I did not read the columnist's entire article, but only the two excerpts quickly provided at the beginning of the thread. I found the columnist to either be ignorant of some rather basic facts or intentionally glossing over those facts to promote an agenda. I did read the Cpl's entire article, which was taken from Capt. Burrell's study.
I DID read the entire article (though I think I need a bath after visiting the LA Slimes) and I did not get the sense that he was ignorant of facts or glossing over them. I took from his piece that he was trying to illustrate the absurdity of the left's bitching over every aspect of the WOT by showing how "mistakes" were made by men generally regarded as brilliant military strategists. He walso stated that his facts came not from his own research, but from that of a Marine historian working for the military.
I am somewhat of a WWII buff, so in MY studies about the war, I have come across many instances where planning and intel was comletely wrong and probably cost many lives. Such was the problem with intelligence in that day. I think the difference is that in that day, the people involved in planning knew that the odds were not always good and that intel was often sketchy at best, but there often was no other way to do it. Also, the people of this country knew that war was brutal, mistakes would be made and things didn't always go as planned. They accepted this as just a reality of life in war. For some reason, people today seem to have forgotten all of that and we expect our wars to go like both sides are controlled on some scaled-down model with little toy soldiers moved around the board.
As for Iwo, the justification for taking it had more to do with it's importance to the Japanese than it's importance to us from what I have read on it. They needed the bas a lot more than we did and we knew it. There were also political reasons within the military community that played a part in the decision to go ahead with the invasion as well. As for planning the invasion, our intelligence told us that they would concentrate their forces on the airfield (flat) side of the island. What the Marines found out real quickly was that they were on the Suribachi side and entrenched so well that any bombardment by naval ships prior to boots hitting the sand were largely ineffective. We also cannot discount the tenacity of the Japanese defenders who were told to die either fighting or by their own hand. They defended the island to the bitter end. They had planned for the landings and had established "kill boxes" that were extemely effective.
As with Normandy and the European theater in general, we eventually overwhelmed them with sheer numbers and our own tenacity and innovation. In Europe, we had inferior tanks that went up against the Panzers and Tigers, but defeated them by overwhelming them, learning their weaknesses and developing tactics in the field to beat them. That is the nature of our military and always has been. We adapt & we overcome. On Iwo, just like Normandy, we adapted to their defenses and overcame them. Whether or not it was "worth it" is and always has been debatable. How do you measure the loss of 6000 Marines versus airmen suposedly saved by having the airfield? I don't know, but I believe in my heart that taking Iwo, though maybe not the most vital objective, most definitely WAS worth it and probably DID save many many more lives than we lost. I feel the same way about D-Day, the Dolittle raids, taking Italy, defending Bastogne in the dead of winter (and severly understocked and cut off from supplies) and all other battles in WWII. Some were planned and executed better than others, but ALL were worth it in the end.
I don't really think the author was disputing this notion as much as he was pointing out the idiocy of the arguments the loony left has made about our objectives and losses in the WOT.
Sorry this was so long!