Tunnels of Okinawa

April, 1945 assault on Okinawa.

It's about tunnels and caves on Okinawa used by the Japanese. This is basically the same form of defense that was used on Iwo Jima and proved very effective against U.S. forces.

It also deals with sunken American ships.

Ships pounded the island. When you put your defensive forces in caves and tunnels, though, even a tough shelling fails to destroy them.

180,000 U.S. soldiers were involved in the attack. Many of the tunnels were sealed after the war and they are not open to the public since they are considered dangerous.

A typical tunnel.

It says both civilian and slave labor were used to dig the underground tunnels.

Sharp turns were used to negate the effect of flamethrowers.

Using a flamethrower. It took U.S. forces 11 days to drive out the Japanese from the tunnels.

Civilians fled to the natural caves on the island.

What the surface of the island looked like after the shelling.

A cave entrance.

The civilians fled to the caves but often did not think of bringing food and other supplies. They note that during the rainy season the water rose quite high and people drowned.

There were also poisonous insects in the caves.

The Japanese military retreated to the south of the island. In this particular cave the military ordered the civilians to go deeper into the cave and would not let them out to search for food. They also had noisy civilians, including babies, killed.

Japanese propaganda had led the civilians to expect that any contact with Americans would be fatal. When the military was defeated on the island the civilians found out that what they had been told was completely untrue. Unfortunately, many of the civilians had not gotten the real story and many leaped off cliffs rather than give up to the American troops.

More than 150,000 civilians died during the three-month battle for the island.

The command center for the Japanese Navy (which didn't really have any navy by that time to speak of.)

The entrance to the headquarters for the Navy.

More shots from inside.

The holes in the walls are caused by shrapnel from hand-grenade explosions when some personnel committed suicide. They also took poison or shot themselves in the heads. Defeat was considered unbearable.

An underground hospital during the war. Now the entrances have collapsed or been sealed off. 16-year-old girls were made to become nurses aides.

An area where they could get in and explore. They find out that soldiers who were in the underground hospital and till alive just before the Americans got there were poisoned by their own Japanese offices to make sure they wouldn't give away any secrets.

Many U.S. ships were lost due to the kamikaze attacks.

They dive down 150 feet to find an American ship that was sunk by the kamikaze. 11 ships were sunk.

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