The Washington National Records Center in Suitland, Maryland, holds primary documents of the Okinawa campaign. The III Amphibious Corps After Action Report provides the best overview, while reports of infantry battalions contain vivid day-by-day accounts. The Marine Corps Oral History Collection contains 36 interviews with Okinawa veterans, among them Lemuel C. Shepherd, Jr.; Pedro A. del Valle; Alan Shapley; Edward W. Snedeker; and Wilburt S. Brown. The Marine Corps Historical Center also holds Oliver P. Smith’s outspoken account of his Okinawa experiences as Marine Deputy Chief of Staff, Tenth Army, as well as the original interrogation report of Colonel Hiromichi Yahara, Operations Officer of the Japanese Thirty-second Army.

Among the official histories, the most useful are Benis M. Frank and Henry I. Shaw, Jr., Victory and Occupation, vol V, History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II (Washington: HistBr, G-3 Div, HQMC, 1968); Charles J. Nichols, Jr., and Henry I. Shaw, Jr., Okinawa: Victory in the Pacific (Washington: HistBr, G-3 Div, HQMC, 1955); and Roy E. Appleman, et al, Okinawa: The Last Battle (Washington: OCMH, Department of the Army, 1948). Two excellent unit histories provide detail and flavor: George McMillan, The Old Breed: A History of the 1st Marine Division in World War II and Bevan G. Cass, History of the 6th Marine Division (Washington: Infantry Journal Press, 1948). Jeter A. Isley and Philip A. Crowl provide an analytical chapter on Okinawa in U.S. Marines and Amphibious War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1951). Robert Sherrod provides lively coverage of Marine Air units in the campaign in his History of Marine Corps Aviation in World War II (Washington: Combat Forces Press, 1948).

More recent accounts of note include George Feifer, Tennozan: The Battle of Okinawa and the Atomic Bomb (New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1992), and Thomas M. Huber, Japan’s Battle of Okinawa, April-June 1945 (Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas: U.S. Army Command and Staff College, 1990). A particularly dramatic, first-person account is “A Hill Called Sugar Loaf” by 1stSgt Edmund H. DeMar, USMC (Ret), in Leatherneck (Jun95).

The author benefited from interviews with LtGen Victor H. Krulak, USMC (Ret), BGen Frederick P. Henderson, USMC (Ret), Mr. Benis M. Frank, and Dr. Eugene B. Sledge.

The author is also indebted to MajGen James L. Day, USMC (Ret) and LtCol Owen T. Stebbins, USMCR (Ret), for extended personal interviews—and to the entire staff of the Marine Corps Historical Center for its professional, courteous support.