 But snakes. How did the skipper say it? Okie, okie, okie. I heard him, he said Okinawa. They say this place looks like the country around Frisco. Yeah, but the people look like jazz. Frisco? They don't like it up in San Francisco when you call it Frisco. Spent my honeymoon up there, drove up from LA, made it an $8, 400 miles. Eight hours. What was holding you back? I used to make it from Buffalo to New York in six flat. That's 370 miles with hills. 370 miles. Why, right here we're closer to Japan than that. We're just 325 miles from their home office. 225 miles. You heard him. That's what the old man said. Well, let's close it and we'll walk you to St. Louis. I always felt pretty safe in St. Louis. It's awfully close. Mighty close. Yes, mighty close. Especially for a modern bomber with a job to do. About an hour's run from any number of Jap airfields. But here we were, closer than any fleet in history to a major land-based air power. At Midway, in the Coral Sea, even in the Marianas, distance had been against the Japanese Air Force. But now, as our fleet sailed against the enemy inner islands, the range was easy for any Jap plane that could fly. There were those who said no fleet could risk it. But the stakes were high. With Okinawa in our hands, we could control the China coast. Send swarms of planes to smother Japan. We were reaching for the throat of an empire. The risk must be taken. On the island of Okinawa, 5,000 miles from San Francisco, the earth shook from a fearful pounding by our ships and planes. To the south, our British allies were hurling their naval might at the bypass fortress of Formosa. They were raking Sakashima with shell and bomb. England's greatest battleships and newest carriers were there, screening us on the south, paying off with pleasure and old debt to Nepal. Admiral Mark A. Mitcher's tireless Task Force 58 stepped up its two weeks old aerial assault on Kyushu and the enemy home islands. It was the 4th of July in reverse on Japanese shipping, harbors, airfields, factories. Easter Sunday, 1945. At 8.30 that morning, the Marines and the army went in, were rattling the lock on Japan's front door. They were plowing sacred soil with American boots, tractors, tacks. The first seven days were battling, mysteriously quiet. A shore, army, and Marines pushed steadily forward, looking for an enemy which had vanished. On the 1,400 ships supporting the invasion, men waited at their battle stations and waited. We knew the blow would come, but how and when, then it struck, meaning the divine tempest. We called them suicide planes, manned by pilots wearing the ceremonial red sights of the Kamakaze Corps. They specialized in one-way trips, their destination, the deck or hull of any American ship, onto which plane, bombs, burning gasoline, and red-satched pilot can crash. Japan's secret weapon was no secret to our gunners or our fliers, who for months had been tinting the far Pacific with those same red sashes. But now, to meet our latest challenge, our deepest thrust, there rose every plane that could fly, new or old, from the very heart of Japan itself. 16-year-olds still in aviation schools were given their wings, a sash, and a mission. It was a maniacal, all-out effort to smash our sea power, isolate our troops on Okinawa. It was desperation. It was suicide. But it would be the pattern from now on to the very finish, a struggle between men who want to die and men who fight to live. Land-based planes streak low over the sea in our carrier, race through dull overcasts to throw themselves in screaming, smoking fury, that Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner ships are Okinawa, battleships with air, and new ships of the line. And a rugged little man named Ernie Pyle. There was no retreat. This was the fleet that came to stay, that had to stay. Had to stay because the men that the Navy landed needed tons of steel from Navy guns. Even as we beat off fresh waves of jet planes overhead, the big guns of the fleet smashed enemy strongholds miles away. Had to stay because our men advancing through the rice patties and over the steep ridges had to have close air support from the Navy flattons. In the air control, aboard the command ship, strike upon strike was ordered to precise deadly rocket fire to help make the next 50 yards of advance less costly. This was the fleet that had to stay because always, the stream of supplies to those troops must be steady and fuel. A bridge of ships was drawn across the Pacific to bring our men more food, more medicine, more ammunition. And waiting at the end of the longest supply route in any war were the kamikaze. It was savage. This was a fleet fighting like infantry, punching away at the enemy. Only there are no foxholes in the ocean. 556 Japanese planes destroyed, but without sleep. Some fought with guns, some with axes, torches, some with fire smothering foals. At the same time, battle stations. And some were buried. Two book legends. It became a fact of life and shocking news. Between attacks, weary men, afloat and ashore, paid honor to the beloved figure in the Blue Navy float. Said farewell to the father of the modern American Navy. Turned and met the next assault. During three fabulous months, thousands of aircraft were hurled against our ships. But only 10% ever slipped through our air patrol. Yet the siege by air went on. The Japanese beast still spat zeroes. April 6, 277 enemy planes shot down. April 12, 100 planes, May 3, 97. The great news came. VE Day. It came first to the lookouts, to the men who stand guard while the others sleep. Men were glad and grateful. Home seemed a little nearer. But for now, VE Day was simply the 1,247th day of our Pacific War. From the rolling decks of our carriers, the fighters rose once again to intercept the enemy. On the cruisers and destroyers and battleships, our heavy batteries once more leveled against the jet studded hills of Okinawa. The parking 20s and 40s sent streams of fiery lead into the world's last alien sky. May 12, 164 Jap aircraft down. June 3, 45, June 6, 67, June 8, 30. Devastating air sea battle of all time wore on. The Japanese paid with their air force with their newest ships, 4,232 planes. The fleet that came to stay paid a price to it. But our men, our ships, our planes, took everything the land could grow at the sea and handed it back double. The question, could a fleet stand up against the mass fury of land-based planes got an emphatic answer from the men who fight to live from the fleet that came to stay?