82 Days on Okinawa

In “a gritty, first-person account” from an American officer in the Pacific theater battle, “one can hear Shaw’s voice as if he were sitting beside you” ( Wall Street Journal ). On Easter Sunday, April 1, 1945, 1.5 million men gathered aboard 1,500 Allied ships off the coast of the Japanese island of Okinawa. The men were there to launch the largest amphibious assault on the Pacific Theater. The first American officer ashore was then-Major Art Shaw (1920-2020), a unit commander in the U.S. Army’