians estimate 150,000 men, women, and children lost their lives during the battle. what most don't know is that okinawa had only become japan fairly recently. that to a great extent, okinawans didn't even consider themselves really japanese or vice-versa. that okinawans and japanese considered themselves to be different ethnicities, spoke two