The Twilight Warriors (73 page)

9
USS
Braine
crewmen lost in
kikusui
No. 8: Rielly,
Kamikazes, Corsairs, and Picket Ships
, 279.

10
Okinawa now the costliest naval engagement in U.S. history: Morison,
Victory in the Pacific
, 272.

11
“A less serene man and courageous man might, before reaching this point, have asked, ‘Is this island worth the cost?’ ”: Morison describing Spruance’s tenacity, ibid., 272.

12
Mitscher and his staff look “like a parade of scarecrows”: Taylor,
The Magnificent Mitscher
, 300.

37
Ritual of Death

1
Ushijima buys time with the “offensive retreat”: Yahara,
The Battle for Okinawa
, 88–89.

2
“It’s all over now but cleaning up pockets of resistance”: Buckner quote in Appleman,
Okinawa: The Last Battle
, 422.

3
Journalists Bigart and Lawrence criticisms of Buckner from Bill Sloan,
The Ultimate Battle: Okinawa 1945
, 312.

4
MacArthur accuses Okinawa commanders of “sacrificing thousands of American soldiers”: “The Trouble I’ve Seen: The Nils Andersen Story,”
http://notorc.blogspot.com/2007/07/lest-we-forget-sacred-grove-at-montrose.html
.

5
MacArthur will see to it that Buckner does not play a role in the invasion of Japan: Cole C. Kingseed,
Old Glory Stories
, 73.

6
“If we’d scattered our forces, we might have got licked”: Buckner quote from
Seven Stars
, 80.

7
Japanese gunners fire five rounds from their concealed position: George Feifer,
The Battle of Okinawa: The Blood and the Bomb
, 378–79.

8
The circumstances of Simon Buckner’s death are covered in multiple sources, including Appleman’s
Okinawa: The Last Battle
, Sloan’s
The Ultimate Battle
, and Feifer’s
The Battle of Okinawa
.