Iwo+Jima

David Scott http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Iwo_Jima

Iwo Jima

The Battle of Iwo Jima took place between February 19th and March 26th, 1945. The main purpose of the attack to take the first of the Japanese home islands and to capture the 3 airfields that inhabited the island. The Imperial army of Japan was dug in and heavily fortified on the island. They had 18km of sophisticated underground networking caves, pill boxes, hidden artillery and heavy machine guns. The 22,000 Japanese soldiers on the island had no planned escape, they were loyal to the empire and knew they were going to die on that island. Japanese defeat was inevitable due to the superior numbers and weapons of the Americans. The Battle lasted 35 days and was finished with a historic picture of five marines and one navy men hoisting the American flag atop Mount Suribachi.



Japanese Defense

Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi was assigned to coordinate the defense of Iwo Jima. He along with everyone in Japan knew they could not win the battle but he planned on inflicting a large amount of American deaths to scare them from future invasions. Kuribayashi, instead of defending the beach head with fortified bunkers and pill boxes went for a more unique defensive strategy. He made a vast network of tunnels that linked bunkers and key locations together. He also placed his tanks in camouflaged locations along with other heavy weapons like the 320mm spigot mortar which left craters 8 feet deep and 15 feet wide. He placed the defenses so that the entire Island was able to be fired upon by the Japanese. A small number of kamikaze planes were used as well, they killed 318 Americans. There was one flaw in his defenses which was that Tokyo forced Kuribayashi to make beach defenses(Bunkers with machine guns) and these beach defenses were the only defenses destroyed by the American bombardment. This system of fortified bunkers, pill boxes and camouflaged artillery made it possible for 22,000 outnumbered Japanese soldiers to kill 6,800 American Marines and wound another 20,000.



The Invasion

On June 15,1944, the American Navy began what would become the longest battle in the pacific theater. Thjis was not the actual landing invasion of Iwo Jima, however it was the beginning of naval assault and bombings that would go on for just nuder a year. Major General Harry Schmidt wanted a 10 day heavy shelling of the island before the land invasion but instead received 3 consecutive days shelling from American destroyers like the USS New York which hammered the island with its 356mm main guns. The success of the bombardment wasn't great because of the Japanese being in their caves and heavy bunkers.The invasion began on February 19th, 1945, in total, there were 70,000 marines that participated in the invasion, they were in 450 ships off the coast of Iwo Jima. When the first of the 30,000 Marines that were involved in the first landing got to the beach they were met with no resistance at all.General Kuribayashi ordered to hold fire until the beach was full of marines and equipment. The landed Marines came to believe that the Naval bombardment had kill all of the Japanese. After the first wave had landed the Japanese released an arsenal of heavy artillery, machine guns and tanks on the helpless Marines.

The advance up Mount Surichai was slow and casualty heavy due to the rough terrain which consisted of thick jungle and volcanic ash which made the Mountain hard to climb. Since the Japanese bunkers had intricate tunnel system, they could leave them and let the Americans walk by and then reoccupy them and eradicate them with machine gun fire. Also the Japanese heavy artillery had reinforced steel doors they would close while reloading the guns which made the bunkers very hard to take out. The days after the initial invasion were hard for the Marines due to the guerrilla tactics of the Japanese who would come out of their caves at night and ambush the Americans and then retreat back. The Americans standard issue weapons were not very useful against the heavily fortified Japanese so the grenade, flamethrower and Sherman tank equipped with a flamethrower became very useful means of clearing the Japanese out of their holes and caves. As the days went on the Japanese began to run out of food and water which made them desperate.Night raids became more common and the Japanese forces decreased. The Americans captured the airfields and remaining Japanese soldiers either committed suicide or fought to the death. The end of the 25 day Iwo Jimo Invasion was marked by the historic raising of the American flag on top of Mount Surichai.

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