Battlefield Chronicles: The Battle of Iwo Jima
The year 2025 will mark the 80th anniversary of the World War II Battle of Iwo Jima, one of the most storied contests in American military history. Many are familiar with the myriad stories surrounding the battle, from the two flag raisings over Mount Suribachi to any of the 27 men who received the Medal of Honor for their actions on the island. What fails to get a mention in history books is the sheer scale of the battle itself and the defensive planning of the enemy's commander.
More than 110,000 Americans fought to capture Iwo Jima from the Japanese Empire. The commander of the Japanese forces on the island, Gen. Tadamichi Kuribayashi, knew he would be fighting a losing battle. Kuribayashi decided he would design his defenses to inflict the highest possible number of casualties on the invading force as he could, even with only some 20,000 starving, emaciated men at his disposal.
Today, Iwo Jima is the only U.S. Marine Corps battle where more Americans became casualties than the Japanese. Overcoming the defenses at Iwo Jima was a testament to the bravery, ability, and accomplishments of the men who fought to take this critical island.
American forces captured the Marianas Islands in November 1944, giving them strategic airfields from which B-29 Superfortress bombers could threaten the Japanese home islands. Though the U.S. Army Air Forces could now strike at the heart of Tokyo, the Imperial Japanese still controlled early warning stations on closer islands that could provide early warnings to Japan about incoming American bombers. One of those early warning stations was the volcanic island of Iwo Jima.
In June 1944, as the Americans were preparing to land on Saipan, Gen. Tadamichi Kuribayashi took command of the Japanese Garrison on Iwo Jima. His first directive was to completely change the defensive strategy, knowing the island could not repel an American invasion. The strategy he chose was to allow the United States to land on the beaches of the island and fight the Americans inland instead.
His plan was to negate the superiority of American firepower from ships and from the air by fighting from underground. He used a honeycomb strategy, similar to the defenses used on Peleliu, constructing some 11 miles of underground tunnels, building concrete pillboxes, and incorporating the thousands of caves on the island. He had hoped to use Iwo Jima's defense to inflict as many casualties as possible, hampering public sentiment for the war back in the United States.
Unlike many other Japanese officers, Kuribayashi knew Americans. He was a visiting military attaché with the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division, lived in Buffalo, New York, and attended Harvard to study American history, politics, and English. He traveled extensively in the United States over the course of three years, even crossing the country in a Chevrolet. He believed the American people would not tolerate a high casualty count, and if he could kill or wound scores of U.S. troops on Iwo Jima, it might mean a faster end to the Pacific War – even if it meant he would not survive the battle itself.
When the Americans hit the beaches of Iwo Jima on February 19, 1945, the Japanese were eating weeds and subsisting on rainwater. They were low on supplies and ammunition, but Kuribayashi ordered that no banzai charges were allowed; each of his men were ordered to kill 10 Americans before giving their lives. When the Marines landed, they found their Amtracs were useless on the black ash beaches, that the pre-landing aerial bombardment had done little to soften the island's defenses, and that their firearms were practically useless against their entrenched enemy.
By the end of the first day's fighting, the Americans had only achieved one of their objectives: isolating Mount Suribachi. They did reach the southern tip of the first airfield on the island but had not yet captured it. Their progress was hampered by interlocking fire, hidden mines, and the movement of enemy troops through the underground tunnels. Marines could capture strategic positions only for the Japanese to reoccupy them when the Americans advanced. When looking at the casualty reports and the slow progress of American troops, Marine Corps Gen. Holland Smith is said to have remarked, "I don't know who he is, but the Japanese general running this show is one smart bastard."
Flamethrowers became essential to clearing out the island's pillboxes and caves. As a result of their effectiveness, individual flamethrower Marines became a high-priority target on the battlefield, suffering a 92% casualty rate. This meant the Marines' flamethrower tanks became critical for any successful attack. With so few flamethrower tanks available, it would take the Americans 25 days to secure the island and five weeks to declare victory. Even so, the last Japanese holdouts on Iwo Jima would not surrender until 1949, four years after the end of World War II. General Kuribayashi was killed in the battle.
Of the nearly 21,000 Japanese defenders, only 1,083 survived the battle. The Americans who landed on Iwo Jima suffered a three-to-one casualty rate, suffering nearly 29,000 casualties, including more than 6,800 killed in action. The high casualty rate did not have the effect Kuribayashi hoped back in the United States. Instead, the pre-invasion bombing of Okinawa became the heaviest ever delivered on a Japanese-held island.
More importantly, the Marines' victory on Iwo Jima, in the face of the massive number of casualties, created an almost religious reverence for the Marine Corps in the minds of everyday Americans. This mythos surrounding the Corps ensured its continued survival as a separate branch of the Armed Forces.