# BATTLE OF OKINAWA NEWSREEL & BOMBING OF THE USS FRANKLIN 70852

Produced in 1945, this newsreel shows the invasion of Okinawa by U.S. Marines and the desperate battle that followed. The second half of the film documents the fate of the aircraft carrier USS Franklin, which was hit by a kamikaze fifty miles off the coast of Japan and severely damaged. 800 of its complement were killed. The epic battle to save the ship was one of the most courageous moments in the history of the U.S. Navy during WWII. The Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg, was fought on the Ryukyu Islands of Okinawa and was the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific War of World War II. The 82-day-long battle lasted from early April until mid-June 1945. After a long campaign of island hopping, the Allies were approaching Japan, and planned to use Okinawa, a large island only 340 mi (550 km) away from mainland Japan, as a base for air operations on the planned invasion of Japanese mainland (coded Operation Downfall). Four divisions of the U.S. 10th Army (the 7th, 27th, 77th, and 96th) and two Marine Divisions (the 1st and 6th) fought on the island. Their invasion was supported by naval, amphibious, and tactical air forces. The battle has been referred to as the "typhoon of steel" in English, and tetsu no ame ("rain of steel") or tetsu no bōfū ("violent wind of steel") in Japanese. The nicknames refer to the ferocity of the fighting, the intensity of kamikaze attacks from the Japanese defenders, and to the sheer numbers of Allied ships and armored vehicles…

- Kind: Newsreel
- Genres: War, News, Industrial and advertising
- Archive: [Internet Archive](https://archive.org/details/70852BombingOfTheFranklinH264)
- Licence or status: none stated by the archive
- Who can watch: Teens profiles and older (the archive gives no rating; placed by Invisible Network from its collection and subjects)

[Watch now](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/watch/archive/ia/70852BombingOfTheFranklinH264?play=1)