The Americans wordlessly shoveled dirt onto the grave and left. In a telling foreshadowing of the Vietnam War, commanders grew increasingly preoccupied with inflicting the highest possible number of deaths on the enemy for every American casualty—the popular term for this was “kill ratio”—an attitude present in the European theater but far more prevalent in the Pacific against a nonwhite enemy. In one press briefing, Willoughby emphasized that SWPA commanders were loath to “waste valuable Caucasian lives on Orientals, who prefer to die.” Lieutenant Colonel Yeo, the artillery commander,
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