Iwo Jima
"Victory was never in doubt. Its cost was. What was in doubt was whether there would be any of us left to dedicate our cemetery at the end, or whether the last Marine would die knocking out the last Japanese gunner," Major General Graves Erskine, dedicating his 3rd Marine Division cemetery at Iwo Jima just after the battle.(Alexander 207)
The sea invasion of Iwo Jima was and still is the largest of any in all the years of the United States Marine Corps history. This invasion was also the most devastating. More than 26,000 Marines lost their lives while when trying to take over this small volcanic island. Pretty much all of the twenty-one thousand Japanese soldiers protecting the island were killed only two thousand were taken as prisoners. The rest were killed or missing. "Tokyo was just 650 miles to the North, less than three hours' flight time." (Alexander 208). On February 23, 1945 seventy-two thousand Marines landed on the island of Iwo Jima with all their guns blazing. Dodging and weaving the heavy fire from the Japanese's m.g.s, they had mounted in the jagged rocks. But that was the least of the Marines worries they had heavy 320mm mortars and powerful rockets. And their wicked 25mm automatic machine cannons. That was just the landing these Marines went to hell and back before it was all over.
The landscape of Iwo Jima was hellish itself. From the large jagged volcanic mountains to the steamed it leaked that smelt like sulfur. The total area of this little hell is less than seven square miles. The island had many aspects that would favor the defender. The island had few beaches, which made it harder for enemies to invade and take the island over. Also it had a "lunar" like landscape with du...
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Semper Fi
Works Cited
Alexander, Col. Joseph H. A Fellowship of Valor. New York: Harper Collins, 1997
Buell, Hal. "The Forgotten Hero." Journal Star Parade 20 February 2005, pg 4-5
Marling, Karal Ann. Iwo Jima. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991
Parry, Col. Francis Fox. Three-War Marine. Pacifica, Cali.: Pacifica Press, 1987
Siefring, Thomas A. History of the United States Marines. New York: Frederick Fell Publishers, 1979
References
Alexander, Col. Joseph H. A Fellowship of Valor. New York: Harper Collins, 1997
Buell, Hal. "The Forgotten Hero." Journal Star Parade 20 February 2005, pg 4-5
Marling, Karal Ann. Iwo Jima. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991
Parry, Col. Francis Fox. Three-War Marine. Pacifica, Cali.: Pacifica Press, 1987
Siefring, Thomas A. History of the United States Marines. New York: Frederick Fell Publishers, 1979
We all know that from the beginning, Marines are engrained with the mindset to “never back down” regardless of circumstances and regardless of all odds. This is one of the many reasons Marines have become known as the most elite fighting force today. However, imagine this: in your unit there are eighty-nine wounded, twenty-six dead and three are missing. Everywhere you turn there are the bodies of Chinese casualties; later you find out it was over two-thousand confirmed casualties to be exact. To any normal person, this would probably be quite a shocking sight, but as the book “The Last Stand of Fox Company” by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin expresses, to the 10,000 Marines in Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, Seventh Marine Regiment, this grew to be the usual for them.
assault the U.S. Marines conducted in the Pacific from 1942 to 1945. They served in all six
Omaha beach was invaded on June tenth. On Omaha beach, one of the most chaotic parts of the battle, the United States first infantry went through the worst part of the landings out of any of the beaches. Their Sherman tanks had been mostly lost before they reached the shore. The three hundred and fifty second division was some of the best trained on the beaches. Within ten minutes, every officer and Sargent had been wounded or killed. The division had over four thousand casualties.
... and the common soldier. Allied forces came to believe increasingly that "the only good Jap is a dead Jap." (78-79)
The battle is over. The NVA forces had suffered hundreds of casualties and were no longer capable of a fight. U.S. forces had suffered 79 killed and 121 injured and had been reinforced that would guarantee their safety the safety of all the companies as they medivacd all the wounded and dead, and resupplied. The actions taken by Moore and his command group, from Company Commanders to NCO’s, saved the lives of numerous American soldiers. This battle shows the leadership and unit discipline needed to survive and be combat effective in adverse situations.
Initially, Japanese strategists assumed that the tiny island would be overwhelmed in a matter of hours. However, they underestimated the fighting spirit of the military personnel and civilians stationed on the island. For sixteen days these brave men fought against overwhelming odds, but demonstrated both to the Japanese and to their fellow Americans back at home that the Americans could and would put up a courageous fight.
The 32-foot-high sculpture of the Iwo Jima Memorial was inspired by a Pulitzer Prize winning photograph of one of the most historic battles of World War II. Iwo Jima, a small island located 660 miles south of Tokyo, was the last territory that U.S. troops recaptured from the Japanese during World War II. The Iwo Jima Memorial statue depicts the scene of the flag raising by five Marines and a Navy hospital corpsman that signaled the successful takeover of the island. The capture of Iwo Jima eventually led to the end of the war in 1945.
"There is one front and one battle where everyone in the United States—every man, woman, and child—is in action, and will be privileged to remain in action throughout this war. That front is right here at home, in our daily lives, and in our daily tasks."
...that Japan was ready to surrender. Stimson, Churchill, Truman were all very aware of this. Declassified documents state that “the Japanese leaders had decided to surrender and were merely looking for sufficient pretext to convince the die-hard Army group that Japan had lost the war and must capitulates to the Allies.’’ (Alperoviz) According to this scenario there would have been some casualties but no more than 5000. As noted before this was Truman original plan but due to the number that he received he backed away from it. Rufus explains that there would have only been 31,000 American casualties, not deaths. The rhetoric is being missed under stood according to him. The number that Truman has been given are deaths and not casualties. Casualties include those who did and those who were wounded. The number of Japanese casualties would have consisted of about 66,000.
Because it was the last major battle of WWII, the battle of Okinawa used lessons learned and TTP’s from all previous battles with the Japanese to successfully employ combined striking power of the services and techniques of amphibious operations. Operation Iceberg was the official Okinawa campaign name. Because of its strategic importance to both the Japanese and the American’s, the Thirty-second Japanese Army commanded by General Mitsuri Ushijima, was ordered to defend Okinawa at all cost. The Japanese forces would change their typical tactics of strong defensive positions at the beaches and water’s edge as seen in the other pacific battles notable the battle of Iwo Jima. Instead they used burial tombs as forts so the Americans would have to bring the fight to them.
Davis, William. "General Douglas MacArthur "Duty, Honor, Country"." American Rhetoric. American Rhetoric, 2011. Web. 2 Jan 2012. .
On October 20th, American forces invaded Leyte Island as part of a strategy to remove Japan from the countries it had occupied in southeast Asia. The Japanese Navy moved almost all of its remaining naval vessels in attempt to defeat the allied invasion, they were stopped by the US Navy’s 3rd and 7th fleet. Due to this, the Japanese Navy suffered many casualties and surviving ships remained at their base for the rest of the war.
World War II consisted of many devastating battles in both the European and the Pacific Theater. The Battle of Okinawa was fought in the Pacific theater. In the beginning of the battle there was little opposition from the Japanese soldiers but as the American troops traveled more inland the more resistance they met. Eventually, the 10th Army came against the fierce challenge of the intricate defense lines the Japanese held up. Many caves and pillboxes in the hills created a formidable challenge for American troops. Slowly though the Allies gained ground and continued to push back the defensive lines of General Ushijima and his troops. The Japanese tried to use kamikaze air and land attacks as successful offensive measures, these continued to produce little effect and failed each time. Finally, the Allies started to gain ground quite quickly. The Japanese had to move their defensive lines several time because the Americans were boxing them in. At las,t General Ushijima ordered everyman to fight till the death and the fighting became very disorganized. On June 21, all the loss ends were tied up. America had won Okinawa.
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The Bataan Death March was marked as a major turning point in World War II. The American and Filipino soldiers held out for four months in the Philippines as the Japanese invaded the every other island in the Pacific. After bombing the American base located at Pearl Harbor, a day later the Japanese headed towards the Philippines for another attack. By March of 1942, the Japanese had taken control of all of the Western Pacific islands excluding the Philippines. After a month, the Japanese had captured the capital city of Manila within the Philippines. Unfortunately, this forced all American and Filipino soldiers to retreat to the Bataan Peninsula. General Douglas MacArthur was initially in charge of the American soldiers at the Philippines. MacArthur’s original plan was to hold his ground and wait until the United States’ Navy...