The History of Iwo Jima

Introduction

The island of Iwo Jima is just one of the many islands in the pacific that make up the island chain of Ogasawara. The Ogasawara chain of islands are located approximately 750 miles south of Tokyo. In comparison to most of the other islands in the pacific Iwo Jima is relatively small, in fact it is only four and a half miles long by two and a half miles wide. The geographic layout of Iwo Jima consists of a dormant volcano on the northern side called Mount Suribachi and a flat stretch of land to the south. So why is such a small island so important? After the surprise attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor America needed a place to stage aircraft for conducting bombing runs on Tokyo, Iwo Jima provided the best place to host our fleet of bombers.

History

Before the war Iwo Jima was inhabited by the Japanese. There was a small fishing village and a very small military installation that consisted of a garrison of the Imperial Japanese Navy. All together there was only a population of 1018 people. However, through out 1944 the Japanese removed all the civilian population from the island and began a massive build up of the military stationed there, by the start of the war there were over 21000 Japanese soldiers on the tiny island.

Planning/Preparation

The Japanese commander in charge of Iwo Jima was General Kuribayashi. General Kuribayashi believed that America would attack Iwo Jima just the same as they had attacked every other target, with a massive aerial bombardment. Kuribayashi was ordered to build up Iwo Jima the same as every other Japanese base even though they had proven to be useless against the aerial bombing techniques that America used. Despite what other Japanese officers above General Kuribaya...

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...olicy denying nuclear weapons on Japanese soil.

REFERENCES

Chen, Peter, C. (n.d.). Battle of iwo jima. Retrieved from http://ww2db.com/battle_spec.php?battle_id=12

O'Brien, Cyril, J. (n.d.). Iwo jima retrospective. Retrieved from http://www.military.com/NewContent/0,13190,NI_Iwo_Jima2,00.html

Trueman, Chris. (n.d.). The battle of iwo jima. Retrieved from http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/battle_of_iwo_jima.htm

Miller, Kimberly, J. (n.d.). Battle for iwo jima: Wwii fact sheet. Retrieved from http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/battleiwojima.htm

Morison, Samuel, E. (1960). Victory in the pacific, 1945 – history of the united states naval operations in world war ii. (Vol. 14, p. 389). Boston: Little Brown.

James Bradley. , & Ron Powers, (2000). Flags of our fathers. (p. 384). New York, Toronto, London, Sydney, Aukland: Bantam Books.