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Contact Info
Home Town Paris, France
Last Address New London, Connecticut
Date of Passing Dec 12, 1972
Location of Interment U.S. Naval Academy Cemetery and Columbarium (VLM) - Annapolis, Maryland
Wall/Plot Coordinates Section 1 Site 191
Official Badges
Unofficial Badges
Additional Information
Last Known Activity:
Thomas Hinckley Robbins, Jr. (11 May 1900 – 12 December 1972) was a rear admiral of the United States Navy. A naval aviator, his career included command of an aircraft carrier during World War II, service as a key advisor to the United States Secretary of the Navy, and a tour as President of the Naval War College.
Robbins' ancestors included William Bradford (1590-1657), the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and Thomas Hinckley (1618-1706), a governor of Plymouth Colony. His great-great-grandfather was Fisher Ames (1758-1808), a Massachusetts politician who served in the United States House of Representatives.
Robbins was born on 11 May 1900 in Paris, France, the son of Thomas Hinckley Robbins, Sr. (9 April 1877 – 14 November 1954), and the former Alice Ames (23 September 1873 – 23 October 1951). He entered the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, as a member of the Class of 1920, but his curriculum was accelerated due to the entry of the United States into World War I on 6 April 1917, and he graduated in 1919. Robbins retired from the Navy as a rear admiral in 1962.
Other Comments:
Commands held:
USS Sandpiper (AM-51)
USS Lexington (CV-16)
Carrier Division 17
Carrier Division 2
President of the Naval War College
President, Naval Discharge Review Board
Commandant, Potomac River Naval Command
Battles/wars:
World War II
Pacific War
Battle of Okinawa
Battle of Luzon
Japan campaign
Awards:
Commendation Ribbon (1944)
Legion of Merit (two awards, 1945 and 1962, 1945 award with Combat "V")
World War II/Asiatic-Pacific Theater/Iwo Jima Operation
From Month/Year
February / 1945
To Month/Year
March / 1945
Description The Battle of Iwo Jima (19 February – 26 March 1945), or Operation Detachment, was a major battle in which the United States Armed Forces fought for and captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Japanese Empire. The American invasion had the goal of capturing the entire island, including its three airfields (including South Field and Central Field), to provide a staging area for attacks on the Japanese main islands. This five-week battle comprised some of the fiercest and bloodiest fighting of the War in the Pacific of World War II.
After the heavy losses incurred in the battle, the strategic value of the island became controversial. It was useless to the U.S. Army as a staging base and useless to the U.S. Navy as a fleet base. However, Navy SEABEES rebuilt the landing strips, which were used as emergency landing strips for USAAF B-29s.
The Imperial Japanese Army positions on the island were heavily fortified, with a dense network of bunkers, hidden artillery positions, and 18 km (11 mi) of underground tunnels. The Americans on the ground were supported by extensive naval artillery and complete air supremacy over Iwo Jima from the beginning of the battle by U.S. Navy and Marine Corps aviators.
Iwo Jima was the only battle by the U.S. Marine Corps in which the Japanese combat deaths were thrice those of the Americans throughout the battle. Of the 22,000 Japanese soldiers on Iwo Jima at the beginning of the battle, only 216 were taken prisoner, some of whom were captured because they had been knocked unconscious or otherwise disabled. The majority of the remainder were killed in action, although it has been estimated that as many as 3,000 continued to resist within the various cave systems for many days afterwards, eventually succumbing to their injuries or surrendering weeks later.
Despite the bloody fighting and severe casualties on both sides, the Japanese defeat was assured from the start. Overwhelming American superiority in arms and numbers as well as complete control of air power — coupled with the impossibility of Japanese retreat or reinforcement — permitted no plausible circumstance in which the Americans could have lost the battle.
The battle was immortalized by Joe Rosenthal's photograph of the raising of the U.S. flag on top of the 166 m (545 ft) Mount Suribachi by five U.S. Marines and one U.S. Navy battlefield Hospital Corpsman. The photograph records the second flag-raising on the mountain, both of which took place on the fifth day of the 35-day battle. Rosenthal's photograph promptly became an indelible icon — of that battle, of that war in the Pacific, and of the Marine Corps itself — and has been widely reproduced.
