"Like myself, you are an infantry general long schooled and practised in infantry warfare," wrote Lieut. General Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr., to the Japanese commander on Okinawa. "You fully know that no reinforcements can reach you. I believe, therefore, that you understand as clearly as I that the destruction of all Japanese resistance on this island is merely a matter of days, and that this will entail the necessity of my killing the vast majority of your remaining troops. ... I will acquaint [your representatives] with the manner in which an orderly and honorable cessation of hostilities may be...
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