Our Lecturers program on Thursday, October 27, 2011 will be Wes McCoy who will talk about his service during the invasion of Okinawa, which will include a power point presentation.  The Battle of Okinawa started in April 1945.  The capture of Okinawa was part of a three-point plan the Americans had for winning the war in the Far East.  Okinawa was to prove a bloody battle even by the standards of the war in the Far East, but it was to be one of the major battles of World War II.  Alongside the territorial re-conquest of land in the Far East, Americans wished to destroy what was left of Japan’s fleet and use airstrips in the region to launch bombing raids on Japan’s industrial heartland.  Wes grew up on a farm in Larimore, North Dakota.