As a result, the battle, which should have ended a long time ago, lasted until the early hours of the next morning. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Originally, the fighting should continue the next day, but as soon as the sky dawned, the Japanese guerrillas ambushed in the northern jungle looked down with high-powered binoculars from a high place, and unexpectedly found that the Putian Airport was not under the control of the Japanese army at all, and several American soldiers were playing music on the roof while leisurely shaving in the mirror...... If Zhang Chi knew this, he was afraid that he would kill these American GIs who were busy "having fun in the midst of suffering".

At this time, Ushijima Mitsuru knew that he had been fooled, so he sat on the chair like dead ashes.

All he could do was to give the order weakly: "Retreat, retreat immediately!" ”

"Your Excellency Lieutenant General...... "Staff Officer Chang Yong is still a little unwilling.

"No more talk!" Ushijima interrupted Changyong's words and said, "If we continue to fight like this, we won't even have the ability to defend, and it's not much better than surrendering immediately!" ”

As a result, an attack plan orchestrated by Mitsuru Ushijima ended miserably.

In this attack, the Japanese army suffered nearly 20,000 casualties...... The casualties of the interspersed troops amounted to about 5,000, and the other thousand who survived were nowhere to be found, but they could not play much role on the battlefield. More than 10,000 casualties were suffered in the frontal attack, mainly in the area of the steep slope of the shed.

You must know that the total number of Japanese regular troops was only more than 60,000, and a third of the battle was consumed, and the casualties were even several times greater than the casualties in the defensive attrition war in the previous weeks.

And this is only one aspect, what is worse is that the Japanese army invested a lot of suicide weapons in this battle, as well as almost all the artillery and tank units on the island of Okinawa, and the artillery and tank units were almost completely annihilated...... As a result, the pressure on the U.S. military, both the army and the navy, will be greatly reduced in future wars.

When Turner stabilized in the second war, he called Zhang Chi.

"Major General!" Turner said, "I heard you had another beautiful fight last night, congratulations!" ”

"Thank you, General!"

"You've done a good job!" Turner continued: "I believe that last night's battle was a turning point for us, both in the Navy and in the Army, because ...... Today we have to face much fewer suicide attack aircraft, and the most difficult period has passed, isn't it? ”

Turner was right, because the Japanese army's unwise attack last night caused the Japanese army to consume a large number of living forces and artillery and tanks that had always threatened the American army, so the most difficult period was indeed over.

But that doesn't mean the rest of the battle will be smooth sailing.

Ushijima's next strategy was largely to shrink the line......

It was correct to shrink the defensive line, the Shuri defensive line was wider, the Japanese army would need more troops to garrison, and the contact area with the American army would be larger, so the daily casualties would be higher, and for the Japanese army, who were under-armed, it was obviously a wise choice to withdraw to the narrower line of defense of the "Itoko Line" (Itoman City to Minatogawa).

The reason why "generally" is used here is because Ushijima Mitsuru did not completely abandon the Shuri defensive line.

The strategy he adopted was...... Kill the seriously wounded, leave the lightly wounded and the wounded who can move, and direct or force the temporarily recruited Okinawan people to defend.

Of course, these defenses were nothing more than remnants, and in some places there were even only a few people.

However, the set of problems that the "old soldiers" of the US Army are accustomed to have appeared again...... There are often only a few people in a trench who are firing, but they need to be flattened with artillery before they dare to advance.

Zhang Chi is helpless about this, the whole front is so long, it is impossible to let the Chinese army go up to fight for them, not to mention that there is no need...... The lives of Chinese soldiers are also fate, and Zhang Chi is unwilling to make that foolish use of human life to show how powerful the Chinese army is.

So the front moved forward little by little.

From this point of view, Ushijima's strategy was still very successful, because he knew the American army, and he used space and a small number of remnants to delay the attack of the American army and give himself time to rest.

Among them, there are even some contradictions within the US military......

During the attack on Shuri, the 1st Division of the 5th Marine Regiment seized the opportunity to pass through the defense area of the 77th Infantry Division of the Army and occupy Shuri Castle first...... This caused great indignation in the Army.

The commander of the 77th Infantry Division, Major General Jaber, even made trouble at the headquarters.

Regarding this matter, Zhang Chi treated it as if he didn't know, and it was all up to Geiger to coordinate.

To tell the truth, the Marines do have the intention of grabbing merit, the 77th Division of the Army is fighting well, and each has its own offensive target, and your Marine Corps suddenly occupies the target of the 77th Division...... Isn't that someone beating a dog and you eat meat?

But......

You must know that this is the offensive target of an entire division of the 77th Division, and if the army is not making slow progress and only a few people on the opposite side have to bombard forward with artillery, how can there be a situation where the "5th Marine Regiment" can pass through its defense area and occupy Shuri first?!

Fortunately, this kind of argument was not a big problem, and Geig gave some rewards for his exploits.

What really touched Zhang Chi was the information about the suicide of the people of Okinawa from the battlefield......

Zhang Chi has seen this scene, it is organized in batches, and the groups that commit suicide are often clearly divided from one family to another.

As you can imagine, the Japanese army drove the people of Okinawa out of their homes and sat in a circle one by one...... Because men were often requisitioned by the Japanese army, the family members who remained were often elderly, women, and children.

Then, the Japanese army distributed grenades to them, and due to the shortage of ammunition, each family was divided into one grenade, and after it was ignited, it "boomed......

What's worse is that when the grenade exploded, its lethality was not certain, some people were not hit by the explosive shrapnel, and some were only injured by the shock wave, but the Japanese army thought that this had achieved the effect, so they ignored them...... Anyway, these injured people will die sooner or later.

So, when Zhang Chi and others arrived at the scene, they saw patches of corpses of old people, women and children, among which there were many screams and moans of the injured, as well as the hoarse cries of children.

The U.S. military still maintains humanitarianism in this regard, and chooses to rescue the wounded at the first opportunity.

But Zhang Chi knew that doing this could only be done to the best of his ability, and there were not many people who could really be rescued...... The wounded were too bad, and they had been delayed for too long.

According to post-war statistics, 122,000 Okinawan civilians were killed or wounded in the entire Battle of Okinawa, accounting for one-third of the total number of Okinawan civilians, and this figure even exceeded the total number of Okinawan people killed and wounded by the two atomic bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined, 120,000.