World Battlefronts: One Deal, Three Aces

At Okinawa, pilots of the 2nd Marine Air Wing took off to intercept a Japanese attacking force. Three of them—Major George C. Axtell Jr., of Baden, Pa., Major Jefferson Davis Dorrah, Hood River, Ore., and First Lieut. Jeremiah J. O'Keefe, Biloxi, Miss.—were flying into their first combat. When they landed again, all three were aces. Their joint score: 16 Japs shot down, two probables.

Into the Ridges

The 8,000-yard battleline across southern Okinawa had not changed position in 13 days. Ahead lay a Japanese army 50,000 strong, entrenched on rows of spiny ridges, each one a maze of log bunkers, concrete pillboxes,...