From Ohio to Okinawa

"We constantly reminded each other, 'Don't shoot high, shoot low . . . they will be crawling on their bellies' . . . then they would come charging out, start shooting, then turn and run back. You had to time firing at them to be at the closest point. I just kept firing that night, almost all night . . . You just didn't have any idea if you were hitting or killing someone, but you fired at what moved . . . By the time the sun came up, it was a horrible sight. I never saw so many dead bodies in my life. That banzai battle on Saipan took about 30 hours, but we outlasted them. We lost a lot of guys, but they lost even more. It was just a simple slaughter." - William E. Snook, on the Japanese banzai attack of U.S. forces on Saipan, June, 1944.