Talk:Battle of Okinawa

Mention of Turner with no antecedent in section 1.1 Allied

In section 1.1 Allied of this article, Turner is mention without antecedent: It was planned that General Buckner would report to Turner until the amphibious phase was completed, after which he would report directly to Spruance. I assume Turner was introduced in a now deleted edit. Turner needs to be set up, but I am not familiar with the subject. The first line in 'External links' mentions Admiral Richard Kelly Turner. — Neonorange (Phil) 06:14, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Fixed. regards Mztourist (talk) 09:04, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

undocumented rape allegations

This has been argued before with NO CONSENSUS for these sensational claims that the vast majority of historians do not support! Please stop adding it in.

>>I was referring to the original journalist's book that claimed the 10K rapes w/o naming any sources. This whole subject is a huge muddle, and until someone publishes the data that support such claims, it shouldn't go in the article, and shame on publishing houses these days that let things like this get into print without demanding some back-up. HammerFilmFan (talk) 11:11, 21 August 2012 (UTC) I was responding to Joshuaism's post; sorry for the confusion. Nick-D (talk) 11:15, 21 August 2012 (UTC) Many people (myself included) will think long and hard before they bite the hand that feeds them. But one may not even be aware of how our social interactions and institutional atmosphere may affect our work at the subconscious level. Editorial control or not, someone working for and within a military associated institution will be influenced consciously and/or subconsciously and it will affect their work accordingly. --Joshuaism (talk) 12:56, 21 August 2012 (UTC) I have to agree with HammerFilmFan. There very well may be subconscious biases among the historians at the CGSC. Of what historian is this not true? Their affiliation is known, and the reader can take this into account when looking for possible biases. To reject the work completely as a source on the basis of the affiliation alone smacks of ad hominem. --Yaush (talk) 15:41, 21 August 2012 (UTC) Thank you for making my point for me and apologies for playing the devil's advocate. I worried from the responses in the 10,000 rapes section that some people wanted to remove sourced information because it was not supported by their original research. But now that we have established that ad hominem attacks against shameful publishing houses and respected historians should not be allowed and that readers are capable of verifying sources, lets agree that these talk pages are not a forum for WP:OR and the well sourced section on rape can stay.--Joshuaism (talk) 16:23, 21 August 2012 (UTC) Not a valid argument at all. The criticism of the original journalist's book as a source was NOT that he was a journalist, or that he has a hidden anti-American bias, but that his claim has absolutely nothing to substantiate it. This is not true of the CGSC historians. One is an ad hominem and one is not. The section should go. --Yaush (talk) 18:40, 21 August 2012 (UTC) I'm sorry, what do you mean by "substantiate"? The word does not appear in WP:RS or WP:Verifiability so I want to know what this higher standard is that you are applying to sourced information you don't like. Do you doubt Peter Schrijvers' WP:SCHOLARSHIP? --Joshuaism (talk) 22:30, 21 August 2012 (UTC) Um, yes. I think that's the whole point Nick-D and I are trying to make: Schrijvers provides no substantiation for his number. --Yaush (talk) 13:53, 22 August 2012 (UTC)<< — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.169.21.238 (talk)

It's hard to understand what your point is from the lump of random text above, but the material here is referenced. If the majority of historians state that rape wasn't a problem during the battle, please provide these sources. Nick-D (talk) 00:52, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

~76,000+ Japanese soldiers (Strength) vs 77,166 Japanese soldiers dead

As 77,166 Japanese soldiers died, maybe we should change "~76,000+ Japanese soldiers" into "~77,000+ Japanese soldiers" (for the Strength field)? I guess it's because of a diversity of the sources. Unfortunately, I'm not able to check the Hastings 2007 source as it's a book, not a website. There exists some probability that "76,000" might be a mistake (technically, "76,000+" (with a plus), isn't a mistake but even "0+" isn't technically a mistake). However, even if "76,000" is as stated in this book, in my opinion we should use also other sources and the logic. Grillofrances (talk) 06:36, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Hastings mentions a total of 77,000 Japanese (albeit without the plus), plus 20,000 Okinawan recruits - "There was still some debate in command messes about whether the Americans would assault their island or Formosa, further south, but the 77,000 defenders recognised the likelihood that they would fight a great battle. Like other units, it was now made up to strength with locally recruited Okinawans, who inspired little confidence, but added 20,000 unwilling conscripts to the garrison’s strength." Loafiewa (talk) 15:01, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Currently the info box lists Japanese soldiers and Okinawan conscripts separately in both the strength and losses, which seems even more off with the number of dead exceeding the strength when you figure in the captured (which doesn't split them up, though later in the article it seems to indicate the number is in flux due to thousands who were only surrendered or were captured months later, and the lower end in the 7,000 range is apparently only counting the initially captured Japanese soldiers and not the later ones or Okinawan conscripts. Looking at the detail later in the order of battle section, perhaps this is explained by the losses but not the strength part including the 9,000 navy members mentioned there?--108.86.122.142 (talk) 18:35, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• USS Bunker Hill hit by two Kamikazes.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 17:22, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

20,000 dead? yeah right....

For ages now the "20,000 dead" figure has been included in the infobox, with the excuse that the offical casualty counts dont include died of wounds. This is a lie. I checked all the sources cited: the figure originally appears in Keegan's Atlas of the Second World War.....no where in that book does he cite a refernce or method for how he came to that number, nor does he attempt to reconcile it with the offical figures...oh, and his book is from the 1980s, so its not like it has modernity going for it. The others citing the figures (a couple of web links) dont give the reasoning to explain the difference either or give a primary source; somebody seems to have added that onto this article without a citation as an excuse.(I suppose The Pittsburgher user since he has been hawkish about this article in the past)

Then there is Richard B. Franks book "Downfall: The End of the Japanese Empire", which is cited at page 71. Nowhere does he use the 20,000 dead figure or does he say that there were 7,700 died of wounds and non-combat deaths, again somebody added this with no actual source, infact he cites the offical figure of 12,500 which he says includes killed and missing. Also, the range provided in the casualties box that cites him is wrong, he put 72,000 tops including non-battle and psychiatric casualties, and those shouldnt even be cited in the infobox (Where else are psychiatric casualites cited in battle infoboxes on wikipedia? nowhere, they are left in dedicated casualties sections).

On top of this, we have the official history of the battle "Okinawa: the Last Battle"...the 12,500 actually already includes both missing[1] and died of wounds (see footnote 15 in the following link)[2]. Sorry to anyone who likes that number but its untenable, and the way it is represented in this article is a demonstrable lie if anyone bothered reading the cited sources. I barely think Keegans number is worth a mention. Somebody's been editing this article with an agenda to inflate American casualties as much as possible. -- Will Tyson for real (talk) 00:18, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

I also added other things from Franks book that were omitted in previous versions of this article; he gives number for the casualties on okinawa itself vs at sea. -- Will Tyson for real (talk) 00:33, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

The problem isn't so much accounting for men who died of wounds (though that is a component), it's that there's never been an adequate breakdown of both battle AND nonbattle deaths that occurred as a result of this campaign. The numbers cited By Appleman et al. provide no clarification on this, only that Army and Marine nonbattle dead are included in the overall "nonbattle casualties" total of 26,221. Even this number apparently isn't definitive, since other authors cite a higher figure of 33,096.

->source viewable here: (Tenth Army AAR, ([3]), Part 9, figure 9 p. 11-I-12),

To make things even more muddled:

• Later in the same document (p. 11-I-38) it states that Graves Registration reported a total of 5,042 Army, 3,023 Marine, 1,110 Navy, and 49 "other" burials carried out by Army and Marine units on the island from L-4 to L+90. This means that deaths after L+90 aren't included, and probably neither are cases such as deaths during or after evacuation.
• In Appendix M of "History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II," the authors record a total of 3,443 Marine battle deaths: killed, died of wounds, and missing presumed dead, exclusive of both nonbattle deaths and deaths among naval personnel attached to the Marine units (source: [4]). Appendix VI of "Okinawa: Victory in the Pacific" gives a very similar number: 3,440, again omitting both nonbattle deaths and deaths among attached naval personnel. (source: [5]) Both these numbers exceed the Tenth Army figures by more than 500 people, without even accounting for nonbattle deaths or (apparently) deaths of any kind after the last week of June 1945, and this is just for the Marine Corps!
• According to "Army Battle Casualties and Nonbattle Deaths in World War II" p. 110 there were a total of 5,319 US Army nonbattle deaths in the Pacific theater during 1945: 1,347 aircraft accidents, 1,800 non-aircraft accidents, 1,396 from disease, and 796 "others" with no breakdown of geographic location. This same document lists the total deaths among battle casualties for the Ryukyus campaign as 4,718, with a further 158 counted as missing (but not presumed dead). Source: ([6])
• Meanwhile the Navy's losses have been cited as 4,907 dead and 4,824 wounded since at least August 1945 with no particular breakdown ("All Hands" Magazine, p. 45, [7]).

Just from these limited materials we have a combined death toll in excess of 13,000 while omitting in whole or in part not only nonbattle deaths but in all probability a significant number of deaths among battle casualties as well. In connection with this, the Cornerstone of Peace memorial in Okinawa has over 14,000 names inscribed on it, many of which were apparently added only after families of servicemen have gotten in contact and may not be comprehensive. I don't know where John Keegan got his total of 20,195 from, but it seems far too specific a number to just be made up and given the problems outlined above I feel it should be included.

00:21, 24 January 2023 (UTC) The Pittsburgher (talk) 00:21, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Forget it, the Americans post on Wikipedia only minimal estimates of their losses in the war with the Japanese. Is it a joke that in the article about the Pacific War only BATTLE losses are indicated, that is, the data are underestimated by 1,5-2 times. And from the battle for Okinawa it’s generally funny, everywhere they draw the figure of 12500 dead, but the fact that there are 14 thousand graves alone in Okinawa does not bother anyone lol Lone Ranger1999 (talk) 15:45, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

I might have figured it out. Keegan's numbers show up in the part of the book called "Iwo Jima and Okinawa," where he previously lists American casualties at Iwo as 24,391. Subtracting that from his "Okinawa" numbers (75,357) gets 50,966, which is in line with other figures for battle casualties (~40,000 from Tenth Army AAR and 10,000 for the Navy). This is just a guess on my part though, since he gave the numbers immediately after writing "110,000 Japanese died defending Okinawa." Either way, I'm starting to agree now that the 14,000 from the Okinawa Memorial should be the highest number featured in this article until further notice: I've found a number of other discrepancies in Keegan's Encyclopedia that make me question his reliability - for example, he also wrote that 2 million Russians died in the war against Japan (p. 205). The Pittsburgher (talk) 17:34, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

I figured out the origins of this number. This article at one point cited the Atlas of the Second World War (edited by Keegan, not necessarily written by him) which offered the number of 20,195 US deaths for Okinawa. The original source of this number comes from Ian Gow's book "Okinawa, 1945: the Gateway to Japan" (cited by the Atlas of the Second World War), with the assistant of HP Wilmott. I can only assume this number was the result of simple arithmetic error or sloppy editing. Gow offers the figure of 12,520, normally accepted as all US KIA as ONLY US army dead, then adds on the USMC and USN dead to arrive at 20,410, slightly higher than the number cited by the Atlas. I think we can dispense with this figure and similar estimates once and for all since this is clearly just careless and unnecessary addition. 162.119.232.54 (talk) 18:13, 19 September 2024 (UTC)