I take a cruise from Leyte to Okinawa.

There was 183,000 people with me on the cruise. The cruise ended on Easter Sunday of 1945. It was also April Fools Day, April 1, 1945. The code name for the landing day was Love Day (L-Day). On Easter Sunday morning we waded ashore on Okinawa

It required 1500 ships to carry all of us. I will never forget going out on deck and looking at the invasion fleet. You could look in all directions and see ships everywhere. 1500 ships silently plowing through the water. Think how about how much fuel oil we were burning!

This is the largest operation that I have ever been involved in. The photo below is an actual photo of a small part of the invasion fleet.  I count 33 ships in the photo. There were 1467 more ships out of view.