The wounds caused by all this equipment are terrible. One japanese survivor had said that it was like watching people try to exterminate insects. The beaches and the flat terrain around the air fields were strewn with dead shell craters left records of direct hits. Some contained the mashed up remains of ten or 12 marines exploring the terraces above red beach. Legs and arms lay 50 feet away from any body. In one spot on the sand, far from the nearest cluster of dead, i saw a string of guts 15 feet long.
When do spirit, tenacity, resilience and bravery cross into madness? When cities are incinerated? When suicide attacks become the norm? When atomic weapons are used? Japan's leaders test the limits of national endurance in the war's last year.