Feb. 19 1945 Iwo Jima invasion

[whitehall]

The Pacific War was winding down. Iwo Jima could have been bypassed and it's defendants left to starve but 6,000 Marines died in a month of fighting. The historic argument is that Iwo was needed as a landing base for crippled American bombers but that was never stated in the anemic plan centered around reducing the ability of Japanese fighters to harass incoming bombers. The generals knew that Iwo Jima was considered to be part of the Japanese homeland and that the smelly little island was reinforced for forty years with interlocking fire and every square inch was plotted with mortar fire and machine guns and underground defenses. The Navy apparently had better things to do than shell the island with the requested time of naval gunfire and the Marines landed under punishing fire. The best theory is that Marines were sacrificed in an experiment to reinforce the acceptance of using the Atomic Bomb on humans.

 

[lennypartiv]

The atomic bombs were dropped in August. How many military generals knew about the atomic bomb in February, 1945?

 

[Polishprince]

I love the film that was made about it, the Duke's Magnus Opus, "The Sands of Iwo Jima".

 

[Likkmee]

Yeah baby

 

[Confederate Soldier]

Usually I collect European Theater items, but here is a navy jumper from a fellow who served on the U.S.S. Fayette. The Fayette acted as a troop carrier, carrying Marines to the island and arriving on Feb. 24th 1945. She then sailed to another island system, carrying wounded from the fighting.

He wasn't on the island itself, but I'm sure this fellow saw what was going on. It's cool to own a little piece of history like this.

 

[Likkmee]

Ivojima Ipanema... Vhatevuh !

 

[Oddball]

The atomic bombs were dropped in August. How many military generals knew about the atomic bomb in February, 1945?

0

Truman didn't even know about it until after he was sworn in.

 

[whitehall]

Who was in charge? Democrats ran a demented and dying virtual corpse for his 4th term and it's reported that FDR gasped when the casualty figures for Iwo Jima were released. FDR would be dead of natural causes in a month.

 

[Oddball]

The Pacific War was winding down. Iwo Jima could have been bypassed and it's defendants left to starve but 6,000 Marines died in a month of fighting. The historic argument is that Iwo was needed as a landing base for crippled American bombers but that was never stated in the anemic plan centered around reducing the ability of Japanese fighters to harass incoming bombers. The generals knew that Iwo Jima was considered to be part of the Japanese homeland and that the smelly little island was reinforced for forty years with interlocking fire and every square inch was plotted with mortar fire and machine guns and underground defenses. The Navy apparently had better things to do than shell the island with the requested time of naval gunfire and the Marines landed under punishing fire. The best theory is that Marines were sacrificed in an experiment to reinforce the acceptance of using the Atomic Bomb on humans.

What if the Navy and Marine Corps had bypassed Iwo Jima?

Adm. Ernest King dismissed Iwo Jima as “a sink hole in the hands of whoever held it.”

www.navytimes.com

 

[DudleySmith]

0

Truman didn't even know about it until after he was sworn in.

FDR didn't like Truman; his admin didn't keep him informed on anything, which makes his Presidency even more amazing; everybody thought him a stupid rube from the sticks. He disabused them of that false impression.

 

[Oddball]

FDR didn't like Truman; his admin didn't keep him informed on anything, which makes his Presidency even more amazing; everybody thought him a stupid rube from the sticks. He disabused them of that false impression.

His presidency was only slightly less of a disaster than FDRs....Aside from his experience as an artillery officer, he was a rube from the sticks.

But that's neither here nor there....Iwo was a strategic catastrophe.

 

[1srelluc]

Blah, revisionist clap-trap.

Iwo Jima in American hands produced immediate and highly visible benefits to the strategic bombing campaign. Marines fighting on the island were reminded of this mission time and again as crippled B-29 Superforts flew in from Honshu. T

he capture of Iwo Jima served to increase the operating range, payload, and survival rate of the big bombers. The monthly tonnage of high explosives dropped on Imperial Japan by B-29s based in the Marianas increased eleven-fold in March alone.

As early as 7 April a force of 80 P-51 Mustangs of VII Fighter Command took off from Iwo Jima to escort B-29s striking the Nakajima aircraft engine plant in Tokyo.

But the Army Air Force valued Iwo Jima most of all as an emergency landing field. By war's end, a total of 2,251 B-29s made forced landings on the island. This figure represented 24,761 flight crewmen, many of whom would have perished at sea without the availability of Iwo Jima as a safe haven. Said one B-29 pilot, "whenever I land on this island I thank God for the men who fought for it."

Closing In: Marines in the Seizure of Iwo Jima (Iwo Jima's Costs, Gains, and Legacies).

 

[Oddball]

Blah, revisionist clap-trap.

Iwo Jima in American hands produced immediate and highly visible benefits to the strategic bombing campaign. Marines fighting on the island were reminded of this mission time and again as crippled B-29 Superforts flew in from Honshu. T

he capture of Iwo Jima served to increase the operating range, payload, and survival rate of the big bombers. The monthly tonnage of high explosives dropped on Imperial Japan by B-29s based in the Marianas increased eleven-fold in March alone.

As early as 7 April a force of 80 P-51 Mustangs of VII Fighter Command took off from Iwo Jima to escort B-29s striking the Nakajima aircraft engine plant in Tokyo.

But the Army Air Force valued Iwo Jima most of all as an emergency landing field. By war's end, a total of 2,251 B-29s made forced landings on the island. This figure represented 24,761 flight crewmen, many of whom would have perished at sea without the availability of Iwo Jima as a safe haven. Said one B-29 pilot, "whenever I land on this island I thank God for the men who fought for it."

Closing In: Marines in the Seizure of Iwo Jima (Iwo Jima's Costs, Gains, and Legacies).

Read my link....A lot of the B-29s that landed at Iwo weren't crippled to the extent that they couldn't get back to Guam.

 

[night_son]

The Pacific War was winding down. Iwo Jima could have been bypassed and it's defendants left to starve but 6,000 Marines died in a month of fighting. The historic argument is that Iwo was needed as a landing base for crippled American bombers but that was never stated in the anemic plan centered around reducing the ability of Japanese fighters to harass incoming bombers. The generals knew that Iwo Jima was considered to be part of the Japanese homeland and that the smelly little island was reinforced for forty years with interlocking fire and every square inch was plotted with mortar fire and machine guns and underground defenses. The Navy apparently had better things to do than shell the island with the requested time of naval gunfire and the Marines landed under punishing fire. The best theory is that Marines were sacrificed in an experiment to reinforce the acceptance of using the Atomic Bomb on humans.

Ours is not to wonder why but to do and die . . .

 

[theHawk]

I love the film that was made about it, the Duke's Magnus Opus, "The Sands of Iwo Jima".

My grandfather was in that documentary.

 

[Mushroom]

The Navy apparently had better things to do than shell the island with the requested time of naval gunfire and the Marines landed under punishing fire.

Not true. The Navy blasted the island for 3 days prior to the invasion. And by then, both the Navy and Marines knew that that mattered little. Most of the islands that were taken were so riddled with caves that they could have shelled them for months, and it would have done little damage.

And they did not land under "punishing fire". General Tadamichi Kuribayashi had already read reports of earlier landings like Tarawa, and knew that concentrating on defending the beaches themselves were foolish. His tactic was to have his forces wait inland, and was so effective that it was then repeated by the Japanese for the rest of the war. Place most of the defenses inland and out of direct sight from the water. That way they could not be brought under direct fire by the ships. It was brutal because the Marines had to dig each and every one of them out by hand, with little to no help available from the Navy because they could not see them.

And a lot of that was not only to preserve their own forces and only put up defenses once the enemy was concentrated, but as psychological as they would get cocky, then become demoralized when they finally did start to fire. Watch almost any recreation of Iwo Jima, there was no fire when they landed.

It was not like D-Day at all.





Or like Tarawa, which was a brutal and bloody battle. But once the Marines broke the defenses at the shore, there was little left after that. It lasted only 3 days, but 99% of the Japanese were killed in those three days (over half at the beach itself on the first day - only 17 survived of the garrison of over 4,700). The Japanese learned that was not effective, so pretty much stopped fighting at the beaches. And each battle afterwards they staged their forces farther and farther back from the beach.

On Okinawa, there was no real resistance until almost a week into the battle. The Japanese pretty much let them capture their main objectives, and had most of their forces concentrated in the center of the island where they could attack north or south as they wished. Because they knew they essentially cut the island in half, preventing the two forces from linking up.

The Japanese pretty much let them land unopposed, the resistance was when they started to push inland.

 

[frigidweirdo]

The atomic bombs were dropped in August. How many military generals knew about the atomic bomb in February, 1945?

Well, who said it wasn't the President telling them to do something....?

 

[Mushroom]

0

Truman didn't even know about it until after he was sworn in.

A few knew, specifically Major General Leslie Groves.

But much like MAGIC, none of those fighting knew about it. It was the kind of thing they could not risk letting the enemy know about. You could probably count all of the flag officers who knew about the Manhattan Project on two hands. And there were over 1,500 flag officers in WWII.

 

[whitehall]

Ours is not to wonder why but to do and die . . .

About 6,000 Marines were killed in a month on a freaking island that could have and should have been bypassed and we get cliches.

 

[whitehall]

The atomic bombs were dropped in August. How many military generals knew about the atomic bomb in February, 1945?

The U.S. Constitution doesn't authorize the generals and admirals to make independent decisions regarding invasions. Those decisions are made by civilians elected by the people. Indications are that most military leadership thought that Iwo Jima should have been bypassed.