General's Burial

In the grey morning light, solemn lines of soldiers and officers watched a U.S. field ambulance roll along the dusty road toward the 7th Infantry Division Cemetery on Okinawa. Inside lay the body of the man who had led them through the Pacific war's bloodiest battle: Lieut. General Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr., commander of the U.S. Tenth Army. Almost on the eve of victory, he had been killed by a Japanese shell in a forward observation post (TIME, June 25).

At a freshly dug grave, enlisted men lifted the plain grey coffin from the ambulance and laid it against a bank of flowers on green camouflage wire. High-ranking officers, led by Marine Lieut. General Roy S. Geiger, stood at attention while the brief service was read. The melancholy notes of taps floated over nearby Hagushi Beach, where General Buckner's men had swarmed ashore on Easter morning. Then his body was lowered into the ground, to rest in honor with the other thousands who had died to win Okinawa.

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