So Nimitz sacrificed 7,000 Marines to save the lives of hundreds of pilots? MacArthur would have found a way to bypass Iwo Jima.
"So Nimitz sacrificed 7,000 Marines to save the lives of hundreds of pilots? MacArthur would have found a way to bypass Iwo Jima."
And if Roosevelt hadn't been so enamored with Stalin we would have had bases in Siberia, on Soviet soil, that we didn't have to fight to gain.
There are some very active discussions on Quora about this by amateur historians, myself included, about this.
Roosevelt was besotted by Stalin. The USA saved the Soviets' bacon with Lend Lease. Still, Stalin claimed that he couldn't let us have bases on Soviet soil, near Vladivostok, which would have made bombing Japan a milk run. And rather than pressing the point, Roosevelt gave in to the tyrant's excuses. Marines fought many, many bloody battles to gain those islands.
And why did Stalin not want to give us bases? Because he was paranoid, and also he was secretly laughing, every day, at how gullible the westerners were.
Vladivostok is only 500 miles from Tokyo. Even Okinawa, which was our last island to capture after 3 bloody years, is 700 miles from Tokyo.
We gave the Soviets everything they needed to finally turn the tide against the Nazis in 1943. All we had to do was hold up a couple months worth of Lend Lease shipments to have our way. Stalin would have caved. He might have been overthrown by the Politboro.
To his credit, Roosevelt revealed on his deathbed that he never should have trusted Stalin. A little too late, I think, to save the blood, effort, and lives of all those Marines.
As for the MacArthur comment? I assume he would have had the fortitude to force the issue. He was already enough of a hellraiser.