The year was 1945, and the war was winding down. The US was working on rooting out Japan and ending the war. Because they were dealing with an island country, they had to find a way to get at them without flying long distances. Japan was trying to defend their land while still waging war on other countries. The meeting point then for both objectives was Iwo Jima, a small island about 650 miles away from Tokyo on Japanese soil. Both countries were determined to fight long and hard for the island.
Importance of Iwo Jima
Iwo Jima was vital to the American assault on the Japanese. The US had decided that the island was vital to their success in the war, because they were to far away at that point with their bombers to reach Japan effectively. Up to that point, they had to send out long-range bombers like the B-29s from the Marianas for any kind of assault on Japan. The only way to escort the planes safely though was to send short-range fighters with them. To do this required a closer base to reach Japan more efficiently. Up to that point, the US bombers would be attacked by Japanese and usually defeated because of the lack of fighter support. The US felt that the island was the key to their offense against Japan.
The Japanese on the other hand were defending their homeland. Not only did they feel that they had to keep the US from the island for the same reasons that the US wanted the island, but principle and nationality was at stake as well. No foreign army had been on Japanese soil in over 5000 years, and they felt that had to be maintained, therefore they sent one of their greatest generals to hold an even greater defense against the assault to come.
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Japanese Preparations
From the Japanese perspective, Iwo Jima had to be protected with all the force that could be mustered. As a part of Japanese soil, Iwo Jima was considered a point of pride and very important to the country. In over 5000 years no foreign army had set foot on and held Japanese soil, and therefore the base of the Japanese defense was to maintain that at all costs. The leader of the Japanese army on Iwo Jima was General Kuribayashi, a brilliant military mind, educated in Canada and a guest in the US for a deal of time. He made it clear in his preparations that the lives of his men were not any more important than the ownership of the island, as the strategy didn’t leave leeway for the Japanese soldiers to survive. The overwhelming focal point of the Japanese strategy was to stay below ground, as they dug approximately 1,500 underground rooms connected by 16 miles of tunnels. Their hope was to be able to kill 10 Americans for every Japanese soldier before the Japanese died.
American Preparations
For 3 months before the battle itself, the US sent in air and sea bombardments to weaken the Japanese and make the actual assault much easier, but the effort wasn’t that successful. The Japanese were successfully entrenched in their underground fortresses and the US effort wasn’t that great of a success. In the end the only real damage was to be done when the actual invasion came. The US sent about 110,000 marines in 880 ships to Iwo Jima to start the battle after sailing 40 miles from Hawaii. This was the greatest amount of marines sent to any one battle in the war by the US and one of the biggest ever on the pacific.
The Battle
On February 19, 1945, the US forces moved in on Iwo Jima. The day started around 2 am with a gun bombardment by the Navy from the ships off the coast. When the guns stopped, 110 planes flew overhead dropping bombs on the smoldering island. Again the guns opened up on the island to try and clear a little more away.
At 8:30 am the order to land the landing force was given and the first wave of marines landed on the island. There was a major problem, though. Because of it being such a small island, the volcanic ash was everywhere. This made it impossible to dig trenches successfully and therefore the marines were targets for the Japanese guns. The landing beaches were utter chaos, as the Japanese fired from hidden locations and the great vantage points on Mt. Suribachi, the volcano that made up the island. Because of the preparations of the Japanese it was almost impossible to be out of range of their guns, and this made for a tough 36 days for the marines.
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Another major point of the battle was how all the marines were above ground, and the Japanese were all underground. The battle essentially became a rooting out project for the marines, while they tried to dig out all the Japanese with liquid gas, napalm, and hand grenades. The Japanese could see the marines most of the time, while they remained hidden. The marines had a great deal of work to do in clearing them out. This led to a 36-day engagement in which both sides fought viciously for control of the island.
On February 23, the marines officially took Mount Suribachi, and the most famous photograph in America’s military history was taken of the Flag Raising on Suribachi. Though, most consider that the end of the battle and the point at which the US won the battle, it raged on for another 32 days until March 16. When it was all said and done, over 21,000 Japanese were dead, and about 6800 US soldiers were dead, 6000 of which were marines.
