Hello and welcome to Battleground 45 with me, Roger Morehouse, and talking today to Saul David, long-term host of this show.

And we're talking about the Battle of Okinawa.

This is the second part. We're looking at the conclusion of Okinawa now today. And the run-up to the

American decision to use the atomic bombs against Japan. We've heard in that first episode, Saul,

about the opening phase of the battle for Okinawa,

the strategic thinking of the Americans, the strategic thinking of the Japanese,

all desperate stuff.

And you have the Americans then realizing that they're in a pretty serious fight in the south of Okinawa,

that they've been allowed to land effectively

by the Japanese, who then draw them into this protracted, what's almost, I suppose you can

almost describe it as urban warfare, but in a sort of natural environment, using the terrain,

using the tunnels that they dug and so on to best effect to essentially grind the Americans

down. Just before we sort of carry on with

sort of wider issues. But, you know, we broke off last time essentially in that sort of first

week of May of 1945, where the European war has just ended. Just flag up for us how the

Battle for Ockin hour proceeds as it goes on, because it carries on for

the best part of another six weeks after that date, right? Yeah, exactly right. Another seven weeks.

I mean, ultimately, it's an 82-day campaign, and they're hoping it's not going to be anything

like as long as that. I mean, they're not foolish enough, actually, to make the same kind of

predictions that they did before.

Pellaloo, for example, when the commander involved said this is going to be a two-day campaign, a three-day campaign.

It actually took a couple of months. Well, in the case of Ockinauer, no one specifies exactly how long they think it'll take, but they certainly hope it'll be over by the end of the month. And we're nowhere near that, of course. We've got another six or seven weeks of really

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