[Non-Sequitur]

Author states the landing at Iwo Jima was a mistake and unnecessary resulting in the death of 6,000 marines. Just another article to make us feel bad about our history.

The author is stating nothing of the kind. He's repeating the findings of a Marine Corps officer and instructor at the Naval Academy who has researched the battle. It was in interesting article and I'd be interested in reading the book.

[Pyro7480]

I didn't say that, rcocean did.

[rcocean]

The reason I say this is Boot leaves out one important fact.

Per the official Marine Corps History, the OSS & the JCS (Marshall, King, etc.) and Nimitz had approved a plan to jam Iwo's radio transmitters and bombard (i.e plaster every inch) of Iwo Jima with Mustard Gas.

It would killed every Jap on the island in 24 hours & Marine Corps losses would have been minimal.

However, FDR on his way to Yalta, disapproved of the plan for political reasons. I guess dropping the A-bomb, or firebombing Dresden was OK, but using Poison Gas on Iwo would have made us look bad. Of course, FDR was sick man at this point, and died a couple months later.