The Last Days of Okinawa, 1945 FULL DOCUMENTARY

The last days of the Battle of Okinawa are told from the Japanese perspective. Taken largely from the memoir of Colonel Hiromichi Yahara, this documentary gives an in-depth look at the final moments inside Mabuni Caves in June 1945.

On the road? Listen to the documentary in podcast form here!

00:00 – Introduction
05:07 – Decision for Harakiri
08:39 – June 20th, 1945
11:03 – Word from Imperial War Ministry, Japan
13:00 – June 21st, 1945
18:30 – Final Banzai Charge
19:25 – June 23rd, 1945
22:05 – The end of fighting on Okinawa


Sources

Appleman, Roy; Burns, James; Gugeler, Russel; Stevens, John (1948). Okinawa: The Last Battle. United States Army Center of Military History. Archived from the original on 8 November 2010. Retrieved 14 June 2010.

Craven, Wesley Frank, and James Lea Cate, eds. The Army Air Forces in World War II, Volume Five, the Pacific: Matterhorn to Nagasaki June 1944 to August 1945. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953.

Frame Sgt. Rudy R, Jr. “Okinawa: The Final Great Battle of World War II | Marine Corps Gazette”. Mca-marines.org. December 14, 2013. https://web.archive.org/web/20131214163259/http://www.mca-marines.org/gazette/article/okinawa-final-great-battle-world-war-ii

“Okinawa: The Costs of Victory in the Last Battle”. The National WWII Museum. 7 July 2022.

Yahara, Hiromichi, The Battle for Okinawa. Translated by Roger Pineau and Masatoshi Uehara. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 1995.