Good morning, Whitewater.
The first day of the new month will be rainy with a high of forty-seven. Sunrise is 6:34 and sunset 7:22, for 12h 47m 56s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 41.6% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1945, Americans landed on Okinawa, the beginning of an intense fight to take that island from Japan. The New York Times reported on the landing the next day:
Guam, Monday, April 2 — The United States Tenth Army landed yesterday morning on Okinawa, main island of the Ryukyus, 362 miles from the Japanese home islands. This morning found the invaders three miles inland and holding two airfields, with the defenders retreating all along the eight-mile landing line.
The veteran doughboys and marines met amazingly light resistance from the minute they landed yesterday at 8:30 A.M. They pushed up the steep slopes from the landing beaches with ease, although the shore was dominated by enemy guns on high ground.
Marines took the Yontan airfield at the northern end of the beachhead while Army troops captured the Katena airdrome in the southern area.
In his second communique on the operation Admiral Chester W. Nimitz at 9:30 A.M. today reported:
“United States forces on Okinawa advanced inland rapidly throughout the first day of the assault and by 18:00 (6 P.M.) on April 1 (East Longitude date), forward elements of the Twenty-fourth Army Corps and Marine Third Amphibious Corps had expanded in the beachhead to a three mile depth at several points. Enemy resistance continued to be light.
The Battle of Okinawa lasted over two months’ time, until the few remaining Japanese soldiers on the island capitulated in mid-June, and was the largest amphibious assault of its kind in the Pacific.
On this day in 1970, Wisconsin’s MLB team is founded:
1970 – Milwaukee Brewers Founded
On this date the Milwaukee Brewers, Inc., an organization formed by Allan H. “Bud” Selig and Edmund Fitzgerald, acquired the Seattle Pilots franchise. The team was renamed the Milwaukee Brewers, a tribute to the city’s long association with brewing industry.
A Google a Day asks a question about sports:
The creator of the first fantasy baseball league draft kept track of the players by hand and pulled statistics from what sports magazine?