[Strategerist]

Of 2400 airplanes that landed on Iwo because they were damaged/shot up,

According to the Naval Proceedings article that the LA Times article is based on, even the figure above is bogus; most of those landings were for training or refueling or rearming, not because of damage.

[Robert A Cook PE]

So you claim "refueling" is a bogus reason for an emergency landing when facing a 6 hour flight in a B-29 with notoriously lousy engines that frequently burned up with no warning?

A plane that falls into the drink 500 miles, 50 miles, 5
miles, or 50 feet short of the runway is still lost.