Battle of Okinawa: The Bloodiest Battle of the Pacific War | HistoryNet

On this day on April 1,1945, U.S. forces launch the invasion of Okinawa.
From the article:
"Private First Class Eugene B. Sledge of the 1st Marine Division had been fighting in 1945 on the miserable island of Okinawa for six weeks. Continuous rain transformed the terrain into a sea of mud that clutched soldiers’ boots and stalled large vehicles, while Japanese mortar and artillery shells poured down in a violent fury that mangled bodies and twisted weapons.

The island, according to Sledge, was ‘the most ghastly corner of hell I had ever witnessed….Every crater was half full of water, and many of them held a Marine corpse. The bodies lay pathetically just as they had been killed, half submerged in muck and water, rusting weapons still in hand. Swarms of big flies hovered about them.’ Wherever he looked, Sledge saw ‘maggots and decay. Men struggled and fought and bled in an environment so degrading I believed we had been flung into hell’s own cesspool.’"