Скачать или смотреть The ‘Impossible’ Bayonet Charge That Broke a 3,000-Man Japanese Assault in 12 Minutes

The morning of March twenty-first, nineteen forty-five, the sky above Okinawa was a pale, washed-out blue, the kind that seemed almost indifferent to the violence about to unfold on the ground. Sunlight struck the ridges with a cold, muted clarity, reflecting off the shattered terrain and exposing every scar left by artillery and aerial bombardment. In the jagged expanse near the Shuri Line, First Lieutenant Samuel “Sam” Hollingsworth crouched behind a low ridge, gripping the worn hilt of his M1 bayonet. Its steel blade, dulled by repeated use and sharpened countless times in the field, felt like an extension of his arm. Around him, the seventy-second Marine Regiment had dug shallow foxholes, rough excavations barely deep enough to offer protection from incoming fire, yet enough to lend a fragile sense of security. The men worked in silence, each breath measured, each movement precise. They were soldiers who had seen months of attrition and had learned, in the harshest terms, that mistakes were often fatal.