The Battle For Iwo Jima

On February 19, 1945, U.S. Marines landed on a tiny Pacific Island called Iwo Jima. Facing rugged terrain and a deeply entrenched enemy, they embarked on a fierce five-week battld to take the island and its airfields from the Imperial Japanese Army. Through vivid storytelling, experience one of the most important battles of World War II.

Iwo Jima was the United States Marine Corps' toughest ever battle and a turning point in the Pacific War. In February 1945, three Marine Divisions stormed the island's shores in what was supposed to be a ten-day battle, but they had reckoned without General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, the enemy commander.

In February 1945, some 80,000 U.S. Marines attacked the heavily defended fortress that the Japanese had constructed on the tiny Pacific island of Iwo Jima. Leaders of the Army Air Forces said they needed the airfields there to provide fighter escort for their B-29 bombers. At the cost of 28,000 American casualties, the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Marine Divisions dutifully conquered this desolate piece of hell with a determination and sacrifice that have become legendary in the annals of war, immortalized in the photograph of six Marines raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi. But the Army Air Forces’ fighter operations on Iwo Jima subsequently proved both unproductive and unnecessary. After the fact, a number of other justifications were generated to rationalize this tragically expensive battle. Ultimately, misleading statistics were presented to contend that the number of lives saved by B-29 emergency landings on Iwo Jima outweighed the cost of its capture. In The Ghosts of Iwo Jima, Captain Robert S. Burrell masterfully reconsiders the costs of taking Iwo Jima and its role in the war effort. His thought-provoking analysis also highlights the greater contribution of Iwo Jima’s valiant dead: They inspired a reverence for the Marine Corps that proved critical to its institutional survival and its embodiment of American national spirit. From the 7th War Loan Campaign of 1945 through the flag-raising at Ground Zero in 2001, the immortal image of Iwo Jima has become a symbol of American patriotism itself. Burrell’s searching account of this fabled island conflict will advance our understanding of World War II and its continuing legacy for the twenty-first century. At last, the battle’s ghosts may unveil its ultimate, and most crucial, lessons.

A key strategic victory that paved the way for the Allied invasion of Japan, Iwo Jima was described by Lieutenant-General Holland Smith, Commander Fleet Marine Forces Pacific, as "the most savage and costly battle in the history of the Marine Corps." For 36 days in February and March 1945, Marines pounded an island fortified by miles of interlocking caves, concrete blockhouses and pillboxes - one of the most impenetrable defenses of the Pacific War. Unwilling to surrender, the Japanese fought until the bitter end: nearly all of their 20,000 troops were killed in the fighting, compared with 7,000 US dead. At Iwo Jima, the Marines secured an island base that would prove crucial in the final battles of the Pacific campaign. This book illustrates the Marines' decisive victory at Iwo Jima in graphic novel format and includes eight pages of background information detailing the key players, the experience of the forces, and the aftermath of the battle.

Just eight square miles in size, the Japanese island of Iwo Jima lies some 750 miles due south of Tokyo. Following a preparatory air and naval bombardment which lasted for many weeks, it was there, on the morning of Monday, 19 February 1945, that U.S. Marines launched Operation Detachment, their aim being the capture of the entire island and the three airfields that had been constructed on it. The Japanese defenders, however, were prepared. The enemy garrison had heavily fortified Iwo Jima with a network of bunkers, caves and dugouts, hidden artillery positions and more than ten miles of underground tunnels that proved difficult to locate and destroy. The following thirty-six days saw some of the bloodiest fighting of the Pacific campaign, resulting in more than 26,000 American casualties, including 6,800 dead. Of the 21,000 Japanese soldiers on Iwo Jima at the beginning of the assault, only 216 were taken prisoner during the battle. The capture of Iwo Jima, revealed here through a remarkable collection of archive images, was declared complete on the morning of 26 March 1945. The battle also resulted in one of the most iconic images to emerge from World War II--the raising of the American flag on the summit of Mount Suribachi. The Battle of Iwo Jima features images from the initial landings through the bitter fighting that followed for each yard of the island.

A definitive account of the famous battle of Iwo Jima, and the men who fought there. The battle of Iwo Jima saw one hundred thousand men fighting over a tiny volcanic island of just 8 square miles. The island was of major strategic importance to the US Air Force. However, it was also of supreme importance to the 20,000 Japanese troops who were deeply entrenched in the island when the Marines invaded, and to whom surrender was not an option. The titanic struggle dragged on for 36 days, eclipsing all that had gone before. The loss of Iwo Jima was proof to the Japanese that the Americans could seize one of the world's most heavily defended islands, and filled them with foreboding about the inevitable invasion of their homeland. This book covers the campaign in detail, and also the experiences of the men who fought for their lives on the black sands of Iwo Jima in one of the most savage battles of the Pacific War. This book contains material previously published in Campaigns 81: Iwo Jima 1945, Warrior 95: Japanese Infantryman 1937–45 and WAR 112: US Marine Rifleman 1939–45: Pacific Theater

Iwo Jima, February 17, 1945: The mission: to scout the beaches for underwater obstacles and mines and determine whether the soil would support vehicles. Four Navy Underwater Demolition Teams (predecessor to the SEALS) and twenty-two Marine observers-backed by battleships Tennessee and Nevada, a cruiser, several destroyers, and twelve Landing Craft Infantry ships configured as gunboats proceeded with the operation. The story of what followed - the battle for Iwo Jima that no one knows - is fully told for the first time in this book, a heart-stopping account of ill-equipped but heroic forces under fire from an unexpected, overwhelming enemy. Drawing on first-person accounts, deck logs, and after-action reports, Dick Camp brings the action to harrowing life: the thin-skinned reconfigured LCIs fighting it out with the Japanese in a valiant effort to protect the swimmers caught five hundred yards off the beach; the battleship Nevada ignoring orders to withdraw and moving in to knock out the enemys heavy caliber guns; the devastating action - casualities of 40 percent - that very likely saved the actual landing on the 19th.