Iwo Jima: The Marine Corps’ Epic Victory

The campaign for Iwo Jima (Operation Detachment) from 19 February–26 March 1945 pitted the USMC Fifth Amphibious Corps (VAC) and the USN’s Fifth Fleet against the IJA 109th Division and assorted IJN ground troops under the command of Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi. After neutralizing Japanese air assets on Iwo Jima, the objective was to seize Iwo Jima’s two completed airfields in the southern and central sectors and make them operational after the heavy pre- and post-invasion aerial, naval and Marine artillery bombardment. USAAF 7th Fighter Command would then have this Volcano Island as a base from which to escort the four-engine B-29 heavy bombers on their Japanese Home Islands’ raids from their Mariana Islands bases and to provide emergency airfields for battle-damaged or low-on-fuel Superfortresses on their return flight that otherwise would have crashed in the sea. The combined American force numbered over 100,000 troops against 20,933 Japanese soldiers and sailors. Kuribayashi’s defences were so well fortified with caves, tunnels and daunting terrain that the VAC lost 6,821 KIA and 19,217 wounded compared to approximately 18,000 Japanese troops KIA or MIA with only 216 prisoners taken. In a ‘mopping up’ phase to clear the remaining Japanese hidden in the island’s caves, the Army’s 147th IR, 37th Division captured an additional 867 prisoners. This epic USMC campaign resulted in an unprecedented ratio of three American casualties for every two Japanese soldiers. In all, 2,251 emergency B-29 landings were made saving the lives of almost 25,000 aircrew members. The flagraisings atop Mount Suribachi on 23 February 1945 galvanized American morale at home.