Well, since we won, it was not 'overwhelming' was it?
Sorry, but the costs of a defeat at Iwo, would have been far higher then the costs of the win.
Once a decision is made to fight, it is almost always better to go full throttle, then to turn and run, as you suggest.
Not when you regard your men as expendable cannon fodder.
"Sorry, but the costs of a defeat at Iwo, would have been far higher then the costs of the win."
It's a matter of fighting or NOT fighting; That was a given.
A) U.S. Marines ran into an unexpected buzz-saw.
B) That were ill-prepared to handle the underestimated enemy numbers and tactics with no apparent 'Plan "B"' given to fall back on.
C) They won the battle at great costs
D) The planners of the battle were sloppy, and the "strategy" to deem Iwo "critical" to the war at the pre-calculated "acceptable" cost was a huge gaff.
Yes, even the U.S. Military planners screw up sometimes. Happened in this case.
True, but irrelevant to the thesis advanced by Boot and other military historians. The alternative wasn't to loose the fight. The alternative was to bypass Iwo entirely, or, if not, to have devoted more bombing and bombardment resources to the fight.