War has played a key role in the history of the United States, from the nation's founding

right down to the present. War made the U.S. independent, kept it together, increased its size,

and established it as a global superpower. Understanding America's wars is essential for understanding American history.

Welcome to Key Battles of American History,

a podcast in which we discuss American history

through the lens of the most important battles of America's wars.

Here is your host, James Early.

Music James Early. Welcome back to Key Battles of the Pacific Theater of World War II.

This is your host, James Early, as always.

We are now on the 28th episode in our series.

This is the second part of our mini-series on the Battle of Okinawa.

This is Key Battle 9.

And this is our last amphibious assault battle.

This is going to be, as we saw last time.

Okinawa was chosen because it was very close to the Japanese home islands,

only a few hundred miles away.

And it was seen as a place where the Americans, if they could gain control of it,

it established a great staging ground for an eventual evasion in the home islands.

Invasion of the home islands i'm getting my

pronouns messed up here or whatever it is prepositions i'm not good with english grammar but

anyway so let's recap what happened at the beginning of in the first part of our okinawa

series or mini series so we we talked about the island.

...