Posted on 03/10/2005 7:10:45 AM PST by rcocean
Our awe at the bravery of the Marines and their Japanese adversaries should not cause us to overlook the stupidity that forced them into this unnecessary meat grinder. Selective memories of World War II, which record only inspiring deeds and block out all waste and folly, create an impossible standard of perfection against which to judge contemporary conflicts.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
No retreat or maneuver was possible in the black, coarse volcanic sand; the Marines could only fight or die. NO contingency plan. They were in the open and under fire by as many as 22,000 dug-in troops.
Hell ya -- poor planning CAN be criticized.
"they needed a runway on that island"
Sad truth is: there never WAS a runway built on Iwo Jima.
Watch the History Channel special on the subject.
I'm a former Marine, and Vietnam vet. But I have studied the Pacific War extensively, and don't think that we should just brush off articles like this. Since Iwo Jima, many Americans openly questioned the loses under Nimitz. MacArthur, commanding the Pacific assault toward the Philippines, passed by many Japanese held islands. One of them garrisoned 100,000 Japanese troops, who languished and starved as their island was isolated and ignored. I believe that both Nimitz and MacArthur were great leaders. But while both won, MacArthur was the best strategist by far.
It was also used as a fighter base for the long range Mustangs to escort the 29's. another reason to take Iwo.
'Once the butchering began on the beach, it was time to withdraw and re-group.'
Great idea! The casualties would have been way lower on the front end of a rout.
'As the Marines waded in through Iwo, they were hit from all different directions.'
From the sea as well? The assault waves made it ashore, once there the Japanese opened up. By nightfall 30000 Marines were ashore and Mt Suribachi was isolated. 2400 casualties 600 dead on the first day but no longer on the beach. Five days later, the 3rd MarDiv came ashore bringing the total to 82000 men. When do you pull the plug? First day when you have to evac 30000 men? Or after the 5th when you would have 80000+ thousand? This is the worst type of monday morning QBing. You have no answer just an insistence it was a bad decision.
Gen Smith predicted 15000 casualties when the bombardment couldn't be extended.
Wow, insulting Marines on a thread about Marines???
'Sad truth is: there never WAS a runway built on Iwo Jima.'
By us maybe, the Japs had 2 operational airfields with 5 runways. Had another airfield under construction with two more runways.
'Watch the History Channel special on the subject.'
I prefer objective history.
Isn't that rather Ratheresque?
That doesn't seem to be resolved with many still arguing for their interpretation of the article.
So then read something else by Boot. He is consistently and highly laudatory of America's military (and equally important, as we all know, supportive of their mission). E.g.:
Max Boot, "Iraq and the American Small War Tradition," Historically Speaking 4 (Spring 2003)
One would have thought that the defeat of the Taliban would have shattered for all time the mystique of the guerrilla. Apparently not. Agitated commentators on Iraq invoke comparisons with Vietnam and warn that allied occupiers will never be safe.
Such a nightmare scenario cannot be dismissed out of hand—a good general must prepare for every contingency—but, if the historical record is anything to judge by, it is unlikely. The U.S., along with most Western nations, has a long record of defeating guerrilla resistance all over the world. And the conditions present the only time the U.S. suffered a serious defeat—in Vietnam—appear to be missing in Iraq today.
The primary job of the U.S. Army until 1890 was fighting guerrillas—American Indians, to be exact, the finest irregular warriors in the world. Defeating them was a slow and arduous process, with some famous setbacks like the Battle of Little Bighorn. But in the end dogged generals like Nelson Miles and George Crook managed to capture the last holdouts, such as the Apache leader Geronimo and the great Sioux chief Sitting Bull.
Much of the historiography of the Indian Wars focuses on the U.S. Army’s excesses, such as the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890. But the army’s ultimate victory was predicated not upon sheer brutality but upon the essentials of good counterinsurgency strategy: cutting off the guerrillas from their population base by herding tribes onto reservations; utilizing friendly Indians for scouting and intelligence; and being relentless in the pursuit of hostile braves.
Similar strategies were utilized, with similar success, by the army in its campaign to stamp out resistance to U.S. rule in the Philippines after the Spanish-American War.
...
The lesson of those campaigns is clear: where U.S. troops stay the course for the long term (Germany, Italy, Japan, Philippines, Bosnia, Kosovo) they can change life for the better. Where they pull out too quickly (Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Somalia) things can go to hell in a handbasket pretty quickly.
Max Boot, "Everything You Think You Know About the American Way of War Is Wrong," September 12, 2002 (Foreign Policy Research Institute)
It is clear, then, that many deeply held shibboleths about the American way of war— which can be summed up in the misconception that the job of the armed forces is limited to “fighting wars” in defense of “vital national interests"— have little historical basis. Nor, it must be added, is history kind to the warnings of post-Vietnam alarmists that America risks disaster every time it asks the armed forces to stray into other types of duties. Not all the operations chronicled in my book were a total success— U.S. troops never caught up with either Pancho Villa or Augusto Sandino— but the only real military failure was Woodrow Wilson’s expedition to fight the Russian Bolsheviks in 1918-20, and it was a pretty small-scale failure, hardly comparable to the grand disaster that transpired in Indochina.In most cases the armed forces, however ill-prepared for the job at hand, quickly adapted, figured out what they had to do, and did it with great success. Look at how successfully the US armed forces have adapted to the unconventional challenges of Afghanistan.
The bottom line is that the American armed forces should not be unduly afraid of small wars. The risk of another Vietnam is relatively small. Much more common are successes like Afghanistan. Which is probably just as well, because small wars are unavoidable as long as America remains committed to preserving its power abroad.
The End of Appeasement: Bush's Opportunity To Redeem America's Past Failures in the Middle East The Weekly Standard, February 10, 2003
As America slowly took over Britain's oversight role after 1945, Washington tried self-consciously to carve out a different style of leadership, one that was meant to distinguish the virtuous Americans from the grasping, greedy imperialists who had come before. America wanted to show that it sympathized with the Arabs, Persians, and Muslims, had no designs on their lands or oil wealth, and would not even choose sides in their struggle to eradicate the nascent state of Israel. Unfortunately America showed something else--that we were weak, and could be attacked, economically and physically and rhetorically, with impunity. That we were a paper tiger--or, to use Osama bin Laden's metaphor, a "weak horse." "When people see a strong horse and a weak horse," the leader of al Qaeda has said, "by nature they will like the strong horse." It is no wonder that America today has so few real friends in the region. Why would anyone ride alongside a weak horse?
This may seem an odd statement to make, since America is often accused of being a bully, in the Mideast as elsewhere. Yet the record shows precious little bullying--indeed not enough. Note that the last time the United States played a pivotal role in a Mideast change of government (if one overlooks Bill Clinton's campaign against Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel's 1999 election) was in 1953, when the CIA, along with Britain's MI6, helped to depose Iranian prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh. Considering how many violently anti-American regimes have existed in the Middle East since World War II, America's failure to overthrow more of them is a testament to our passivity and forbearance.
This is not to suggest that the U.S. record in the Mideast during the past 50 years has been exclusively weak and pusillanimous. There have been occasional flashes of principle and infrequent displays of strength. Some of the more prominent include: Truman's ultimatum that forced the Soviets to evacuate Iran in 1946 and his decision two years later to override all his foreign policy advisers by recognizing Israel; Eisenhower's dispatch of Marines to support the Lebanese government in 1958; Nixon and Kissinger's backing of Israel with emergency arms shipments during the 1973 Yom Kippur War; Reagan's bombing of Libya in 1986 and protection of Gulf shipping from Iranian attacks in 1987-88; and, most recently, George H.W. Bush's resounding victory in the Persian Gulf War of 1991. All these actions are very much to America's credit, and have done much to serve U.S. interests in the region.
I don't always agree with Boot. He advocated the Rumsfeld resign over Abu Graib, for instance, to difuse the PR crisis (as if it would). But he is defintely NOT anti-military or blame-America type in any respect. He is a mainstream, pro-Bush, pro-WOT conservative.
Agreed: In hind sight we paid a terrible price for Iwo and vastly underestimated the resistance encountered.
Agreed: Once we were there, we had to win, even at the terrible cost.
BTW, Bombing and shelling was very ineffective due to the tunneling.
Do you have be a member? I didn't get the article.
Don't worry about it. I have to get to work. Thanks for your always good conversation.
Uh, no, he insulted a marine, Ollie North, suggesting he is none too bright.
Your mileage may vary, but I happen to think that is an imminently arguable claim. I suppose I'd prefer to say "incompetent," at least for many of the tasks he took on. Ollie might have been a great field commander, for instance, and might be much smarter overall than I am, or than the average person. But you or I, or some guy on the street, didn't accept (and aggressively angle for) responsibility for the Contra operation, for instance, while Ollie did. And then he screw up and exposed it, damaging American interests and Ronald Reagan, and then he had the chutzpah put forth his contributions as laudable and heroic.
I don't question his good intentions, but Ollie was a poster child for the Peter Principle. He was a screwup as a spook. His security procedures were amateurish. And he didn't just "lie to Congress," he also lied to stalwart Reagan lieutenants like Elliot Abrams (who was constantly correcting Ollie's screw-ups when he knew about them).
I'm just surprised that I remember 40 years later. LOL
The Joint Staff got bad intel and painted themselves in a corner. Or rather an expendable force in a corner.
So what of a contingency plan? That's right, there was none. Hell, I don't know what kind of resources were available to help relieve the pressure of the first wave of Marines taking the pounding.
"Gen Smith predicted 15000 casualties when the bombardment couldn't be extended."
And WHY couldn't the bombardment be extended?
Btw, the website was military.com, and that link I provided should have worked regardless of membership.
I [1] think that they [2] thought . . . .
Even if they [2] thought wrong, they [2] thought that way.
That make the [1] thinking about it right.
I wasn't assessing whether he was right or wrong. I was speculating on the assumed thinking behind the commentary of those who didn't read the article. The snippet made it sound like an attack on the Marines in particular and the military in general even if the entire article didn't bear out that notion.
Too bad for Mary Jo and us, he wasn't still-born...
the fat, drunk, murdering bastard.
"They needed the runway on that island."
Yep, they needed it for an alternate/emergency landing site.
'So what of a contingency plan? That's right, there was none. Hell, I don't know what kind of resources were available to help relieve the pressure of the first wave of Marines taking the pounding.'
They put 30000 ashore first day. Marines split the island first day. Casualties were comparable to some other assaults, the first day. When do you quit?
High casualties for the operation yeah, expendable... sorry.
Marine reserves came ashore day 5. That's the contingency op. The island was going to be taken.
'And WHY couldn't the bombardment be extended?'
Strategic timelines, logistics any number of war planning reasons. Smith didn't like it, but it was above his paygrade. You get your orders, and you execute.
'The Joint Staff'
There was no Joint Staff. The ATF had its mission. The war planners wanted Iwo to bring more pressure on the Jap home islands. Escorting B29s, providing a divert strip for battle damaged bombers were all valid reasons.
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