By Rodger Baker On Sept. 7, 1945, Japanese forces in the Ryukyu Islands officially surrendered to the Americans on the island of Okinawa. U.S. forces spent more than 80 days between April and June 1945 taking the island. The battle ended with 300,000 military and civilian casualties, the death of U.S. Lt. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner as well as the suicides of two Japanese generals. Historically distinct from the rest of Japan, the island chain running southwest to Formosa (now Taiwan) was caught up in the middle of the contest between the United States and Japan for control of the Pacific Rim. It was intended to be the last step in the long slog across the Pacific for a final invasion of Japan's main islands. Today, power politics in East Asia has changed substantially.