The U.S. invades Kwajalein on January 31, 1944, breaking the outer ring of the Japanese Pacific territory.

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In a live recording, Sgt. Fred Walker gives a blow-by-blow description of a battle with Japanese forces as he lands on one of the Marshall Island atolls in the Pacific with the Marines Fifth Amphibian Corps in 1944.

On April 1, 1945, the U.S. 10th Army under Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner began the invasion of Okinawa, a Japanese-held island in the Pacific considered the final stepping stone in an advance toward the Japanese mainland. Two days into the invasion, a news report relays the story of the U.S. Army's fast-paced advance.