Iwo Jima: The Unnecessary Battle
Abstract
In February and March of 1945 the bloodiest battle in Marine Corps history was waged on a small island 700 miles from Tokyo, Japan known as Iwo Jima. Joe Rosenthal's iconic photograph of the flag-raising atop Mount Suribachi would serve as a rallying cry for America and a representation of the Marine Corps and the war in the Pacific. With an estimated 24,000 U.S. casualties and over 21,000 dead Japanese, those involved in the planning of the campaign have cemented in history that the island had to be taken for fighter aircraft escorts of strategic bombers trying to end the war. In reality it can be shown that the necessity for taking the island was severely diminished by February 1945 and that divergent strategies by three General Officers led to the battle for the island. Almost all the objectives for taking the island as listed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff were met prior to any Marine setting foot on the volcanic sand. The lack of a unified command and service rivalry blinded those involved in conducting the operation. Along with prior experiences from air battles in Germany and resultant poor bomber tactics, the solution to winning the war seemed to lie with the airfields of I wo Jima. With the dominance of the Navy, Army Air Force, and a weakening Japanese defense network a naval blockade could have accomplished four of the five Joint Chiefs of Staff objectives necessitating Iwo Jima. The fifth reason would be met a short time later when the Marines took Okinawa. Even if the island had to be taken, those involved missed targeting the most critical resource on the island; water. The only source of water on the island was rain water collected in large cisterns. By directly targeting the visible and unprotected concrete water cisterns on the island during a naval blockade, the Japanese would have been forced to surrender or die of dehydration.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 25, 2011
- Accession Number
- ADA600230
Entities
People
- Jonathan T. Baker
Organizations
- Marine Corps University