Original copy of the Tentative Operations Plan 1-45, or Operation Iceberg, from the United States Tenth Army Command for the invasion of Okinawa in the Pacific during World War II. Included within the plans are charts that display the overall and the expeditionary troops command, as well as information on the Japanese and the island, detailed maps, and engineering diagrams. The plans state what military units, from all branches, are doing and explain what their missions are.
The fighting in the southern half of Okinawa was brutal. Every hill and ridge was filled with Japanese defenses, and casualties mounted. Reinforcements were badly needed, and new recruits were often taken directly from the landing craft into their new units on the front lines. Defenses tore through Army Divisions, leaving them severely depleted and the survivors exhausted from weeks of constant battle and little sleep with minimal or no ground gained. Army General Simon Bolivar Buckner, under pressure to get the front line moving once more, finally ordered the 1st and 6th Marines, having already achieved their objectives in the north, to relieve the shattered Army units in the south.
