Well, of course it was worth it except to the families of the Marines who perished.
But it still would have been better to build fixed bases in Siberia and defend them, rather than fight for islands. Stalin's excuse was that he had a fragile neutrality treaty with Japan that he didn't want to violate. He was concerned that Japanese troops would invade from Manchuria.
But Japan was already over-extended once the Americans entered the war. By 1943 Japan could not have sustained an effective invasion of Siberia; besides, it's not like Siberia is easy territory to conquer anyway. All we had to do was put the air bases a few hundred miles from the border and dare the Japanese to try to invade from Manchuria.
As for "29,000 B-29 crewmen" I think you need to check your facts and your math. A total of 3,000 B-29s were built over the lifetime of the aircraft but only 165 were operational by April 1944 and probably less than 1500 by August 1945 when the bomb was dropped on Japan. I can't easily find month by month statistics but we can make an assumption that 1000 were deployed to the Pacific by the end of the war. This is supported by the fact that the largest B-29 bombing run during the war was only 334 aircraft.
Assuming the loss rate was 25% for these 1,000, and that half of those landed on Iwo instead of putting down in the water, than means 125 aircraft were saved. That's 1250 men, not 29,000.
Even History.net says that there were only "hundreds of emergency landings on Iwo." Let's assume 500. Let's also assume that only half really required the Iwo landing, and half could have made it further to another base. 250 aircraft x 10 men equals 2,500. Certainly not 29,000. And that's not necessarily "lives saved" but merely lives that didn't have to be pulled out of the water.
Bravo to you for trying, but your math really needs some work. And when you make a claim you ought to give it a sanity check.
I didn’t compile the 29000 number I got it off HistoryNet. If you have an issue with it take it up with them.
My father was a Marine on Iwo, he thought it was worth it.
It seems to me putting bases in Siberia would have been a huge logistic, re-supply & infrastructure problem particularly in 1943. I don’t have the time, nor inclination to research it.
“Over 29 thousand B-29 air crewmen saved because they could land on Iwo. Some 7000 lost taking Iwo. So I guess the answer is yes it was worth it.”
Well, of course it was worth it except to the families of the Marines who perished.
But it still would have been better to build fixed bases in Siberia and defend them, rather than fight for islands. Stalin’s excuse was that he had a fragile neutrality treaty with Japan that he didn’t want to violate. He was concerned that Japanese troops would invade from Manchuria.
But Japan was already over-extended once the Americans entered the war. By 1943 Japan could not have sustained an effective invasion of Siberia; besides, it’s not like Siberia is easy territory to conquer anyway. All we had to do was put the air bases a few hundred miles from the border and dare the Japanese to try to invade from Manchuria.
As for “29,000 B-29 crewmen” I think you need to check your facts and your math. A total of 3,000 B-29s were built over the lifetime of the aircraft but only 165 were operational by April 1944 and probably less than 1500 by August 1945 when the bomb was dropped on Japan. I can’t easily find month by month statistics but we can make an assumption that 1000 were deployed to the Pacific by the end of the war. This is supported by the fact that the largest B-29 bombing run during the war was only 334 aircraft.
Assuming the loss rate was 25% for these 1,000, and that half of those landed on Iwo instead of putting down in the water, than means 125 aircraft were saved. That’s 1250 men, not 29,000.
Even History.net says that there were only “hundreds of emergency landings on Iwo.” Let’s assume 500. Let’s also assume that only half really required the Iwo landing, and half could have made it further to another base. 250 aircraft x 10 men equals 2,500. Certainly not 29,000. And that’s not necessarily “lives saved” but merely lives that didn’t have to be pulled out of the water.
Bravo to you for trying, but your math really needs some work. And when you make a claim you ought to give it a sanity check.
Informative post..thanks. I think your numbers are closer to being accurate.
My father was a B-29 pilot flying from Saipan. Flew the low level Tokyo fire raids in March of ‘45. Shot up over the target, and landed on Iwo on D+20 with two engines out on one side. As I remember, he mentioned that there were approximately 270 emergency landings on Iwo..2700 men.
I’m eternally grateful to the Marines for saving his life.