Third and fourth terms of the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt well-defended island of Iwo Jima, taking control of that island the following month. On April 1, the U.S. landed on Okinawa Island, the largest of the Ryukyu Islands. The Japanese allowed the Americans to land on the island before launching a fierce attack that included "kamikaze" suicide attacks by Japanese aircraft. Japanese forces on Okinawa held out until June 1945; U.S. forces suffered over 60,000 casualties during the operation. In late 1943, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin agreed to meet to discuss strategy and post-war plans at the Tehran Conference, which marked Roosevelt's first face-to-face meeting with Stalin. At the conference,
Attack on Kure (March 1945) Force (designated Task Force 58) was ordered to neutralize airfields in the Japanese home islands which could be used to attack the invasion force after the landings commenced on 1 April 1945. As part of these operations, the Task Force was also to attack Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) warships sheltering in ports. Task Force 58 was the main striking element of the United States Pacific Fleet. It included 15 aircraft carriers, and was organised into four task groups. The March attacks would be the third time Task Force 58 had struck the Japanese home islands. The first had been a