In the grey morning light, solemn lines of soldiers and officers watched a U.S. field ambulance roll along the dusty road toward the 7th Infantry Division Cemetery on Okinawa. Inside lay the body of the man who had led them through the Pacific war's bloodiest battle: Lieut. General Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr., commander of the U.S. Tenth Army. Almost on the eve of victory, he had been killed by a Japanese shell in a forward observation post (TIME, June 25).
At a freshly dug grave, enlisted men lifted the plain grey coffin from the ambulance and laid it against a bank of...
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