浴血与炸弹（上）（BBC History 202004）
声明：本人高三学生，学艺不精，翻译错误请指出。其次这是没事摸鱼翻译的，下会在有空时候发出来。
正文
“Smoke and dust rose up from the shore, thousands of feet high,” wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent Ernie Pyle, watching from the 5th Marines’ command ship, “until finally the land was completely veiled. Bombs and strafing machine guns and roaring engines mingled with the crash of naval bombardment and seemed to drown out all existence. The ghastly concussion set up vibrations in the air – a sort of flutter – which pained and pounded the ears as though with invisible drumsticks. During all this time the waves of assault craft were forming up behind us.”
“烟尘从几千尺的海岸上升起”，从第五海军陆战队的指挥舰上望去的，在之后获得普利兹奖的战地记者Ernie Pyle写到，“直到最后，大地已经完全蒙上了面纱。炸弹，扫射的机枪，咆哮的引擎混杂着海军炮击的巨响，好似要埋没所有存在。恐怖的冲击在空中震荡，让人有几分震颤，好像一根无形的鼓槌，损害、击打着耳朵。在这期间，登陆艇的浪花在我们身边掀起来。”
It was 7:45am on 1 April 1945 – or ‘Love Day’, the invasion of the 70 mile-long island of Okinawa, the most southerly of Japan’s 47 prefectures. Pyle’s ship was just one of 1,300 Allied vessels, containing 183,000 combat troops, that were taking part in the greatest air-land-sea battle in history, the last major clash of the Second World War, and one that would have profound consequences for the modern world.
这是1945年4月1日7:45——爱之日。对70英里长的冲绳岛——日本47个县中最南端——攻击开始了。Pyle所在的船是包括1300艘盟军舰队，183,000名攻击部队中的一艘，他们正参与着历史上最大的海陆空战斗，也是二战中最后、最主要的冲突，这是一件对现代社会意义深远的事件。
The decision to attack Okinawa – Operation ‘Iceberg’ – had been taken by American military chiefs the previous October. Possession of Okinawa, just 400 miles south of the Japanese home islands, would allow Allied planes to bomb strategic targets on the mainland and prepare the ground for an amphibious invasion. It was the culmination of a two-pronged American advance – through New Guinea and the Philippines and, further north, through the islands of the central Pacific – that had been gathering pace since the landings on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands in August 1942. Now, with this second landing on Japanese soil (following Iwo Jima in February 1945), the end of the Pacific War was in sight.
攻击冲绳的决定——冰山行动，早已被美军主管在先前10月提出。拥有冲绳，这个与日本本土只有400里的小岛，将允许盟军的飞机去轰炸日本的战略目标和准备了一块用于两栖作战的土地。从1942年在所罗门群岛的瓜达康纳尔岛登陆，这是两方面美军从新几内亚和菲律宾以及更北方的中太平洋的小岛推进的高潮，它进步神速。如今1945年2月在硫磺岛的登陆，随着这次在日本土地上的第2次登陆，让二战的结束在望。
DEAD IN THE WATER
命丧于海水
In one of the first assault craft to hit the beach at H-hour – 8:30am – was 22-year-old Corporal Jim Johnston from Nebraska. As they approached the shore, Johnston thought of the dead Marines he had seen in the water and on the beach during the bloody battle for the island of Peleliu the previous September, and “wondered what we would look like to the waves that would come behind us”. He approached a pillbox, anticipating the “impact of bullets ripping into my body”, but there was “no fire”. The pillbox was empty. So he and his men moved inland and, within an hour, the beachhead “was several hundred yards deep and growing by the minute”.
在H时冲上沙滩的第1批登陆艇中，是来自内布拉斯加州的22岁下士，吉姆·约翰斯顿，当他接近海滩，他想起了在先前9月血腥的佩莱利马岛战役中，他所见到的死在水中和沙滩上的海军陆战队员，“想想我们会在我们身后接近的浪花中变成什么样”。他接近了一个碉堡，想着“子弹射穿我身体会怎么样”，但这儿“没有开火”，这个碉堡是空的。因此他和他的队友向岛中前进，在一小时中，滩头已有“几百码深，并无时在扩大”。
By nightfall, the beachhead on the west coast of Okinawa was 15,000 yards long and, in places, 5,000 yards deep. More than 60,000 men were ashore. In addition, numerous tanks and anti-aircraft units had been landed, as had all the divisional artillery and, by evening, guns were in position to support the forward troops. A captured airfield was now serviceable for emergency landings.
夜幕降临冲绳西边的滩头已有15,000码长，有些地方有5000码深。6000人被送上岸，此外大量的坦克、防空单位以及炮兵已经登陆，在夜晚之前，支援前线部队的枪械已经就位。一个缴获的机场，现在有能力为紧急登陆服务。
The American commander, Lieutenant General Simon B Buckner Jr, was elated. “We landed practically without opposition,” he noted in his diary, “and gained more ground than we expected to for three days… The Japs have missed their best opportunity.”
美军的指挥，西蒙·B·巴克纳中将十分高兴。“我们实际的登陆没有遭到抵抗”，他在日记中写到，“我们用三天时间取得了比我们预期中更多的土地……日本人已经失去了他们最好的机会。”
Unbeknown to Buckner, who was fighting his first ever battle, the day was going entirely to plan for the Japanese commanders. Aware that their 80,000 soldiers, bolstered by around 20,000 Okinawan ‘Boeitai’ (home guard), were outgunned and outnumbered, they had chosen to concentrate the bulk of their forces behind several heavily fortified lines in the southern third of the island where, well protected in tunnels and caves, they could withstand any amount of American bombs and shells. Here several jagged lines of ridges and rocky escarpment had been turned into formidable nests of interlocking pillboxes and firing positions. All were connected by a network of caves and passageways inside the hills that allowed the defenders to move safely to each point of attack.
而首次战斗的巴克纳没有预料到，这一天完全按照日本指挥官的计划进行。认识到他们只有8万名士兵和2万名冲绳“自卫队”，在火力与数量上被超越，他们选择将大量的兵力部署在用隧道和洞穴牢牢加固的许多战线的南方1/3的岛上，它们能够抵抗美军大量的轰炸与炮击。在这儿，许多锯齿状的山垄和岩石陡坡被转变成了恐怖的连锁碉堡和火力点巢穴。所有的东西都被山中的洞穴和交通网连接，允许防御者安全的转移到每一个攻击点。
STIFFENING OPPOSITION
对抗似胶漆
Blissfully unaware of the Japanese strategy, Buckner’s men made rapid progress during the first few days of the campaign, cutting the island in two and brushing aside light enemy forces. By 4 April, Buckner’s US 10th Army held a slice of Okinawa 15 miles long and from three to ten miles wide. The beachhead included two airfields and beaches that, in the words of the official history of the Okinawa campaign, “could take immense tonnage from the cargo ships, and sufficient space for dumps and installations that were rapidly being built”.
愉快地忽略了日军的战术，巴克纳的部队在战役的前几天快速前进，将岛一分为二，并扫清了一侧琐碎的敌军。4月4日之前巴克纳的美国第5集团军将冲程分割成了长15里，宽3~10里。部分滩头，已有两座机场，在官方对冲程战役的描述中，“这些沙滩能够停泊，大吨位货船，也有足够的空间来堆积军需和设施，以便他们能被快速建起。”
But, as the US Army’s XXIV Corps moved south towards the main Japanese defences, the opposition stiffened. The first line was the Kakazu hill mass, which boasted formidable defensive features, including a deep moat, a hill studded with natural and man-made positions and a cluster of thick-walled buildings. A four-day assault began on 9 April, but failed to break through the storm of Japanese artillery, mortar and machine gunfire – costing the XXIV Corps almost 3,000 casualties. One veteran described the operation as a “meat-grinder” for the US troops.
但是，随着美国24军向南方日军主要防御挺进，双方的对抗愈发焦灼。第1道坎就是卡卡祖山的麻烦，他以可怕的防御设施自豪，包括一条深壕，布满自然和人造的攻击点的山丘和一群厚墙建筑。4天的攻击从4月9日开始，但无法突破日军炮击，迫击炮和机枪所产生的烟雾，并损失了24师大约3000人。一位老兵这样描述“为美军准备的绞肉机”。
When a second offensive in late April made little headway, subordinates urged Buckner to try an amphibious landing behind the Japanese defences. He refused on the grounds that the beaches in the south were too small for resupply and there was a danger that the troops would fail to break out of their beachhead.
在4月末的第2次进攻成效甚微时，下属们催促巴克纳，待日军防御后进行两栖登陆。他拒绝了那里，因为南方沙滩太小而不能够补给，以及部队会有突破失败的危险。
It was a missed opportunity, and one that would have costly consequences. Buckner admitted as much to his wife when he wrote: “The Japs here seem to have the strongest position yet encountered in the Pacific, and it will be a slow tedious grind with flamethrowers, explosives placed by hand and the closest of teamwork to dislodge them without very heavy losses.
这是一个错失的机会，也是会有巨大花费的结果。巴克纳在信中向自己的妻子承认，“这儿的日本人是在太平洋战场上所遇的最顽强的，这将是一场以火焰喷射器，手动安放的炸药和紧密的团结协作的缓慢冗长的拉锯战，来驱逐他们而不大量损耗。”
STUMPS OF RITTING TEETH
树桩如烂齿
In early May, Buckner ordered the Marines of III Amphibious Corps, which had captured the Motobu peninsula in the north, to reinforce the ‘doughboys’ of XXIV Corps in the south. The first view of the battlefield was a shock to Sergeant William Manchester of the 2/29th Marines .“It was,” he recalled ,“a monstrous sight, a moonscape. Hills, ridges and cliff srose and fell along the front like the gray stumps of rotting teeth. There was nothing green left; artillery had denuded and scarred every inch of ground. Tiny flares glowed and disappeared. Shrapnel burst with bluish white puffs. Jets of flamethrowers flickered and here and there new explosions stirred up the rubble.”
5月初，巴克纳指挥着之前控制了北方的Motobu半岛的第3海军陆战队，支援24军在南方的步兵师。对战场的第一景象震惊了2/29海军陆战队的军事长威廉·曼特斯特。他回忆到“这就是一个可怕的景象，如同一个月面。山、山脊和悬崖，在前方起起伏伏，像灰色的树桩，就像腐烂的牙齿，这儿几乎没有剩下一点绿色。炮击剥光了和创伤了每一尺的土地。小火苗又燃起。榴弹爆炸升起蓝白色烟雾，喷射的火焰喷射器闪烁着，新的爆炸又搅起碎石尘土。”
During this phase of the fighting, Private First Class Desmond Doss, a 26-year-old Seventh Day Adventist from Virginia – who had joined up as a medic to avoid the need to kill – won the Medal of Honor after rescuing at least 50 wounded comrades and then lowering them to safety down a sheer cliff known as the Maeda Escarpment. Doss’s astonishing feat was celebrated in the 2016 Mel Gibson-directed film Hacksaw Ridge.
这一阶段，独立一师的的埃蒙斯·多斯——一位来自弗吉尼亚州的基督教徒加入了军队，作为医务员来避免减员。在救助了至少50名伤员，并将他们安全地降下了被称为利达坡的陡崖后荣获荣誉勋章。多斯令人震撼的功绩在2016年被梅尔吉伯斯的电影《血战钢锯岭》展现。
Some of the most savage fighting was for a seemingly insignificant feature – described by one veteran as an “ugly hive” of “coral and volcanic rock, 300 yards long and 100 feet high” – dubbed Sugar Loaf Hill. The week long battle to capture the hill cost the 6th Marine Division more than 2,600 casualties, including three battalion commanders and nine company commanders, and a further 1,200 cases of combat fatigue. With heavy rain adding to the misery, the battlefield was a hellish sight. “The scene,” wrote Eugene Sledge of 3/5th Marines, “was nothing but mud; shellfire, flooded craters with their silent, pathetic, rotting occupants; knocked[1]out tanks and amtracs, and discarded equipment – utter desolation… Men struggled and fought and bled in an environment so degrading I believed we had been flung into hell’s own cesspool.”
Sugar Loaf Hill，被一位老兵戏称为“丑陋蜂巢”的300码长1百尺高的珊瑚火山岩，一些残酷的战斗正在争夺这些似乎无意义的地点。为了控制这座山头，一周长的战斗消耗了第六海军陆战队超过2600人，包括了三名营长，九名连长，1200名战斗杂役人员。大雨倾盆而下，落入迷一般的战场，活像一个地狱。恩吉尔·斯雷吉说：“这里什么都没有，只有泥土，炮火，大量的弹坑，战士们安静忧郁又憔悴的，在其中攻击着坦克与两栖车，丢弃了装备，无比荒凉。人们在野外挣扎着，战斗着，流着血，如此落魄，我相信我们已被扔进地狱的污水池。”
Determined to defend Okinawa to the last, the Japanese fought with fanatical bravery. The garrison was supported by waves of kamikaze attacks from planes, manned rockets, human torpedoes and even ships launched on suicide missions from the home islands. The planes were flown by officers of the Shimpū Tokkōtai, the Divine Wind Special Attack units, who had pledged to “crash their airplanes into enemy ships in acts of self-immolation”. Meanwhile, the one-way surface ship mission, known as Operation ‘Ten-go’, was an attempt by the superbattleship Yamato, the world’s largest, to wreak havoc among the Allied ships with its 18-inch guns before beaching itself on the shore and using its crew as naval infantry.
以狂热的勇气来战斗的日本人，决心在冲绳战至最后一刻。守军靠着飞机的神风攻击，人控火箭，人肉鱼雷，甚至从本土启程的，执行自杀任务的船。这些飞机由神风特攻队的队员驾驶，他们宣誓“以自焚之行动，将飞机刺入敌军之舰船”。此外单程舰艇任务，天国行动，这是一次由世界最大的超级战舰大和号进行的，在搁浅前用它的18英尺炮重创盟军部队，并在之后将船员作为海军步兵的尝试。
These attacks were launched with the aim of destroying or driving off the ships of the US Fifth Fleet (including a powerful Royal Navy component) and isolating the American troops on Okinawa. But they failed – and thousands of Japanese lost their lives, including 2,500 on Yamato alone. However, they did sink 36 US ships and damage a further 368, the heaviest US naval losses of the Second World War.
这些攻击以摧毁或驱赶美军第五舰队和孤立在冲绳美军为目的进行。但他们失败了，数千日本人丧生，包括孤立的大和号上的2500人。但是他们也击沉了36艘和损伤了超368艘美国舰船，这是美国海军在二战中最大的伤亡。
Left to fight on alone, the Japanese garrison made a desperate last stand in the southern tip of the island where it had herded many civilians. The end came on 22 June 1945 when the 10th Army HQ announced that all organised resistance on Okinawa had ceased, though it would take another week to complete the mopping-up operation.
被留下孤立战斗日本守军孤注一掷，最终在聚集了许多百姓的岛屿的南部负隅顽抗。胜利来自于1945年6月22日，美军第十司令部宣称有组织的抵抗在冲绳已经结束，尽管肃清活动又花费了一周完成。
上部分暂时发出来，码字有点累，学业也挺重
