The combination of faulty aerial photography and the stubborn vainglory Marine commander, WG Rupertus,  turned an assault of questionable strategic value into a six-week long massacre that killed 11,000 japanese and 900 KIA’s and 4500 wounded or missing. Almost all of the American casualties came from Rupertus’s unit, because he repeatedly refused  reinforcements. Today, there are several resorts in the area and American and Japanese tourists frolic, often unaware of the unrecovered dead and ordinance lurking beneath their feet and in the caves that hid Japanese defenders.

Lightning quick landings turned into head-on World War I style trench warfare as the Marines fought to sweep through Japanese defensive caves on the southern portion of the island. Monsoons turn the landscape into mud, and body parts littered the battlefields. Gen. Simon Buckner’s head-on attack, while direct and brutal, proved successful, but upwards of 240,000 casualties resulted from the campaign including 12,000 U.S. KIA’s and MIA’s, Over 100,00 civilians were killed, either as human shields or as a result of suicide orders issued by the Japanese. Today, the local population continues to resent Tokyo’s attempt to whitewash the Mass Suicide Order. Okinawa is definitely not part of mainland Japan.  US MIA’s still dot the landscape in the mountainous highlands.

More than a year before Hiroshima and Nagasaki, two Marine divisions stormed this island in order to set up a bomber base for B-29’s including the Enola Gay. By this time, Japanese resistance had already flagged. Nevertheless, 8000 of the 8300 Japanese garrison died in the limestone caves of the island during this battle which marked the first use of napalm. Much of the island was then bulldozed and paved over for a giant airfield, the world’s largest. Despite the overwhelming presence of 50,000 US troops, several hundred Japanese holed up in the jungle throughout 1945 and the last holdout was finally captured in 1953. Today, the luxury hotel-casino and small town accoutrements give no hint of the war waged or the MIA’s who fought it.

About 1,000 Japanese defenders fled for the hills when the Americans came ashore in April 1944 near Aitape and at Hollandia. Cut off and unsupplied, the Japanese army garrisons were bound to wither away, but MacArthur still asked the Australian Army to take over the Western New Guinea campaign, This freed up US forces for the attack on the Philippines. The Australians fought the IJA for almost a year in a largely unnecessary campaign, mostly along the thin strip of coast. Occasional skirmishes in the mountains left the godforsaken jungle littered even today with rusting hulks and broken bodies.

They may have fallen on the battlefield, but the fate of 55,000 KIA’s and MIA’s was decided by other men in other places. Although the Philippines were strategically placed to interrupt Japan’s supply lines from Southeast Asia, The Joint Chefs had recommended bypassing them and invading Japan. Gen MacArthur had frittered away an 8 hr advance warning of Japanese attack on December 7, 1941,  and was determined to redeem himself. Having repeatedly said “I will return,” (“I” and not “We” as others had suggested), he then went over the heads of Joint Chiefs and personally lobbied FDR. FDR, fearing competition for re-election, was only too glad to keep his General busy. Thus, on A-Day, MacArthur staged his wading ashore no less than four times for the camera. Lights, Camera, Action! Today, MIA’s are most likely to be found buried in the interior of the island because most of the heavy resistance from the holed-up Japanese occurred there, long after any hope of holding onto Philippines had gone.