Iwo Jima- Uncommon Valor and wasted lives

[mudwhistle]

When I was a kid, we had a neighbor that was a Marine Iwo Jima. He never said a word of it to his family.
His boys were the meanest mother scratchers ever. Like it was instinctive. Sucker punching, foul mouthed bastards. One of them called my mother "Mrs. Shit". LOL. Good people tho. Today we're good friends with his kids. He died a while back.

They must have been great neighbors.

 

[namvet]

an airfield out there was like gold. B-29 loss's were soring to unacceptable levels. and for the first time the mustangs could provide escort. Iwo was a forward out post to warn the empire of apporaching US forces

Photos: Joe Rosenthal and Iwo Jima

Joe Rosenthal, AP photographer with the wartime still picture pool,who landed with the U.S. Marines on Iwo Jima, Feb. 19, 1945. Rosenthal, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his immortal image of six World War II servicemen raising an American flag over battle-scarred Iwo Jima.

photos link

 

[Unkotare]

Coulda, shoulda and history revision abounds from those that view World War Two as a movie...

What revision?

Try reading a few history books dated before the 60's. ...

Try answering the question. Your comments were not in reference to history books but to what you thought was being expressed here. I've taught more history than you've ever read any kind of book, so stop trying to change the focus. Now, what revision?

 

[Redbone]

What revision?

Try reading a few history books dated before the 60's. ...

Try answering the question. Your comments were not in reference to history books but to what you thought was being expressed here. I've taught more history than you've ever read any kind of book, so stop trying to change the focus. Now, what revision?

You can ask any question that you like but you can not tell me how to answer. I can and will answer in the manner I choose. I changed no focus and your comment about your history expertise did not impress me.

Want a civil answer from me then change your tone Hoss .

My comment damn well was in reference to history books and the revision that has gone on from the 1960's onward. Also the new push to rewrite history coming from our ever so progressive big government.

You want an answer from me you had better not try to intimidate me with your declaration of having vastly greater history knowledge than I do. How would you know you taught more history than I ever read? Obviously you do not know yet you think yourself superior.

Perhaps consider getting back to me when you have read some of those history books published before 1960.

 

[tjvh]

Much if not all of war is waste. In the Pacific, many islands and pockets were left to 'dangle' as the noose tightened around Japan and the end became evident. On a macro scale, this eventually applied even to the home islands. There was in fact no need to invade Japan. The war was over and we only had to wait for them to realize it. That would have meant, however, seeing our Russian allies advance in the East. Contrary to what many seem to think, the government of the US at the time was opposed to Soviet expansion, so dropped the bombs to impress Joe Stalin about the seriousness of the US.

Wow, what a complete lack of understanding of the Japanese people in 1945. They were willing to die in Kamikaze attacks all for their twisted ideology. While it's true the war was inevitably going to be over for Japan, but were it not for the A-bombs the casualties on both sides would have been horrific. Had the American fleet simply waited for the Japanese to realize the war was over would have been a long and catastrophic wait. Japan was on the verge of getting jet powered fighters, and kamikaze attacks would have been relentless while the fleet waited for Japan to capitulate. You have to remember, the Japanese people were never told they were losing the War -even to the very end. No, America had to go for the jugular or we'd have lost tens of thousands more.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

I have source documents from Japan. That prove the ruling cliche had no intention of surrendering. Even after the atomic strike they made 4 demands. One was that no military or civilian Allies were allowed in their Country, another was that the Empire would revert to the November 1941 Start lines and of course one was that the Emperor be retained.

They were not offering to surrender at all, they were demanding a ceasefire with return of property they already lost. A\nd they repeated those demands after the second atomic attack.

Again for the slow, ONLY the intervention of the Emperor allowed them to surrender and the Army attempted a coup to prevent that.

As to whether the population would have obeyed orders to attack, one need only look to Saipan and Okinawa to see that yes the civilians would do as they were ordered. On Saipan and Okinawa the Japanese civilians committed suicide because they were told the Americans would rape and murder them if captured.

 

[namvet]

they were also developing their own abomb - with the help of the Nazi's

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=timBLilOYEs]Japans Atomic Bomb PART 1 [www.Keep-Tube.com].mp4 - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Unkotare]

Try reading a few history books dated before the 60's. ...

Try answering the question. Your comments were not in reference to history books but to what you thought was being expressed here. I've taught more history than you've ever read any kind of book, so stop trying to change the focus. Now, what revision?

You can ask any question that you like but you can not tell me how to answer. I can and will answer in the manner I choose.

In other words, you can't answer. You were soooo excited to use the phrase "history revision," but it turns out you were full of shit and just shooting your mouth off.

 

[Redbone]

Try answering the question. Your comments were not in reference to history books but to what you thought was being expressed here. I've taught more history than you've ever read any kind of book, so stop trying to change the focus. Now, what revision?

You can ask any question that you like but you can not tell me how to answer. I can and will answer in the manner I choose.

In other words, you can't answer. You were soooo excited to use the phrase "history revision," but it turns out you were full of shit and just shooting your mouth off.

Turns out that I don't dance to your fiddle. Who was excited? I believe it was the cat that so quickly declared his magnificent record in teaching history. Your kind are always big blowhards. Had you wanted a civil discourse with me you would not have tried acting as if you own me Hoss.
Now your are just dumb enough to think your silly little taunt above will force me to answer your question. Good luck, you'll need it.

 

[Unkotare]

Wow, what a complete lack of understanding of the Japanese people in 1945.

You start with this and then add only stereotype and propaganda? You mention Kamikaze attacks but don't seem to understand what they meant (or the fact that so many of the 'volunteers' very much did not want the job). You mention new fighters and ignore the fact that one reason Japan was moving inevitably toward losing the war was that their capacity to maintain industrial support for the cause was dwindling to zero. You cite state propaganda that a desperate military in Japan tried to maintain but don't think that the people starving to death, having their great cities fire-bombed to embers around them, and learning of the deaths of their sons, husbands, and brothers couldn't figure out for themselves that the war had long since become calamity? Wow, what a complete lack of reason and common sense.

 

[Unkotare]

You can ask any question that you like but you can not tell me how to answer. I can and will answer in the manner I choose.

In other words, you can't answer. You were soooo excited to use the phrase "history revision," but it turns out you were full of shit and just shooting your mouth off.

Turns out that I don't dance to your fiddle.

Turns out you were full of shit from the get-go and you know it. Turns out you can't even manage to pretend otherwise.

 

[Unkotare]

As to whether the population would have obeyed orders to attack, one need only look to Saipan and Okinawa to see that yes the civilians would do as they were ordered. On Saipan and Okinawa the Japanese civilians committed suicide because they were told the Americans would rape and murder them if captured.

Now there's an example of misunderstanding internal attitudes toward race and ethnicity within Japan at the time.

 

[Redbone]

I have source documents from Japan. That prove the ruling cliche had no intention of surrendering. Even after the atomic strike they made 4 demands. One was that no military or civilian Allies were allowed in their Country, another was that the Empire would revert to the November 1941 Start lines and of course one was that the Emperor be retained.

They were not offering to surrender at all, they were demanding a ceasefire with return of property they already lost. A\nd they repeated those demands after the second atomic attack.

Again for the slow, ONLY the intervention of the Emperor allowed them to surrender and the Army attempted a coup to prevent that.

As to whether the population would have obeyed orders to attack, one need only look to Saipan and Okinawa to see that yes the civilians would do as they were ordered. On Saipan and Okinawa the Japanese civilians committed suicide because they were told the Americans would rape and murder them if captured.

The Battle of Iwo Jima
The Battle of Iwo Jima took place in February 1945. The capture of Iwo Jima was part of a three-point plan the Americans had for winning the war in the Far East.

By 1944, America and her allies in the Pacific War had the ascendancy. In the west, the Japanese were being turned back in Burma and island hopping had isolated Japanese forces in the eastern sector. Combined with the attacks on Iwo Jima, was America’s desire to finally destroy Japan’s merchant fleet so that the Japanese mainland could not be supplied from the food-rich sectors of South East Asia which Japan still had control over. Linked to this, was the destruction of Japan’s remaining industrial base by the bombing of it by the American airforce.

Iwo Jima is a very small Pacific island – just over 4.5 miles long and 2.5 miles wide which lies at the foot of the Bonin chain of islands, south of the main Japanese island of Honshu.

Despite its size, Iwo Jima was considered to have great tactical importance. There were two airfields on the island – under Japan’s control; they could be used by Japanese fighter planes to attack American bombers on their flights to Japan. Under American control, the airfields could be used as emergency landing bases for damaged airplanes in the bombing raids. They could also be used for American fighter planes to escort the bombers, as they needed smaller runways for take-off.

The Battle of Iwo Jima

Did not make sense to bypass this island. Its tactical importance overrode any consideration of how costly would it be to take it. Our military had no way of knowing just how great that cost would end up being. The current history revisionists fail to understand that they are factoring in opinion based upon hindsight. Hindsight that the U.S. forces were not blessed with!

 

[editec]

Marine-written revisionist history, except for the part about the A-bombs and the attempted coup.

Not really.

It's a fairly accurate accessment of the campaign.

Only if you accept the Marine's definition of "timid and ineffective" as meaning the Army didn't get enough of their own troops killed.

Oh I see.

Yeah well...that's just the nature of some kinds of Marines, ya' know?

I was addressing his basic assessment of the campaign's thrust, (which I think was a pretty good thumbnail of it) and ignoring his silly editorial "my service is the best "comments.

 

[namvet]

30 bucks a year and your a know it all

 

[regent]

Not really.

It's a fairly accurate accessment of the campaign.

Only if you accept the Marine's definition of "timid and ineffective" as meaning the Army didn't get enough of their own troops killed.

Oh I see.

Yeah well...that's just the nature of some kinds of Marines, ya' know?

I was addressing his basic assessment of the campaign's thrust, (which I think was a pretty good thumbnail of it) and ignoring his silly editorial "my service is the best "comments.

We think of the heavy marine casualties on some of those islands but fail to realize that many army divisions had much heavier casualties because of the longer period of time spent in combat.
By the end of the war 47 army infantry regiments had suffered at least 100% casualties and some over 200%.

 

[mudwhistle]

What revision?

Try reading a few history books dated before the 60's. ...

Try answering the question. Your comments were not in reference to history books but to what you thought was being expressed here. I've taught more history than you've ever read any kind of book, so stop trying to change the focus. Now, what revision?

You're saying that he's wrong in assuming that the civilians wouldn't sacrifice themselves at the orders of the military, and anyone who knows their history knows that they would have. The problem being is that it never came to that. So, there is no history to argue over because the bomb was dropped and it didn't happen. So you can speculate all you want about what would or wouldn't have happened, but it is still purely speculative.

 

[Trajan]

We are coming up on the 68th anniversary of the 36 day battle of Iwo Jima on Feb. 19th. The shocking casualty statistics were overshadowed by the Uncommon Valor of the US Marines. Almost 7,000 Marines killed and about 26,000 wounded in 36 days. The amazing Joe Rosenthal photo of the Flag raising on Mt Suribachi was the most copied photo in history but the event was just the beginning of the battle. In a week several of the Flag raisers would be killed. The big question has always been, was it worth it. You have to consider that the original mission was to take the airfield and suppress Japanese fighter planes from harassing US bombers. After the shocking statistics became evident the government revised the original mission parameters and claimed that the intent was to use Iwo Jima as a landing site for crippled bombers. Either US intelligence was profoundly faulty about Japanese resistance or the Marine assault was a training experiment for the invasion of the mainland or the Navy Dept didn't give a damn how many Marine lives it would take so that crippled Bomber crews would have a convenient landing site. Either way the Marines got the shitty end of the stick.

You may well ask that same question about the entire Pacific campaign and many have. Most, of it all, those island fortresses could have been bypassed as well as assaulted. But, politics reared its head early on.

First of all, in the years before the war, the Marine Corps was in danger of being disbanded because it was seen as a superfluous force. Why did we need two ground components? The original need for Marines was past history. So, in order to save their force, the Marines came up with a new reason for being: They designated themselves as amphibious experts and sold that to Congress, in spite of the fact that the Army had been conducting amphibious operations since at least the War of 1812 and, even today, have mounted far more and far larger operations.

Additionally, the Navy insisted that they did not want to serve under the Army in the Pacific. While they accepted McArthur as the over-all commander, they successfully sold FDR on the idea of a two-pronged assault on Japan in order to use their forces in the manner which they saw fit. The result was that the Army had the primary responsibility for the liberation of the Philippines and the Navy would take off across the central Pacific, reducing or bypassing Japanese strongholds along the way. Looking back, it's possible to see that the Navy's campaign was perfectly useless. McArthur knew it at the time, but was over-ruled in Washington.

The Navy needed to find a target to prove their new doctrine and the first opportunity was Tarawa. Instead of adopting the lessons learned from generations of Army amphibious operations, they wrote their own and the results were little short of a total disaster. Yes, they took the island, but questions were raised as to whether or not it was worth it. Those questions would be asked after every major invasion in the central Pacific because the casualty figures were invariably compared to the succession of Army assaults on the way to Manila and the Navy's casualty figures far exceeded the Army's in every instance.

Why it continued for another 2 years is politics, pure and simple.

uhm hello? Guadalcanal?


Tarawa was a disaster, the navy recon fucked up, badly.


same could be said for Peleliu, they didn't screw up to badly ( faulty air recon) but the japs never planned to use the Palaus as a bastion anyway they needed to worry about anyway, but we didn't know that at the time.

I think the Philippines was unnecessary, FDR flew to Hawaii to hear out nimitz ( con) and Macarthur ( pro) and he screwed up by oking that invasion. Taiwan was the better choice.


what you seem to be saying is what ? the pacific campaign was unnecessary?

 

[Unkotare]

Try reading a few history books dated before the 60's. ...

Try answering the question. Your comments were not in reference to history books but to what you thought was being expressed here. I've taught more history than you've ever read any kind of book, so stop trying to change the focus. Now, what revision?

You're saying that he's wrong in assuming that the civilians wouldn't sacrifice themselves at the orders of the military, and anyone who knows their history knows that they would have.

Those who only know stereotypes and propaganda from that time - instead of actual history - assume that starving, exhausted civilians who had long since had enough of the war would have done so en masse.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Try answering the question. Your comments were not in reference to history books but to what you thought was being expressed here. I've taught more history than you've ever read any kind of book, so stop trying to change the focus. Now, what revision?

You're saying that he's wrong in assuming that the civilians wouldn't sacrifice themselves at the orders of the military, and anyone who knows their history knows that they would have.

Those who only know stereotypes and propaganda from that time - instead of actual history - assume that starving, exhausted civilians who had long since had enough of the war would have done so en masse.

Based on the performance of the Japanese civilians on Saipan and Okinawa the military had no choice but believe that the majority of the population would in fact obey those orders. Pretending the wouldn't would have been stupid as hell. The bombs solved the problem, but again only because the Emperor intervened. The Army controlled the Government and had no intention of surrendering.