A Brief Summary On Iwo Jima

Iwo Jima was known for one of the most bloody battles in not just the Marine but American history too. The battle began on February 19, 1945 as part of the campaign of the Pacific theatre, and lasted for thirty-six days. Around twenty six-thousand Marines were wounded, which caused Union losses during the battle at Gettysburg. Near the beginning of summer of 1944, American B-29 bombers were ruining the islands. “Iwo Jima proved itself an indispensable asset to the Pacific command.” “Thousands of fighters took off from its runways, and this ‘stepping stone’ served as a staging ground for countless Allied advances.”

The Battle of Iwo Jima or Operation Detachment began on February 19th and ended March 26, 1945. A picture taken of the soldiers raising the flag on Iwo Jima is an iconic symbol of the War in the Pacific. More marines sent into this battle than any other battle. It was also the largest armada invasion up to this time in the war. It is regarded as the “classic amphibious assault of World War II. “ (Iwo Jima)� The new U.S. B-29 bombers were able to reach Japanese Home Islands from Saipan and other neighboring islands under their control. The problem was that the Japanese fighters on Iwo Jima were able to intercept them. Having Iwo Jima under U.S. control would allow the U.S. a place to land damaged B-29s.

On February 19th, at 8:30 in the morning, the invasion started. At least 90,000 marines stormed the volcanic sands of the beachheads with huge casualties. Unable to protect themselves on the open

General Kuribayashi knew all too well the size of the American force that was arrayed against him and also knew that his defeat was virtually assured. However, being an excellent commander, he could not allow his troops to believe this and made morale a high priority by promising victory. He departed from conventional defensive tactics, which normally would have advocated a concentration of forces on the beach. Instead he chose the high ground and based his operations to a large extent on the highest point on the island, __Mt. Suribachi__. He had miles of tunnels dug inside the mountain, which included big artillery pieces that would fire down on the beach. So ingenious were his preparations that he had large steel doors close each time the gun fired so Marines could not fire on the position.

The American forces plan consisted of a “divide and conquer” methodology. The U.S. focused on landing its assault force expediently and quickly and securing Mt. Suribachi and dominant high ground of the island. The Americans expected victory in less than a week. Their forces consisted of the 3rd, 4th and 5th Marine Divisions. The 4th and 5th Marine Divisions were to land on the eastern beaches the 4th on the right and the 5th on the left. The 3rd Marines would either land on the eastern beaches or assume a defensive role, which ever was called (Planning for the Battle of Iwo Jima, n.d.).

The battle of Iwo Jima is an iconic event in which the United States Marine Corps landed on and eventually captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Japanese imperial army during World War II. Over twenty thousand Japanese defenders were hiding out in bunkers, caves and tunnels to avoid the massive naval and air bombardment lasting several days covering the entire island. The Japanese were outnumbered five to one but put up no surrender. The United States won the battle five days after it began securing their win with the flag placed atop Mt. Suribachi.

On August 7, 1941 the American Marines landed on the coast of Guadalcanal, looking for their first victory in the Pacific War. The battle took the Americans six months to win. “The Japanese, was to turn an classic battle of attrition (Guadalcanal).” During most of the battle the Japanese maintained control of the island until while building an airfield suitable for fighter planes. “These systems could target and generally wreck havoc (Battle).” The United States unanimously won the battle due to the number of deaths they caused to the

In February 1945 America is dragged into Iwo Jima. Americans came into this war strong by flying over and dropping bombs. The American fighter pilots came along to help with any outside attack when dropping the bombs. But once the Americans saw that it didn’t affect anything (because of the tunnels) they went on land. 3,400 soldiers ashore and 5 marine Divisions this war was crazy.

marines and 18,000 Japanese soldiers took part in the battle. After 36 days, nearly 7,000 U.S. marines were killed, then another 20,000 were wounded. The marines captured 216 Japanese soldiers. One of the bloodiest battles in the Marine Corp’s history. The Japanese fought from an elaborate network of caves, dugouts, tunnels, and underground installations that were difficult to find and destroy. The U.S. military felt that by capturing Iwo Jima, the U.S. military would have a better chance of attacking major Japanese islands and strong holds such as Okinawa. Having control of the island also meant that the United States would have a strategic position for launching sea and air blockades against Japan’s Navy and Air force, according to the navy department

After the Battle of Midway, Allied forces went on the attack. On August 7, 1942, U.S. Marines landed on Guadalcanal in the Solomon islands. For the next six months, with U.S. Navy and Army support, the Marines held their position against Japanese ground, air, and sea attacks. in February 1943, the Japanese abandoned both Guadalcanal and New Guinea.

A Island wide warning was deployed over the radio interrupting music calling for all military personnel to report for action. Immediately amongst the battleships on base Pearl Harbor the men were called to their battle stations to fire upon the foreign enemies. Meanwhile the B-17 bombers would be arriving from the north at the worst possible time they could have. As the B-17s were entering the visible airspace of Pearl Harbor they were fired upon by friendly and enemy fire. The B-17s were sitting ducks for they had no weapons on board to protect themselves, multiple of the B-17s were shot down in result of

A similar story unfolded for the Americans on Utah beach, who met heavy resistance at first but were able to subdue the Germans and capture the beach within hours of landing. The American V Corps landing at Omaha beach experienced the heaviest losses of any beach that day. There were several reasons for these losses. First, the weather was worse near Omaha beach than others, with low ceilings, poor visibility, and heavy seas. The poor weather conditions caused bombers to overshoot their targets, and Naval gunners aboard ships to have difficulty acquiring targets. Furthermore, the rough seas encountered near Omaha caused most men aboard landing craft to become seasick by the time they reached the beach (hardly a position to begin a firefight), and also caused fifty seven of ninety six amphibious tanks to sink in swells they were never designed to withstand. Similarly, strong currents and winds carried landing craft well off from their designated landing zones into areas unreachable by supporting fires from friendly ships. Less than one third of the men of the initial attack survived long enough to make it from their landing craft (which often ran aground on German obstacles and unseen sandbars up to a hundred yards from shore) to dry

Even though they had 155,000 men they could not use a similar tactic to the one they used on Iwo Jima (Hammel). Because of spotty reconnaissance, the Americans believed that on landing the Americans would have an 80-85% casualty rate. However, this did not happen because the Japanese built their fortifications deeper into the island (Frame). On the landing of the American forces, they lost very few men. This is because the Japanese, rather than fighting on the beaches, chose to dig in further up the island (“Battle”). This allowed the Japanese to fortify their positions and make the fight as hard as possible. The Japanese built Anchors on either side of their positions and made it difficult for the Americans to flank (Chen). The Japanese also built bunkers and tunnels that allowed them to escape artillery bombing. The tunnels also allowed quick, relatively safe, transport of troops to different parts of the

The battle for Okinawa begin on 01Apr1945 and went until 22Jun1945. The capture of Okinawa was part of the plan to win the Far East war. The island of Okinawa is a part of a group of islands at the southern end of Japan. The main focus for the Americans were four airfields that were on the island that they wanted to control. The forces that made up the American landing party were the III Amphibious Corps and XXIV Corps, making the Tenth U.S. Army under the command of Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr. American forces had not been able to gather very much intelligence about the island which made it difficult to determine how many enemy forces there have been. There were over 130,000 Japanese troops waiting on the island. There were over 450,000 civilians which made operations harder for American forces. The enemy forces were mainly down in the southern sector of the island waiting for the Americans. The beach

Gold Beach: This beach was not directly protected by any pillboxes or other defences, but rather by an enemy battalion and 4 artillery guns, 3 of which were destroyed by Allied ships and 1 of which surrendered. The casualties for this beach landing were estimated to be roughly 1000.