Bloody OkinawaThe last great battle of World War II began on Easter Sunday, April 1, 1945, when more than 184,000 troops began landing on the only Japanese home soil invaded during the Pacific war. The island of Okinawa was just 350 miles from mainland Japan, and the Allies planned to use it as their forward base for the invasion. On the island, nearly 140,000 Japanese and auxiliary soldiers resisted the US led assault with suicidal tenacity from a Gibraltar of