BATTLE OF IWO JIMA
Iwo Jima lay about halfway between the Marianas Islands and the main islands of Japan. It is about 650 miles directly south of Tokyo, and was administered as part of Ogasawara, one of eight villages of Tokyo. It is only about 8 square miles in area, but saw some of the fiercest fighting of the war.
By the time 1945 had arrived, the Japanese were under no illusions that they could conduct offensive operations against the United States. Their focus had to be the defense of the homeland, with the idea of making it so costly to the Americans that they would be able to achieve an armistice on terms favorable to themselves.
The Japanese believed that: “In the light of the above situation, seeing that it was impossible to conduct our air, sea, and ground operations on Iwo Jima toward ultimate victory, it was decided that in order to gain time necessary for the preparation of the Homeland defense, our forces should rely solely upon the established defensive equipment in that area, checking the enemy by delaying tactics. Even the suicidal attacks by small groups of our Army and Navy airplanes, the surprise attacks by our submarines, and the actions of parachute units, although effective, could be regarded only as a strategical ruse on our part. It was a most depressing thought that we had no available means left for the exploitation of the strategical opportunities which might from time to time occur in the course of these operations.”
The American plan of attack was relatively straightforward. The 4th and 5th Marine Divisions were to land on the south-eastern beach and initially focus on securing Mount Suribachi, the southern airfields and the west coast. Once this was completed, the line, reinforced by the 3rd Marine Division, would swing and advance to the northeast. In preparation for the invasion, B-24 Liberators operating out of the Marianas bombed the island for 74 days.
The invasion of Iwo Jima began on February 19, 1945, and battles on the island continued to March 26, 1945. The battle was a major initiative of the Pacific Campaign of World War II. The Marine invasion, known as Operation Detachment, was charged with the mission of capturing the airfields on the island which up until that time had harried U.S. bombing missions to Tokyo. Once the bases were secured, they could then be of use in the impending invasion of the Japanese mainland.
Intelligence sources were confident that Iwo Jima would fall in a week, unaware that the Japanese were preparing a complex defensive posture, radically departing from any of their previous tactics. So successful was the Japanese preparation that it was discovered after the battle that the hundreds of tons of Allied bombs and thousands of rounds of heavy naval gunfire left the Japanese defenders almost unscathed and ready to inflict losses on the U.S. Marines unparalleled up to that point in the Pacific War.
The Imperial Japanese Army positions on the island were heavily fortified, with vast bunkers, hidden artillery, and 11 miles of tunnels. The battle was the first U.S. attack on the Japanese Home Islands and the Imperial soldiers defended their positions tenaciously.
At 02:00 on February 19, 1945, the formidable 16-inch battleship guns from USS North Carolina, USS Washington and later added USS West Virginia signaled the commencement of the invasion of Iwo Jima. American naval craft used nearly everything available in their arsenal to shell the island, from the main guns to the antiaircraft flak cannons to the newly developed rockets. Soon thereafter, 100 bombers attacked the island, followed by another volley from the naval guns.
At 08:59, one minute ahead of schedule, the first of an eventual 30,000 Marines of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Marine Divisions, under V Amphibious Corps, landed on the beach. The initial wave was not hit by Japanese fire for quite some time; it was the plan of Japanese General Kuribayashi to hold fire until the beach was full of Marines and equipment. Many of the Marines who landed on the beach in the first wave speculated that perhaps the naval artillery and air bombardment of the island had killed all of the Japanese troops that were expected to be defending the island. In the deathly silence, they became somewhat unnerved as Marine patrols began to advance inland in search of the Japanese positions.
Only after the front wave of Marines reached a line of Japanese bunkers defended by machine gunners did they take hostile fire. Many cleverly concealed Japanese bunkers and firing positions suddenly lit up and the first wave of Marines took devastating losses from machine guns. Marine casualties on the first day were over 2,000. Aside from the Japanese defenses situated on the actual beaches, the Marines faced heavy fire from Mount Suribachi at the south of the island. It was extremely difficult for the Marines to advance because of the inhospitable terrain, which consisted of volcanic ash.
This ash allowed for neither a secure footing nor the construction of defensive foxholes to protect the Marines from hostile fire. However, the ash did help to absorb a portion of the fragments that were expelled by the Japanese artillery. The Japanese heavy artillery in Suribachi would open their reinforced steel doors to fire and then immediately close their doors following to prevent counterfire from the American forces. This made it extremely difficult for American units to destroy a piece of Japanese artillery.
To make matters worse for the American troops, the bunkers were connected to the elaborate tunnel system so that bunkers that were cleared with flamethrowers and grenades became operational shortly afterwards. These reactivated bunkers caused many additional casualties among them as Marines walking past these bunkers did not expect them to suddenly become hostile again. The Marines advanced slowly while taking heavy machine gun and artillery fire. Due to the arrival of armored units, and heavy naval artillery and air units maintaining a heavy base of fire on Suribachi, the Marines were eventually able to advance past the beaches. 760 Marines made a near-suicidal charge across to the other side of Iwo Jima that day. They took heavy casualties, but they made a considerable advance. By the evening, the mountain had been cut off from the rest of the island, and 30,000 Marines had landed. About 40,000 more would follow.
The fighting was extremely fierce. The Americans' advance was stalled by numerous defensive positions augmented by artillery, where they were ambushed by Japanese troops that occasionally sprang out of tunnels. At night, the Japanese would leave their defenses under cover of darkness to attack American foxholes, and battleships fired star shells to deny them cover of darkness. Many Japanese soldiers who knew English would deliberately call for Navy corpsmen, and then shoot them as they approached.
The Marines learned that firearms were relatively ineffective against the Japanese defenders and effectively used flamethrowers and grenades to flush out Japanese troops in the tunnels. One of the technological innovations of the battle, the eight Sherman M4A3R3 medium tanks equipped with the Navy Mark I flame thrower, proved very effective at clearing Japanese positions. The Shermans were difficult to disable, such that defenders were often compelled to assault them in the open, where the Japanese troops would fall victim to the superior numbers of Marines.
The highest position on Iwo Jima was Mt. Suribachi (more on that later). After the fall of Mt. Suribachi in the south, the Japanese still held a strong position throughout the island. General Tadamichi Kuribayashi still had the equivalent of eight infantry battalions, a tank regiment, two artillery and three heavy mortar battalions, plus the 5,000 gunners and naval infantry. With the landing area secure, more troops and heavy equipment came ashore and the invasion proceeded north to capture the airfields and the remainder of the island. Most Japanese soldiers fought to the death.
After running out of most water, food, and supplies, the Japanese troops became desperate towards the end of the battle. Kuribayashi, who had argued against banzai attacks at the start of the battle, realized that Japanese defeat was imminent. Marines began to face increasing numbers of nighttime attacks; these were only repelled by a combination of machine gun defensive positions and artillery support. At times, the Marines engaged in hand-to-hand fighting to repel the Japanese attacks.
On the night of March 25, a 300-man Japanese force launched a final counterattack. The Marines suffered heavy casualties; more than 100 were killed and another 200 Americans were wounded. The island was officially declared "secured" the following day. The number of American casualties was greater than the total Allied casualties at Battle of Normandy on D-Day. Of the approximately 21,000 Japanese soldiers present at the beginning of the battle, over 20,000 were killed and only 1,083 taken prisoner.
Even after Iwo Jima was about to be declared secured, about three thousand Japanese soldiers were left alive in the island's warren of caves and tunnels. Those who could not bring themselves to commit suicide hid in the caves during the day and came out at night to prowl for provisions. Some did eventually surrender and were surprised that the Americans often received them with compassion - offering them water, cigarettes, or coffee. The last of these stragglers, two of Lieutenant Toshihiko Ohno's (whose body was never found) men, Yamakage Kuschitu and Matsudo Linsoki, lasted six years, surrendering in 1951.
Costly as it was, the taking of Iwo Jima did save the lives of many USAAF aircrew, as the island was used to land B-29 bombers on their way to, or back from Japan. The B-29 was a spectacularly successful heavy bomber, but was plagued with engine malfunctions, and Iwo Jima was the safe harbor for many stragglers. The airbase on Iwo Jima handled over 2,400 emergency landings by B-29's. It also enabled the USAAF to send long range P-51 fighters to escort B-29 raids originating in Tinian or Saipan.
Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal took what is probably the most famous picture of the war (in US eyes), when he snapped a photograph of six marines raising the US flag on Mt. Suribachi. Contrary to some early reports, the photograph was not staged. Three of the men raising the flag were killed in later fighting on the island.
The picture was used by sculptor Felix de Weldon to sculpt the USMC War Memorial, located adjacent to Arlington National Cemetery.
You have probably seen it before, but here is the picture of the raising of the flag:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a...lag_raising.jpg
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