Invasion of Iwo Jima During

Invasion of Iwo Jima During World War Two

Strategic Significance of Iwo Jima:

By the end of 1944, American forces had captured the Marianas Islands

approximately 1,500 miles from Mainland Japan (Bishop & McNab, 2007). That

allowed the first sustained U.S. bombing raids over Japan, but the nearly 3,000-mile missions were very costly for U.S. B-29s. Japanese radar installations on Iwo Jima were able to provide advanced warnings to fighter/interceptors based on the island's two operational airfields. They took a heavy toll on the slow, fuel and bomb-laden heavy

bombers because the distances involved exceeded even the longest-range U.S. fighter, the P-51 Mustangs (Bishop & McNab, 2007).

The assault on Iwo Jima by two U.S. Marine divisions was the first in a series of attacks on the Japanese Home Islands (Ray, 2003). Once in U.S. hands, the island would cut the distance that U.S. bombers had to fly by almost fifty percent, allowing fighter escort to and from Mainland Japan and its capital of Tokyo. In addition to eliminating fighter attacks launched by the Japanese against U.S. bombers, the capture of Iwo Jima

provided an intermediate airfield for refueling U.S. aircraft, for launching U.S. fighters, and as a base for sea rescue operations (Ambrose, 2001 Ray, 2003).

Command and Weaponry:

Under the direction of Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, the Japanese

committed almost 23,000 men to the defense of Iwo Jima (Commager & Miller, 2002).

They were equipped with heavy and medium artillery, heavy and light machine guns, tanks, mortars, and thousands of small arms. The main strategy of Kuribayashi's forces was to use a large network of interconnected tunnels dug deep beneath almost half of the island's territory. Because Iwo Jima was a volcanic Island, its surface was covered in deep layers of volcanic ash that was ideal for digging trenches and tunnels and Kuribayashi maximized this advantage by spending months preparing for the American invasion that was expected. Kuribayashi also had several kamikaze aircraft which he launched against U.S. Navy ships, causing the combat loss of approximately 300 Navy

seamen Bishop & McNab, 2007).

The American command had already begun advancing toward Japan using the islands captured from the Japanese as land bases to assist the bombing campaign of Japan. Kuribayashi understood that his forces would not be able to overcome the American attack that was expected after the U.S. capture of the Philippines and the Marianas Islands. Still, he hoped to maximize the effect of his forces and weapons to cause as heavy U.S. casualties as possible to delay the U.S. approach to the Japanese

Mainland (Commager & Miller, 2002).

Under the command of Colonel Chandler Johnson, the American assault force consisted of the Fourth and Fifth Marine Divisions with the Third Marine Division

offshore as a reserve force (Ambrose, 2001; Bishop & McNab, 2007). For nearly two and a half months before the invasion, American bombers softened up the target with daily bombing operations, followed by three days of intense naval bombardment from heavy and light cruisers and destroyers offshore.

The purpose of these operations was to destroy dug-in Japanese defensive positions and bunkers that U.S. aerial recognizance had identified. The U.S. marines who assaulted the island came aboard on personnel landing craft and used tanks, machine guns, mortars, artillery, and small arms. They also relied heavily on flame throwers to clear underground bunkers and the tunnels that connected them all over the island

(Ambrose, 2001; Commager & Miller, 2002).

Combat Operations:

At first, U.S. forces landing on the beaches encountered only very light resistance, mainly in the form of uncoordinated and sporadic small arms fire (Bishop & McNab,

2007; Ray, 2003). This was part of Lt. Kuribayashi's plan to allow U.S. assault forces to land on the shore and to hold off attacking them until they began to move inland. As American marines advanced onto the Island, Kuribayashi's hidden machine gun nests dug into the island opened up and inflicted very heavy casualties. The interconnected bunkers enabled the Japanese forces to retreat under attack and then emerge from other bunkers behind American the lines of American advances to attack them from their rear

(Bishop & McNab, 2007; Ray, 2003).

After four days of fighting since the February 19, 1945, U.S. marines captured

Mt. Suribachi, the highest point on the Island on February 23rd (Ambrose, 2001; Bishop & McNab, 2007; Ray, 2003). Five marines and one Navy corpsman erected a small U.S.

flag that was immediately ordered replaced with a larger flag so that it would be visible to the entire island and to Naval vessels offshore (Ambrose, 2001; Bishop & McNab, 2007).

The photo of that second flag raising later won the Pulitzer Prize; unfortunately, by that time, only three of the six U.S. personnel had survived the rest of the battle for Iwo Jima.

The surviving members of that six-man team later toured the U.S. For Armed Forces

publicity campaigns and public relations (Ambrose, 2001).

Casualties:

The U.S. assault on Iwo Jima resulted in the heaviest losses in U.S. Marine

history (Bishop & McNab, 2003). American combat losses on Iwo Jima totaled nearly

7,000 marines and navy seamen killed in action and almost four times that many wounded. U.S. forces systematically reduced the Japanese resistance one sector at a time until the last remaining defenders retreated to a small area at the far end of the island from Mt. Suribachi. By that time, almost 22,000 of the nearly 23,000 Japanese forces had either been killed in action or killed themselves in suicide attacks or ritual suicide in their bunkers. Only about 1,000 Japanese prisoners survived the battle for Iwo Jima