Sixty-seven years ago this week, American forces engaged in one of the most iconic and important battles of World War II when they fought to secure the island of Iwo Jima.
Iwo Jima was a small island located about 650 nautical miles south of Tokyo, a part of the Japanese Volcano Islands chain. The island is only eight square miles in size, and its highest point is Mount Suribachi.
Iwo Jima possessed three airfields that were crucial to the Allied forces. The Japanese army was well-entrenched there, holed up in the many underground tunnels and bunkers that dotted the place known literally as “Sulphur Island.”
Prior to the war, the island was home to about 1,000 residents, many of whom fished for a living. The Japanese began to build up the island from a military standpoint prior to the war but increased their efforts many fold in 1944, when they evacuated the civilian population in anticipation of the Allied attack.
On Feb. 19, 1945, the Americans began the attack, following months of strikes against the island. When the attack began, Allied forces had over 450 ships holding in excess of 60,000 U.S. Marines off the coast.
The initial 30,000 Marines from the 3rd, 4th and 5th Marine divisions that landed on the beach that morning set into motion one of the bloodiest and most prolonged battles of the entire war.
When it was finally over more than a month later on March 26, 18,000 Japanese troops had died. Only slightly more than 200 survived the attack.
American casualties were placed at 6,812 Americans killed, 19,000 wounded.
The battle raged on until Japanese troops finally ran out of provisions. Many Marines faced hand-to-hand combat involving desperate Japanese soldiers who had nothing to lose. Very few surrendered.
When the battle was over, a photograph of Marines and a Navy Corpsman raising the flag at Mount Suribachi would become one of the world’s most iconic photographs, used decades later to sculpt the Marine Corps Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery.
The battle for control of Iwo Jima was an important battle in American military history. From that conflict alone, 27 Congressional Medals of Honor were presented — 13 of them posthumously — which is more than a quarter of the Medals of Honor earned by Marines in all of World War II.
Today, Iwo Jima sits as a silent testament to the fierce fighting and terrible loss of life that took place there nearly seven decades ago. Few are still alive to remember what happened during those five weeks, but it is a battle taught in the study of military history and a sacrifice that should never, ever be forgotten.
Reprinted from the Jacksonville (NC) Daily News