Many on here have probably read With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa by E.B. Sledge.
The first action many Marines had seen was at Peleliu. From there they went to Okinawa. Peleliu was just a small atoll. Okinawa was a large Island with a local population. The Japanese had 100,000 troops on Okinawa.
The vast majority of Marines who landed on Okinawa had already seen combat against the Japanese and understood that the Japanese weren't much on surrender.
That must have been quite a mental burden for the Marines,....landing on an island which held 100,000 enemy troops and knowing that you weren't leaving until the whole bunch of them had been eradicated,...and that you had to accomplish it without getting killed.
The war in Europe was plenty harsh. But in Europe war came with a couple of options,...such as surrender if you found yourself in a no-win situation. Also, it was expected that, in Europe, the enemy would call it off once defeat became inevitable.
That didn't exist in the Pacific. East Asians have different attitudes about war than Europeans.
To defeat East Asians in war requires eradication of their entire people. The Japanese were more or less resigned to that fact before the bombs demonstrated to them exactly what form their eradication would take and how rapidly it could be accomplished.
,...and it took two of them.
