Crucible of Hell: Okinawa: The Last Great Battle
UK deliveries from £4.95
Delivery & Returns
Delivery & Returns
We use the Royal Mail, DHL Express or UPS for our customers. For UK addresses, deliveries under 10kg are a standard £4.95 via Royal Mail Tracked 48 Service. For orders over 10kg and overseas customers, postage is calculated for you at checkout once you have entered your postal address. This price, does not include any potential custom charges that may apply, depending on the product or destination, as every country has very different import duties / taxes. Online exclusive products (such as trainers) will be delivered to you directly from the printer, separate from other items in your order, but your postage fee covers ALL items in your order.
If you are unhappy with your purchase, please email shop@tankmuseum.org within fourteen (14) working days of receiving your goods, and return it to us at the address below, in its original condition, unopened (with any seals and shrink-wrap intact) and we will issue you a full refund or replace it. Goods must be returned at your own cost. If the item is faulty, you do not need to return it, we will send you a replacement free of charge.
Description
Description
By Saul David
Paperback
From award-winning historian Saul David, an action-packed and powerful new narrative of the Battle of Okinawa - the last great clash of the Second World War, and one that had profound consequences for the modern world. For eighty-three blood-soaked days, the fighting on the island of Okinawa plumbed depths of savagery as bad as anything seen on the Eastern Front.
When it was over, almost a quarter of a million people had lost their lives, making it by far the bloodiest US battle of the Pacific. In Okinawa, the death toll included thousands of civilians lost to mass suicide, convinced by Japanese propaganda that they would otherwise be raped and murdered by the enemy. On the US side, David argues that the horror of the battle ultimately determined President Truman's choice to use atomic bombs in August 1945.It is a brutal, heart-rending story, and one David tells with masterly attention to detail: the cramped cockpit of a kamikaze plane, the claustrophobic gun turret of a warship under attack, and a half-submerged foxhole amidst the squalor and battle detritus.
The narrative follows generals, presidents and emperors, as well as the humbler experiences of ordinary servicemen and families on both sides, and the Okinawan civilians who were caught so tragically between the warring parties. Using graphic eyewitness accounts and declassified documents from archives in three continents, Saul David illuminates a shocking chapter of history that is too often missing from Western-centric narratives of the Second World War.
