Hello everyone, welcome back to the history hit warfare podcast.

I'm your host James Rogers and in this episode we're looking at the Battle of Okinawa.

This is of course the last major campaign of the Second World War.

It's the largest land-sea air engagement in history.

And it's for this reason that I found it pretty shocking when I was looking through the news last week that

Soil to build the new US Air Base on Okinawa contains the remains of war dead from that battle.

That's right, volunteers who have gone searching through the earth that will be used for the foundations of this new base have found the remains of those killed in 1945, the remains of civilians, of Japanese troops and of Americans. So to help us understand why this is perhaps pretty

disturbing I wanted to get an expert historian on the Battle of Okinawa onto the podcast and who better than Saul David he is the author of the new best-selling book crucible of hell the heroism and tragedy of Okinawa 1945.

He not only takes us step by step through the battle, the mistakes and the gains that the Americans

made, but also that ferocious fight that the Japanese put up that really made sure that this battle was one of the deadliest in that theatre.

Soul has gone through all the archives, all the memoirs,

he's visited Okinawa, and the story he tells

really puts into perspective

why this recent news is perhaps a bit of a stain on American military history in my

eyes at least. Now his new book I know is out for paperback it's a a steal at a tenor. So as bookshops reopen, do make sure you go and you buy the book. So here

he is, Sol David on the Battle of Okinawa. Hi Saul thanks so much for coming on the warfare podcast how you doing today

very good and thank you very much for inviting me, James.

Not a problem at all.

Congratulations, by the way, on the new book.

How has it been releasing Crucible of Hell in times of COVID?

Well, it's not ideal, is it?

Mainly because you can't get out in the streets

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