In this volume (issues 41-44) the Americans' three-month battle to wrest the Pacific island of Okinawa from the Japanese is the setting for the personal story of a former US Marine on his return to where he fought as a youngster: a description which brings home with moving intensity the dreadfulness of the war in that part of the world and on that 'pulverized, decaying, fly-blown, muddy island in the spring of 1945'. The spectre of an invasion of the Japanese mainland was, of course, removed following the use of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima and Nagasaki — the dropping of the awsesome new weapon forming part of a major feature exploring the locations used in the development and testing of the device by Allied scientists in the United States, where work on the project called for the creation of plant and processes which were by any standards incredible. The American pre D-Day practice landings centred on Slapton in south Devon are covered in another detailed article. To enable such exercises to take place a wholesale evacuation of the local population was ordered, changing the face of the land. In one operation over 600 casualties resulted from an attack by German E-Boats — a figure ten times greater than for the actual assault at Utah Beach on D-Day. Other topics in this volume include: the battle of Aachen — the first major German city to fall to the Allies; Hermann Göring's capture and suicide — how in fact he was able to poison himself in his cell at Nuremberg — and collecters' interest in Göring memorabilia; the retrieval of a Long Range Desert Group vehicle from the Western Desert; plus other articles covering a wide variety of topics on the After the Battle series.
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