Former Marine Glennon Nuyt, second from right, talks about Okinawa on Friday, April 1, 2016, at VFW Post 1298 in Bowling Green. (Jackson French/jfrench@bgdailynews.com)

Veterans of the World War II Battle of Okinawa gathered Friday at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1298 to remember the 83-day battle. 

Friday was the 71st anniversary of the battle’s start.

Jack Eversole, who served with the 6th Marine Division, said the offensive was launched on Easter Sunday.  

“The Japanese thought we wouldn’t land on a religious holiday,” he said. 

Eversole was a forward observer for the 4th Regiment, he said. 

“They were the ones that went out and flushed them out of the caves,” he said. 

For the duration of the nearly three-month conflict, Eversole was never wounded.

“I was one of the lucky ones,” he said. “The casualty rates in the division were really high.” 

A film crew from a Japanese public television station attended last year’s reunion to film part of a documentary about the battle.  

“Most of them fought to the death,” Eversole said of the Japanese soldiers. 

He said the breakfast has been going on at least since the 1980s, though he couldn’t remember exactly when it started or how long he’s been a regular attendee. 

“It’s kind of gone out of everyone’s memory,” he said.  

The VFW has been hosting the event for the past seven or eight years, he said.

Glennon Nuyt, who also served with the 6th Division as a rifleman, said his division was the only one that never touched American soil. The division was formed on Guadalcanal and disbanded oversees. “They were a bad bunch of guys,” he said. 

Travis Keller, a member of the Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce board of directors, brought an M1 Garand, which he described as “the rifle of choice” for American soldiers on Okinawa, to the post. 

During the breakfast, Nuyt held the gun like he was firing it as he answered Keller’s questions about the battle. 

“One of these will never fail you,” Nuyt said as he looked at the rifle.    

Nuyt was wounded when a grenade was shot off his belt, an injury that caused him to lose feeling in one of his hands. He said he was sent back to combat when he was capable of pulling his hand back from a pin that pricked his palm, which doctors said indicated he could fire and reload again. “I went and got my uniform back on and went back out to the front lines.”

He was 19 years old at the time. 

According to post commander Glenn Skaggs, nine Okinawa veterans made it to the event.

“There’s just fewer and fewer of them every year,” Skaggs said. “There’s just not a lot of World War II vets left.”

— Follow Daily News reporter Jackson French on Twitter at twitter.com/Jackson_French or visit bgdailynews.com.