Im oliver north and this is war stories. How do you fight an enemy so dangerous, so desperate hes literally willing to kill himself in order to destroy you . You fight to the death, thats how. On the island of okinawa, thats exactly what the soldiers, sailors, around marines did in a gut wrenching final showdown with Japanese Forces in the spring of 1945. This is the story of what was to be the last battle of world war ii. The bloodiest conflict of the pacific theater, with over 600 wounded and more than 100,000 japanese soldiers and equal number of civilians died. This would become japans brutal last stand against overwhelming american force. At sea, ferocious fighting between american ships an sued seed a kamikaze pilots killed more sailors than any other battle, including pearl harbor. And on land, one soldier called the battleground the most ghastly corner of hell he had ever witnessed. Spring, 1945. The tide of war had turned, but it wasnt over yet. One year earlier at normandy, allied forces invaded, putting hitler on the defensive in europe. Much fighting needs to be done. Across the pacific, the japanese time was already running out. Fighting for the allies for three years had taken a toll on the army, navy, and air force on japan. An air bass near mainland japan was secured. Back at home, the war effort was in full swing. Women were on the job, filling in for the 16 million american men in uniform. What will the decision be, peace or war . America was waging war on two fronts. Casual tties mounted. Over a million americans were dead or wounded. The war is heating up. But for those that think its over, let the think of this. At 17, i decided that was the biggest show in the world and i was going to have to be part of it. I volunteered for the raiders and they accepted me. Dan bartons two older brothers were marines. In 1943 he came a marine raider. Many people were telling me, youre too soft. Youre not going to beat the japanese. Larry joined the navy and requested sea duty. I was a kid out of high school. High School Friends had been killed in north africa. Herman celebrated his 19th birthday with the 96th infantry birthday. On my 19th birthday, they had a foxholetofoxhole network set up and sang happy birthday. An island 360 miles off the coast of japan, okinawa, the emperors doorstep. It was the door to japan, and they knew that better than we did. The japanese government, after the wall of iwa jima, knew the americans were going to strike at okinawa. They knew that once okinawa fell, it was only a matter of time before the invasion of japan. Okinawa, the most Strategic Point invaded thus far. The proximity to japan made okinawa critical to the allied plan. Get an unconditional japanese surrender, even if they had to go to tokyo to get it. The island is 60 miles long, populated with farmers. Because of the large civilian population that inhabited the island for centuries, there was turtle back tombs made of stone thats part of the culture. Theyre burial vaulting. Son of a confederate general, would lead the amphibious assault, operation iceberg. He was physically in suburb shape. He was tough as nails. And the men liked him. Buckner and his young son bill went on a last fishing trip before the war. We were close. We had a glorious fishing trip together in alaska in 1941, just before the war, catching huge rainbow trout. On the other side leading the japanese 32nd army, a Senior Member of imperial head quarters, he assembled one of the most effective combat teams in history. He was a very capable commander. He was relatively small in stature, and he was the type of leader that would allow his staff to prepare plans and so forth, then he would ratify them. Soon american troops are to land here, preceded by an immense bombardment. March 1945. Attacks from the air and sea soften up the opposition on okinawa. American naval gunfire and bombing is so intense, the japanese call it a typhoon of steel. Over 1400 ships carrying hundreds of thousands of men crossed the pacific. A logistical nightmare for general buckner. Logistics were a nightmare. There were those on his staff that said you cant do it. Larry was aboard one of the ships, a destroyer. The ship traveled from normandy to attack okinawa. That Pacific Ocean is big. You go for days and days and days and dont see anything but water. Its big. Army private first class herman butchington was amazed at the size of the armada. We were on ship about 30 days. They had so many ships there it looked like a city. As far as you could see was ships. Their leaders were brutally honest. They were told to expect horrific casualties. The last two weeks we had briefings of all types. Youre an 18yearold kid receiving these briefings. Now he was with marines the night before the invasion. April 1st, 1945, easter sunday. April fools day. And landing day for operation iceberg. I spoke to a marine historian who was there with the first marines. When you were making the landing on okinawa, it turned out to be the last major battle of world war ii. But it wasnt thought that it was going to be, was it . Oh, no. I didnt know when i was going to go home. I expected once okinawa was done, we were going to go to japan. In which case i didnt think i would come home alive. They started playing music. It was easter sunday, and some of you folks dont remember a very popular song the easter parade. This was on, and i remember when we got into the landing craft, we started in to the beaches. You could hear it as long as you possibly could. It just got weaker and weaker, and no one, no one was saying a thing. The japanese werent sure when it was going to happen. They knew it was going to happen. They were aware that it was coming and they were developing their contingency plans accordingly. In japanese, kamikaze means divine wind. For a sailor unlucky enough to see one up close, it could mean certain death. With over 2,000 kamikaze planes designated to take out navy ships, 5,000 american sailors wouldnt live to tell the tale. Well meet one navy gunner who beat the odds, next i asked my dentist if an electric toothbrush was going to clean better than a manual. He said sure, but dont just get any one. Get one inspired by dentists, with a round brush head go pro with oralb. Oralbs rounded brush head cups your teeth to break up plaque and rotates to sweep it away. And oralb crossaction delivers a clinically proven superior clean vs. Sonicare diamondclean. My mouth feels super clean oralb. Know youre getting a superior clean. Im never going back to a manual brush. April 1st, 1945, landing day on okinawa. 180,000 soldiers and marines in the assault, in the final battle of world war ii. When you were preparing for the landing, did you know that you were going to land on these beaches . No. Tell us, describe for us just exactly how the landing went, if you would, on the map. Theres a river, the hagushi river. On the right hand side was the 24th, on the left side was the 3rd amphibious corps. Because of the heavy casualties at iwo, we were expecting very heavy casualties in the first wave. The first number of waves. And when we walked ashore, there was nothing. We just walked on. Nobody could understand what was going on. It couldnt be that easy. Something is up here, and we were kind of having a piece of cake. The soldiers and marines landed withs. Instead of an ambush at the beach, the Japanese Army seemed awol on okinawa. It was like nobody was there, and the marines peeled to the north, and the Army Divisions cut across and bisected the island. Our objective was the northern end. They gave us 90 days to secure it. But we secured it in 21 days. At sea, a very different story. Kamikazes were sent out on a oneway ticket to hell. The kamikazes rained total terror and hell in the battle for okinawa. Its a frightening thing. Its a frightening thing, because you know what they can do. Youre not talking about getting hit with a pingpong ball. A plane comes in with somebody aiming it to make sure it goes where they want it to go. Its loaded with gasoline, you get very intense fires. You know its going to be really destructive. You know that you do anything to avoid being hit. The weapon is not extraordinary. But the will behind it is. The kamikaze training in japan was limited. All they needed to know how to do was take off, steer the plane, and that was it. In most cases, they would have a farewell. They would drink sake in a most, a farewell toast, and they were totally committed for one, but they also had the resolve to follow through with it, because they looked at it they were going to become venerated heroes. They were projecting mainland japan, their loved ones from the eventual invasion. This shows a battleship and Aircraft Carrier hit by diving kamikazes. Off the coast, larry witnessed several kamikaze attacks. We could see the pilot in there and see his neckerchief floating in the breeze. Aircraft carriers were the ckamikaz kamikazes main targets. They sank some 34 other ships by the end of the battle. We saw so many things happen. We just knew sooner or later some of the people on our ship were going to be lost and there was no escape. Thats the thing when youre in the navy, theres no place to hide. April 16th started out like a normal day at sea aboard the ship. You get up before sunup and youre on battle stations so that your eyes could adjust to the light, and you would be ready to go. Then on the horizon, the d d dreaded silhouette of a kamikaze appeared, then another, then another. Once they started coming in in numbers, we started taking some hits. It was a plane that hit just forward of my gun. We had one terrible gasoline fire, not just inside my gun but on the lower decks, as well. Fires raged and out of nowhere the second kamikaze crashed directly into the gun mount. It blew me up the deck 15 feet. When i woke up, i was draped over a depth charge rack on the side of the ship. Of 13 men in his gun crew, only seven died. That day the ship with stood 80 minutes of hell. 31 sailor s died in the wreckag. Gun 53 was ripped to shreds. The tremendous concussion that took place and how it just took that quarter inch steel and opened it up like a can opener on both sides of the gun point. Larry lived to tell about surviving two kamikaze strikes. I always felt like i had a guardian angel, always. To this day i feel like i have a guardian angel. Back on okinawa, soldiers and marines would soon be needing Guardian Angels of their own. At first, american Ground Forces on okinawa didnt encounter much enemy resistance because the japanese simply werent there. They had gone underground. The underworld of cavs and tunnels set a hellish deathtrap for the soldiers and marines, coming up on war stories. You totanobodys hurt, new car. But there will still be pain. It comes when your Insurance Company says theyll only pay threequarters of what it takes to replace it. What are you supposed to do . Drive threequarters of a car . Now if you had Liberty Mutual new car replacement™, youd get your whole car back. I guess they dont want you driving around on three wheels. Smart. With Liberty Mutual new car replacement™, well replace the full value of your car. Liberty stands with you™. 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When we started going south and started look sping into the eyes of these fellows come back, we started to understand weve run into a buzz saw. Within the hills of southern okinawa lurked a deadly hidden enemy. Over 100,000 soldiers of the 32nd imperial Japanese Army. What the japanese general decided upon is instead of trying to meet us at the beach where we had the overwhelming firepower, he decided to end us on the southern end of okinawa. He was a brilliant commander. He did all he could do to use all the natural obstacles and cavs to et up his defenses. Did they expect to be able to beat the americans on this island or simply to inflict massive casualties . I think they expected to inflict major casualties. They knew what had happened in the pacific. They knew that its time had come. Soon our troops saw evidence of the japanese generals plan in action. We were walking down a road coming towards the lines and they were coming back from the lines. And these trucks, after the first ones past, we noticed they were stacked with dead american soldiers, and they were loaded on there like wood. Theres an old military axiom, always take the high ground. He had very effectively done that. The first major confrontation, the armys 96th division was fighting one hill at a time and suffered almost 3,000 casualties in four days. Private Herman Buffington was there. We would go up there to take the ground, and they would be moved back in those cavs and the bombing and whatever. Then they would come right back out facing us. And its pretty much suicide. The only ones you would see were the dead ones. Because they were fighting from underground . The camouflage was great, the use of the terrain was great. April 12th, a loss stuns the troops. Franklin roosevelt was dead. The question was, who was the president . The answer was, harry truman, who was harry truman . He was moving more towards the battle zone, and he was with a commanding officer, and a japanese machine gun opened up on their building. They both jumped out and got into a ditch. Ernie raised his head up and he was killed. All the men wore their helmets with greater care as the fighting heated up. I used to never like the word helmet because he was heavy. I would wear a baseball cap. Casualties mount to 3,000 a day as the gis and marines get bogged down in a stalemate on okinawa. Thats n i want to be there. Keep it right here on fox business for the latest in financial news. May 1945, on okinawa, the last bloodiest battle of the pacific. The fighting was escalating, and so were the number of casualties. Over 20,000 dead or wounded. Driving through powerful jap fortifications. Enemy strong points are cleared out. The same psychology of most soldiers in combat. Whatever army theyre in, its going to happen to the guy in front of you or in back of you, but its not going to happen to you. But that philosophy was hard to hold up on okinawa. Sometimes it might take two or three weeks to take one stop. You would usually crawl over japanese dead bodies and this type thing, to take those hills and you would have to have enough people left to hold the hill. Theyre going to have a counterattack on you immediately. The pressure was on commander buckner. The navy at times was losing a ship and a half a day to these kamikaze pilots. Lets get it over with on the one side. The other is, dont waste lives unnecessarily. We lost a lot of people any way. Private first class Herman Buffington ran into the general on the front line. This gentleman kneeled down, and asked me, soldier, how is it going . I told him very well. And he said, well, could i borrow your rifle and shoot some . I said yes, sir, you may. He said, i want you to tell me if im still a pretty good shot. You know, just like out at the firing range. So thats what i did, and he was good. He was a sharp shooter. It was great. He was right down there on the front many times seeing what was working, what was not working. And then passing the information back and forth between the army and marine units, kicking rears where necessary and praising where necessary. The japanese general commanded the 32nd army. His underground headquarters was 110 feet down with walls four feet thick. Shuri castle was the center of the japanese operations. The defenses that the japanese had, the cross fire that they had, the amount of weapons that they had, really created a problem for the 10th army. He had 110,000 japanese at okinawa and soldiers dug in, some of those caves went down three, four, five stories. They were among the best soldiers in the world. They were very fanatical, totally, absolutely fanatical. They didnt surrender, and we didnt take any we wouldnt have taken them any way. Meanwhile, kamikaze pilots continued their reign of terror on the sea off okinawa. The japanese expended a lot of valuable resources with pilots that couldnt be replaced and so on. But you have to remember the dark days they were in and the feeling of desperation. The crashing suicide planes turned ships into floating infernos. May 8th, veday, 5500 miles away in berlin, the defeat of nazi germany encourages those fighting on okinawa. The nazis began the ruthless bombs of cities. The allies finished. We were happy it was over in germany, because we knew we were going to get lots more help and the war would be over. That was a happy time for us. The next day we started going up the hill. The hills around shuri that would defend the approach were well fortified and were the scenes of some horrific battles. And those hills, dotted with these hurtle back tombs connected with natural cav systems to slow down the american advance. May 11th. General buckner launched a counterattack, the fiercest fighting on okinawa was just beginning. Many times it reached handtohand combat. With you they would throw a battalion at the hill, they would take casualties. They would throw a large counteroffensive at us. So it was constant sea saw back and forth. Heavy rains transformed the battlefield into a sea of mud. What were the rains like in 1945 . Miserable. Did the monsoon work to the advantage of the japanese . I would say so. There were quagmires all over the place and youre slipping and sliding. It made replenishment of ammunition and food difficult. The ground was so soft you couldnt dig a foxhole. Soldiers and marines helped each other going. One of the greatest things was the people you were. You develop a camaraderie, a friendship. And the biggest thing in your mind is i cannot let the guy next to me down. We were the single guys were protective of the married guys. We really wanted them to survive, because they had children, and we thought well, they better survive more than we should. For those who survive the battle for the