Posted on 03/15/2005 5:07:59 AM PST by billorites
ON FEB. 19, 1945, 30,000 Marines splashed ashore on a small volcanic island in the central Pacific. After four days of bitter fighting, a small patrol reached the peak of Mount Suribachi, where it planted a U.S. flag in an iconic scene captured by photographer Joe Rosenthal. This famous image was hardly the end of the battle. Iwo Jima would not be secure until March 26. Almost all of the 21,000 Japanese defenders elected to die rather than surrender. Rooting them out cost more than 6,000 American dead and 20,000 wounded, making this the costliest battle in the storied history of the U.S. Marine Corps. It is right and proper that there should be 60th-anniversary commemorations of these heroics. For, as Fleet Adm. Chester Nimitz famously said, ". . . on Iwo Island, uncommon valor was a common virtue." Yet it would be a mistake to bury this battle in a haze of "Greatest Generation" sentimentality. 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. That is why Marine Capt. Robert S. Burrell, a history instructor at the Naval Academy, has performed a valuable service by publishing in the October 2004 issue of the Journal of Military History an article called "Breaking the Cycle of Iwo Jima Mythology." Burrell examines the planning of Operation Detachment, as the invasion was known, and shows that it was badly bungled. The planners actually thought that Iwo Jima would be lightly defended. Nimitz had no idea that the Japanese had been preparing an elaborate defensive network of caves, bunkers and tunnels. As a result, he failed to allocate enough aircraft or warships to seriously dent the enemy defenses before the infantry landings. This oversight consigned the Marines to what a war correspondent called "a nightmare in hell." And for what? The rationales for taking the island were shaky at the time and utterly specious in hindsight. The original impetus came from the U.S. Army Air Corps, which wanted a base from which fighters could escort B-29 Superfortress bombers on missions over Japan. But Iwo Jima was so far away from most Japanese targets — a 1,500-mile round trip — that even the newest fighter, the P-51D Mustang, lacked sufficient range and navigational equipment for that purpose. In any case, Japanese air defenses were so weak that B-29s didn't need any escort; they were able to reduce Japanese cities to ashes on their own. When the fighter-escort mission didn't pan out, U.S. commanders had to come up with another rationale for why 26,000 casualties had not been in vain. After the war, it was claimed that Iwo Jima had been a vital emergency landing field for crippled B-29s on their way back from Japan. In a much-quoted statistic, the Air Force reported that 2,251 Superforts landed on Iwo, and because each one carried 11 crewmen, a total of 24,761 airmen were saved. Burrell demolishes these spurious statistics. Most of those landings, he shows, were not for emergencies but for training or to take on extra fuel or bombs. If Iwo Jima hadn't been in U.S. hands, most of the four-engine bombers could have made it back to their bases in the Mariana Islands 625 miles away. And even if some had been forced to ditch at sea, many of their crewmen would have been rescued by the Navy. Burrell concludes that Iwo Jima was "helpful" to the U.S. bombing effort but hardly worth the price in blood. In modern parlance, you might say that Iwo Jima was a battle of choice waged on the basis of faulty intelligence and inadequate plans. If Ted Kennedy had been in the Senate in 1945 (hard to believe, but he wasn't), he would have been hollering about the incompetence of the Roosevelt administration, which produced many times more casualties in five weeks than U.S. forces have suffered in Iraq in the last two years. No such criticism was heard at the time, in part because of the rah-rah tone of World War II media coverage but also because Americans back then had a greater appreciation for the ugly, unpredictable nature of combat. They even coined a word for it: snafu (in polite language: "situation normal, all fouled up"). It's a shame that so many sentimental tributes to the veterans of the Good War elide this unpleasant reality, leaving us a bit less intellectually and emotionally prepared for the trauma of modern war. Max Boot is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
You're 110% correct. [ but you knew that ;-) ]
However, his incompetence there was so obvious I chose not to mention it.
(In the 'modern era', Monty was probably the 1st general officer protected by Political Correctness. He should have been fired at the least and at the most face a court martial, but Ike 'couldn't' do that.)
Japanese KNEW that IWO JIMA is strategically important and decided to defend it to the last man in 1944.
Self-sacrifice of ALL defenders was built into the plan from the scratch.
If it was strategically important to defend Iwo Jima, it was strategically important to conquer it.
..."In a postwar study, Japanese staff officers described the strategy applied in the defense of Iwo Jima in the following terms:
In the light of the above situation, seeing that it was impossible to conduct our air, sea, and ground operations on Iwo Island toward ultimate victory, it was decided that in order to gain time necessary for the preparation of the Homeland defense, our forces should rely solely upon the established defensive equipment in that area, checking the enemy by delaying tactics. Even the suicidal attacks by small groups of our Army and Navy airplanes, the surprise attacks by our submarines, and the actions of parachute units, although effective, could be regarded only as a strategical ruse on our part. It was a most depressing thought that we had no available means left for the exploitation of the strategical opportunities which might from time to time occur in the course of these operations. Even before the fall of Saipan in June 1944, Japanese planners knew that Iwo Jima would have to be reinforced materially if it were to the held for any length of time, and preparations were made to send sizable numbers of men and quantities of materiel to that island. In late May, Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi was summoned to the office of the Prime Minister, General Hideki Tojo, who informed the general that he had been chosen to defend Iwo Jima to the last. Kuribayashi was further apprised of the importance of this assignment when Tojo pointed out that the eyes of the entire nation were focused on the defense of Iwo. Fully aware of the implications of the task entrusted to him, the general accepted. By 8 June, Kuribayashi was on his way to his toughest and final assignment, determined to convert Iwo Jima into an invincible fortress that would withstand any type of attack from any quarter.
Why do you say that? Britain repelled any possible German Invasion in 1940. America's part in the war up until Pearl Harbor was the position of friendly-neutral "tradesman". I don't think selling weapons, oil, food to the British for a profit really qualifies American revisionists to trot out this ridiculous "you'd all be speaking German" line. The British brought American tanks and they helped (with other arms) to win El Alamein. But the US didn't give the British the tanks, they sold them. For money. I don't have a problem with that, I just don't think it's as glorious a role as latter-day revisonists might think.
America finally joined the war because of Pearl Harbor, not to help Britain. Perversely, the people who gained most from Pearl Harbor were the Soviets. They were able to withdraw their troops from Siberia in the very nick of time to defend Moscow. I wouldn't be suprised to learn that Russian influence managed to tip the balance as to where the Japs attacked first - Pearl or north from Manchuquo. Certainly the Soviets knew about the Pearl attack before the Americans did - they withdrew the Siberian troops from their eastern border knowing that the japs were going elsewhere. Given the infestation of Rooselvelt's government with communists, it'd be really odd if there hadn't been some attempted soviet influence on American policy in the pacific just to help get the Japanese off Stalin's back.
The British were very glad to have the Americans alongside them BTW. But Hitler wasn't about to beat Britain, the same way Napoleon wasn't about to. The British developed jets before Hitler, had vastly better radar and weren't under the same illusions as Heisenberg about the amount of uranium required for a bomb. Not saying they would have won alone (hardly that) but its far-fetched to say they would have lost. No german lessons for them.
Ike should have sent Patton up there to kick Monty's ass. Not Patton's army, mind you. Just Patton, for a quick ass-kicking and come-to-Jesus inspirational:
"For God's sake, man, what are you waiting for? You Brits are a noble race, you can see Caen from here--look, there it is!--get off your duff and move! All this fine weaponry, all those filthy Huns in your sights, what better moment in history could you ask?"
Correct, and an excellent synopsis. Iwo Jima stood athwart the invasion route to Japan. Yes, America didn't invade Japan in the end, but such wisdom-after-the-event is always suspicious. Maybe Japan wouldn't have given up, despite the atomic bombings, if Iwo Jima had remained under Japanese control - because the Japanese might have suspected that the US didn't have the stomach for a war on the mainland. Not true, as Iwo Jima demonstrated.
And Patton could have done it to!
However, since I was a boy, I have always admired the Brits for holding on and taking the punches without folding. The french on the other hand have always earned my disdain.
That's a bunch of malarky. Read Winston Churchill's series on WWII and learn a thing or two.
I don't think selling weapons, oil, food to the British for a profit really qualifies American revisionists to trot out this ridiculous "you'd all be speaking German" line
Really? And, HOW MANY Americans we KILLED in WWI & WWII?
Take your lack of knowledge elsewhere. You're outgunned here.
Good response DTA, but this Brit, 60 years after the event, is wiser than the top military men of both Japan and the US, so you better listen to him and forget what all the people actually involved said.
/sarcasm
Arent you sick of these arrogant bastards?
I am.
Why do you say that? Britain repelled any possible German Invasion in 1940.
Britain could have been conquered without invasion if there hadn't been allied supply convoys running the lines. That includes Henry Kaiser building ships faster than the Kriegsmarine could sink them.
America finally joined the war because of Pearl Harbor, not to help Britain.
And yet after the United States entered the war in response to a Japanese attack, our first priority was not the Pacific, it was Europe.
I too doubt there would have been german lessons in London, but let's not minimize the American role unto the vanishing point.
Huh? Caen was very heavily defended, as the hinge to Normandy. Criticise Monty for Operation Goodwood if you like, when he made a series of rapid offences against Caen and lost a lot of tanks (made some ground but not really worth it). But such military hindsight is 20/20.
He spent quite a bit of time sitting before Caen, sipping tea, doing nothing....despite what the timing of the plan required.
Heavily defended? No sh!t.
...Had Hitler, according to Churchill's own words, attacked from across the English channel when England had hardly anyone at home to counter an attack. But, Hitler balked & the rest is, well, history.
True. Immediately after Dunkirk, the Nazis paused...indeed, AT Dunkirk, the Nazis relented.
And in the Battle of Britain, the Axis switched from military to civilian targets at a moment very fortuitous for the RAF. Similarly, they relented and left at just the point when they could have killed the RAF (Hitler was already impatiently looking eastward). It's true that the Germans had no suitable landing craft (just modified barges and such), but finishing the kill of the RAF and successfully blockading the island (without convoy assistance from the States) would have been a TKO, even without Sea Lion.
It helped that Hitler declared war on the US after Pearl Harbor. But I agree, the Anglophone nations all knew where the greatest danger lay.
I too doubt there would have been german lessons in London, but let's not minimize the American role unto the vanishing point.
No arguments here. The free world eventually beat two huge totalitarian monsters. America had a huge part in the first, and 95% of the part against the second. We others owe the US a great debt of gratitude, especially for beating the Communists. But I hope that posters can see that all this "nah nah, we bailed the limeys out of two world wars" stuff comes across as childish pap. It didn't happen.
Yeah, on land. You forget the Royal Navy. As Churchill said "We are looking forward to a German Invasion. So are the fishes"
I believe it was code named Operation Sea Lion by the Germans. They paused because Hitler was more concerned with attacking Russia.
You would not have survived without us. The Allies could have won without you.
I'm a Churchill guy, don't get me wrong about my respect for the British role (ALONE, and all that). But let's recognize Britain's weaknesses (as an island) as well as her formidable strengths.
I understand exactly what you mean, however, I believe that in the long run truth comes out. As a 3 time 'Nam vet and one who was with the 5th Marines during the Gulf War I feel exactly the same way but there is this. Truth cannot be perverted indefinitely. All things turn and history revisonists usually have trouble maintaining their positions in the light of subsequent events.
For instance. The lack of WMD arguement is already coming apart with ongoing discoveries. After the facts are known and the let's pretend crowd has been discredited I suspect the perseption on the decisions about Iraq will be quite different.
Every battle isn't a turning point. Every battle can't end the war. Iwo in the final analysis wasn't about airmen saved or fighter cover it was about meeting an enemy on their own ground and kicking their ass then and there. And that my young brother, is what its all about. That's why they call us Devil Dogs.
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