Battle of Iwo Jima - News

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19 February 2014

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From 13:00 GMT February 19th to 06:00 GMT February 21st

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Iwo Jima was strategically important as an air base for fighter escorts supporting long-range bombing missions against mainland Japan. The capturing of Iwo Jima was deemed necessary, but it would not come as easy victory.

General Kuribayashi, the Japanese Commander of Iwo Jima was great commander. His tactics was to dig underground and fight from there. Japanese dug 1,500 rooms into the rock. These rooms were connected with 16 miles of tunnels. Basically Japanese never planned to have survivors, they meant fighting to the end.

American air forces pounded Iwo in the longest sustained aerial offensive of the war. While bombardment was ferocius - B-24 Liberators from the Marianas pounded Iwo Jima for 74 days - hardly any of the Japanese underground fortifications buried in the volcanic rock were touched. 21.000 soldiers, defenders of Iwo Jima anxiously awaited the American invaders.

The US sent 110,000 marines and 880 ships, more than for any other battle until then. Ships sailed from Hawaii to Iwo Jima in 40 days. That was the largest armada invasion in the Pacific war.

D-Day was February 19, 1945 – after 2am on Feb. 19, 1945, the Navy’s bombarded Iwo Jima again, leaving Iwo smoking as if the entire island were on fire. After that bombers came and dropped bombs while ships continued bombardment. At 8:30am US Marine started invasion, landing on shores, volcanic ash everywhere, not able to dig foxholes. They were sitting ducks for the Japanese gunners. Chaos followed, heavy fire not allowing landing marines in orderly manner, there was a big confusion on the beaches, 110,000 men fighting on tiny island one-third size of Manhattan.

Mt. Suribachi, the 550-foot volcanic cone at the islands southern tip, dominates both possible landing beaches. From here, Japanese gunners zeroed in on every inch of the landing beach. Battle raged for 36 days, usually US Marines were figting above ground while Japanese were fighting below. Usually forces never met each other in close combat. Liquid gas, napalm and hand grenades were used against the Japanese in the underground.

The battle was won by the inch-by-inch tenacity of the foot soldier.

In 36 days there were 25,851 US casualties (1 in 3 were killed or wounded), of these 6,825 Americans were killed while all 22,000 Japanese soldiers perished.

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