Still, most decisions are made for more than one reason, so this doesn't invalidate the conventional wisdom that Harry Truman made his untroubled choice much under the influence of the unexpected duration and ferocity of Ushijima's defense. At least that much is true. From the time the new president took office in mid-April, the casualties on Okinawa almost equaled those of the previous three years in the Pacific, ever since, and including, Pearl Harbor. Dreading "an Okinawa from one end of Japan to the other," Truman — an Army veteran who'd seen some of World War I's carnage with his own eyes
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