Two American servicemen pose atop a captured Japanese heavy field gun near the village of Makabe, southern Okinawa, during the closing weeks of the Battle of Okinawa in the spring of 1945. A hand-lettered sign wired to the barrel notes the gun's position 'guarding the left flank of Hill 68,' part of the dense network of fortified high ground that Japanese defenders used to slow the American advance toward Mabuni and the Kiyamu Peninsula. Photographs of captured enemy ordnance were popular keepsakes among American troops, offering tangible proof of the ground gained during one of the war's costliest campaigns. Project: 218239