At the beginning of 1945
General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme
Commander of the Southwest Pacific Area, decided to try and
capture the small volcanic island of Iwo Jima that
at the time was being defended by 20,000 veterans of the Japanese
Special Naval Landing Force. The Japanese, who had created a fortress
on Mount Suribachi, faced an immense air and sea bombardment launched
by the 5th Fleet under Admiral Raymond Spruance.
On 19th February, American
soldiers began landing on the island. Over 250,000 men and 900 ships
were involved in this amphibious
operation under the command of Admiral Richmond
Turner. The main objective was to capture the island's three airstrips
and to to obtain a forward air base for the planned Allied attack
on the Japanese home territories.
The US
Marines managed to capture Mount Suribachi in three days but strong
resistance from the Japanese meant that the second airstrip at Motoyama
was not won until 28th February, 1945. The final stage of the fighting
took place in the fortified hills and these last defensive positions
were not taken until 10th March.
Small
groups of Japanese soldiers carried on fighting and the three airfields
were not ready to receive the vast fleets of B-29
Superfortress bombers until the end of March. Of the 23,000 Japanese
soldiers defending Iwo Jima, only 216 were taken alive. The American
forces also suffered during the bitter fighting on the island with
5,391 Marines killed and 17,400 wounded.
The United
States Army Air Force was now able to use the island to launch
bombing attacks on Japan. The
large number of Japanese buildings made of wood made it easy for the
bombers to create firestorms. On the
9th and 10th March 1945, a raid on Tokyo
devastated the city. This was followed by attacks on Nagoya, Kobe,
Oska and Yokohama. An estimated 260,000 were killed and 9.2 million
left homeless.
Joe
Rosenthal took this
picture of a marine advancing
toward
the
corpses of two fellow soldiers at Iwo Jima
on
19th February, 1945.
(1)
Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayshi was commander of Japanese
forces on Iwo Jima. He sent a letter to his wife on 2nd August 1944.
I hope everyone at home is fine even though
we are all in the midst of this big war. Did Tako evacuate to the
countryside with her school friends? Did she go to Hiaki alone? I
have been concerned about her. I feel sorry that
such a little girl like her has to live away from her parents. As
far as my well being is concerned, have endured the inconvenience
of life since came here. Because of my constant awareness of the tides
of war, no single day has ever passed without anxiety and tension.
It is very likely that our enemy, who plans to invade Saipan and Oomiya
Island, will attack us soon in their expedition to invade Japan
I constantly
think about our final destiny here except while I am sleeping. But,
I may think about it even in my sleep, for I have had dreams these
days.
Although
am not certain about the best place to evacuate around Tokyo, it seems
most likely that Tokyo will be subject to daily air-raids within a
month or so after our place here is invaded by the enemy. The best
place for you to evacuate seems to be Shinshyu. The war has advanced
to the point that we need to think of all these things.
I am sending
you my battlefield allowance for the months of June and July. I have
heard you would get them after September, though I am not certain
if I will still be alive by then.
(2)
Frederick S. Voss, Reporting the War (1994)
Of all the thousands of news
pictures published in the American press during World War II, none
was better known, more celebrated, and more frequently reproduced
than his Pulitzer Prize-winning shot of six battle-weary soldiers
straining to raise the American flag on Iwo Jima's Mount Suribachi
on February 23, 1945.
Brilliantly
composed, this image possessed every element that a war photograph
could want - a dramatic sense of action, sculptural clarity, and heroic
patriotism. When the photograph arrived in the United States, it required
but one glance on the part of editors to tell them that here was a
picture worth featuring prominently.
Behind Rosenthal's picture is a story fraught with a number of ironies.
To begin with, when Rosenthal looked back on his eleven days of recording
the battle for Iwo Jima, it was not that image for which he had the
greatest professional fondness. Rather it was one taken in the first
hours of the invasion. Landing on the island's beaches hard on the
heels of the first wave of marines, Rosenthal had found himself, like
the armed men around him, dodging a stiff barrage of enemy fire. Seeking
picture opportunities while remaining mindful of the need to find
cover, he was darting from shell crater to shell crater when he spotted
the bodies of two dead marines. In that moment, he conceived the idea
for a photograph intended to evoke the essence of what he was witnessing.
Thus, bringing the bodies of the two fallen men into his camera's
focus, he waited for an advancing marine to come within view, and
when one did, he took a picture that, in his estimation at least,
embodied the "honest ingredients" of what the Iwo Jima story
in its early phases was all about - the dead paving the way so that
the living might follow.
Despite
the forethought that went into that beach picture, the resulting image
did not seemed contrived, which is probably one of the chief reasons
why Rosenthal took special pride in it. On the other hand, his picture
of the flag-raising on Mount Suribachi four days later - which, in
its compositional perfection, did seem contrived and led to conjectures
by some that it had to have been carefully posed.
(3)
Merril
Sandoval, interviewed by Tom Otley
of the Sunday
Times about landing on Iwo
Jima in February 1945 (25th August 2002)
Looking back, I don't think I was even scared. When you are young
you don't think much about what's going to happen. "Kill or be
killed', that's what the training had instilled in us. I was just
thinking it was like a film.
The landing was terrible.
The surf was really rough and the beach was steep, so when the landing
craft didn't hit straight on they turned over. In the end we had to
dump all our gear, including the radios, and swim ashore or we would
have drowned.
(4)
Roy Hawthorne, Navajo Code Talker, interviewed
by the Arizona Republic newspaper about the invasion of Iwo
Jima (9th June 2002)
One incident in particular
I remember distinctly. We encountered a force that was superior in
manpower and firepower, and so we were pinned down for a couple of
days at least. That was the time the antenna on my radio was shot
off.
We were trained in a number
of areas of communication, and one of those was field wire, so we'd
always have some field wire with us and the tools to work with it,
like pliers and cutters and stuff like that. So I was fortunate enough
to put that back together. At least for a temporary fix to get a message
out. So we got a message out for an air strike. And they showed up
in just a little while and saved the day. That was on Okinawa.
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