 Now we know where we're going. Did you get that about those snakes? I don't mind japs, 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 japs. He spent my honeymoon up there. He drove up from L.A. Made it an eight dollars. Four hundred miles. Eight hours. What was holding you back? I used to make it from Buffalo to New York in six flats. That's three hundred and seventy miles with heels. Three hundred and seventy miles. Why, right here we're closer to Japan than that. We're just three hundred and twenty-five miles in their home office. Two hundred and twenty-five miles. You heard him. That's what the old man said. Two hundred and twenty-five miles. Well, it's closer than we were working at St. Louis. I always felt pretty safe in St. Louis. That'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, ding 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 porters of the mountain. 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 Marquee Mitchell's tireless Task Force 58 stepped up its two weeks old aerial assault on Kyushu and the enemy home islands. Fourth of July in reverse on Japanese shipping, harbors, airfields, planks. Men of the Navy, 400,000 men, called it Love Day, where in the world it was Easter Sunday, 1945. 30 that morning, the Marines and the Army went in. 100,000 yanks were rattling the lock on Japan's front door. They were plowing sacred soil with American boots, tractors, and tanks. The first seven days were badly, 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. We knew the blow would come, but how and when? Man-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-sights pilot in flight. Secret weapon was no secret to our gunners or our fliers, who for months had been tending the far Pacific with those same red sashes. But now to meet our latest challenge, our deepest trust came that could fly. It was desperation, it was suicide, on to the very finish. A struggle between men who want to die and men who fight to live. He's still heading to the target. Hundreds of land-based planes sweep all over the sea in our carry. They dove out of the dawn, themselves in screaming, smoking fury, that Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner ships are poking our way. The old battleships were there, and new ships in the line. In Ernie Pyle, this was the fleet that came to stay. To stay because the men that the Navy landed needed tons of steel from Navy guns, tons of jet planes overhead. The big guns of the fleet smashed enemy strongholds miles away. Patties and over-the-steep ridges had to have close air support. From the Navy flat-tops or the command ship, strike upon strike was ordered. Marine flyers laid down precise, deadly rocket-fire to help make the next 50 yards of advance. This was the fleet that had to stay, because always the stream of supplies to those troops must be steady and huge. A bridge of ships was thrown 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, fighting like infantry, punching away at the enemy. Only there were no fossils in the ocean. Big Japanese planes did not without sleep. Some fought with guns, some with axes, torches, some with fire smothering foes. It was thick and fight at the same time. Many fell at their battle stations, and some were buried. A schoolbook legend, it became a fact of life. Between attacks, weary men, afloat on the shore, paid honor to the beloved figure in the blue Navy cloak. Sent farewell to the father of the modern American Navy. Then they 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 control. Yet the siege by air went on. The Japanese beast still spat zero. Six 277 enemy planes shot down. April 12th, 100 planes, May 3rd, 97. Of the morning watch on May 9th, the great news came. It came first to the lookouts, to the men who stand guard while the others sleep. Men were grabbed and grateful. Homes seemed a little nearer. But for now, the E-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 barking 20s and 40s sent streams of fiery lead into the world's last alien sky. 164 jet aircrafts down. June 3rd, 45. June 6th, 67. June 8th, 30. The most devastating air-sea battle of all time wore on. The Japanese paved with their air force, with their newest ships. 4,232 planes came to stay. Anything the land could throw at 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.