May-June 1945

The 10^th Army and two Marine divisions continued to wage a close, bitter battle with the Japanese for possession of Okinawa, while Air Corps‘ B-29s bombed the mainland of Japan, burning thousands of civilians to death with incidental damage to military targets. The point system was officially announced, and the 1^st Armored Division moved into Berlin and its black market to earn themselves the title of the „Million-Dollar Division.“ Sitting on the banks of the Elbe, the 82^nd Airborne heard the Russians shoot and rape the Germans and watched the dead women float by in the morning.

—David Kenyon Webster, Parachute Infantry, (New York: Dell Publishing, 1994), 317.