Battle for Iwojima
Coordinates: 24 ° 47 ′ 0 ″ N , 141 ° 19 ′ 0 ″ E
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The second flag on the Suribachi volcano
| date | February 19 to March 26, 1945 |
|---|---|
| place | Iwojima , Western Pacific |
| output | USA victory |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
| Troop strength | |
| approx. 110,000 soldiers | approx. 21,000 soldiers |
| losses | |
|
6,836 killed, |
approx. 19,845-20,375 killed, |
The Battle of Iwojima is the name given to the battle of the almost 24 square kilometers large island of Iwojima , which was fought between the armed forces of Japan and the USA towards the end of the Second World War as part of the Pacific War . This extremely bloody and costly battle lasted from February 19 to March 26, 1945. Today it is considered a prime example of a classic amphibious landing operation .
Especially in the USA it is considered one of the most famous battles of World War II, as the fighting caused the highest rate of casualties in the history of the US Marine Corps . The picture he took there, Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima , became one of the most famous war photographs of all.
It was the only battle of the Pacific War in which the total losses (dead and wounded) of the Allies were higher than those of the Japanese.
Objectives of the battle
The importance of the island of Iwojima (today: Iōtō ) belonging to the Ogasawara Islands ( Bonin Islands ) as a starting point for both tactical and strategic air operations had already been recognized in the course of the bombing raids planned by the Marianas. In October 1944, the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States gave their consent to the taking of only about 24 km² island to P-51 Mustang - escort fighter for flying to Japan bomber of the type B-29 Superfortress to deploy, as well as it should to taken or damaged bombers serve as an emergency landing site. The island's location, about 1,000 km south of Tokyo , was ideally suited for this purpose, and the airfields there had three runways (one of which was under construction), from which Japanese air forces have so far launched their attacks against the US -Bombers flew. In addition, the mother country was warned of incoming air attacks by radio from here, so that Japan could prepare its fighters and flak . In addition, the Boeing B-29 bombers that flown over Iwojima without an escort fighter from the Japanese fighter planes stationed there , such as B. the J2M Raiden attacked.
The Japanese armed forces had realized that the superior attackers could not have been stopped in an open battle on the coast of the island. Instead, they entrenched themselves in an extensive system of trenches and tunnels, especially in the hills, in order to wage a hidden defensive battle against the US troops and to make it impossible to conquer the island. The aim was to delay the invasion of the Japanese motherland and to deter and weaken the attackers through relentless resistance.
The battle
The battle began on February 15, 1945 with three days of shelling by the naval artillery of Task Force 58 and bombing by USAAF units from the Mariana Islands , which, however, caused little damage to the well-fortified Japanese positions due to the hard rock of the island. At 8:30 am of February 19 1945, began operation Detachment , the landing of 30,000 marines II Yellow 4th and 5th Marine Infantry Divisions of the Fifth Amphibious Corps to the US landing sections Green I, Red I, I, II and Blue I, II. The result was heavy fighting, so that around 2,400 soldiers were killed on the first day.
The Americans initially had great difficulty with the loose, warmed up soil, which made all activities difficult, from unloading equipment to crawling infantrymen. The 3rd Marine Division, who arrived for reinforcements, increased the crowd on the amphibious landing zones on the beach and caused additional losses.
The bitter resistance of the Japanese armed forces , consisting of 14,000 men of the 109th Army Division and 7,000 soldiers of the ground forces of the Imperial Japanese Navy under the command of Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi , led US generals even to consider the use of chemical weapons , but this was categorically rejected by President Franklin D. Roosevelt .
One of the most contested areas was the extinct Suribachi volcano protruding over the landing sections . Neither grenades nor bombs helped against the strong Japanese bunker systems, which were secured by over 200 gun emplacements, so that the positions had to be conquered individually in close combat with hand grenades and flamethrowers .
The Japanese defense was well organized, as natural caves had been built and tunnels connected to the observation posts and combat positions. Nevertheless, the marines were able to cross the center of the island on the first day. The Japanese positions on Mount Suribachi were cut off by the destruction of the underground connections in the course of the following days. The soldiers of the 28th Marine Infantry Regiment climbed the ravine slopes of the volcano in a fighting action and killed most of the opponents who remained in the caves with flamethrowers.
On February 23rd, 40 soldiers, led by Lieutenant Harold G. Schrier, reached the summit and hoisted a US flag. This flag was exchanged for a larger one a few hours later, with a photo made by Joe Rosenthal - for which he later received the Pulitzer Prize - shortly afterwards famous under the title Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima and probably the most reproduced image of all Times was.
After losing the positions on Mount Suribachi, the Japanese commander Kuribayashi concentrated his main force on the hills to the north, from where the fighting continued with doggedness. Not a single Japanese loophole was taken until the defenders were dead. Positions like the "Höhe 362", which consisted of a huge tunnel, were sealed by walling up the entrances, thereby enclosing the remaining Japanese soldiers.
In the second week of March, the surviving Japanese were huddled on the headland of Kitano. The US soldiers fought their way to airfield No. 2 west of Height 382 and were reinforced by three divisions. On March 16, 1945, they broke through the Japanese line of defense. US pioneers deployed mines against a final group of around 500 Japanese soldiers , the explosions of which rocked the entire island. The island was declared safe on March 26, 1945, but skirmishes with Japanese soldiers who were in hiding continued after that. By June 1945 another 2,409 Japanese were killed or captured.
The US offered an unknown number of aircraft and about 900 ships for the capture of Iwojima. They deployed about 110,000 soldiers, of whom 6,821 were killed and 19,217 wounded. On the part of the Japanese defenders, between 19,845 and 20,375 soldiers died. At least 1,083 Japanese surrendered and became prisoners of war, but only 219 of them during the actual fighting. The end of the Japanese troops commander, Tadamichi Kuribayashi, has never been resolved.
On March 4, a Superfortress bomber landed on the island for the first time, and from March 11, fighter planes were stationed at airfield No. 1. By the end of the war on August 15, 2,251 Superfortress bombers had landed on Iwojima. However, the island never achieved the expected strategic importance with which, among other things, the high losses of US soldiers were justified.
The few square kilometers of Iwojima caused as many casualties as the landing on Luzon - an argument used in the US by the opposition Hearst press to demand that General Douglas MacArthur should be given command of the entire Pacific "because he would save ( at least) the life of his own people ”. Of the more than 6,800 deaths on the American side, 5,931 were Marines, almost a third of all Marines killed in all of World War II and the highest number of casualties in a battle in the history of the US Marine Corps.
Honors
27 soldiers (23 Marines and four members of the US Navy) were honored for their work with the Medal of Honor , the highest honor for bravery in the US armed forces. Around a quarter of all awards of this kind awarded to the United States Marine Corps in World War II thus concerned participants in this battle.
The famous Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima photo was used as a template for the United States Marine Corps War Memorial . The United States Navy gave several ships the name of Iwojima Island, including the lead ship of the Iwo Jima class named after it .
Movie
- To the Shores of Iwo Jima , documentary film, USA 1945.
- You were our comrade , feature film, USA 1949, director: Allan Dwan , actors: John Wayne , John Agar , Adele Mara
- Heroes of Iwo Jima , TV documentary, USA 2001, director: Lauren Lexton , narrator: Gene Hackman
- Flags of Our Fathers , Indie Feature Film, USA 2006, directed by Clint Eastwood
- Letters from Iwo Jima , feature film, USA 2006, directed by Clint Eastwood
- The War , TV documentary, USA 2006, In the episode: Terrible Choices
- The Pacific , Miniseries, USA 2007–2009, executive producers: Tom Hanks , Steven Spielberg
See also
literature
- Robert Leckie: The Battle for Iwo Jima. I Books, 2004, ISBN 0-7434-8682-X .
- Walt Sandberg: The Battle of Iwo Jima: A Resource Bibliography and Documentary Anthology. McFarland & Company, 2004, ISBN 0-7864-1790-0 .
- Marvin D. Veronee: The Battle for Iwo Jima. Visionary Art Publishing, 2001, ISBN 0-9715928-2-9 .
- Derrick Wright: Iwo Jima 1945: Pacific Theater (Campaign). Osprey Publishing, 2001, ISBN 1-84176-178-8 .
- James Bradley: Flags of our Fathers. Bantam Books, ISBN 978-0-553-58908-5 .
Web links
- Map of the Iwojima invasion with the front line on the website of the Württemberg State Library in Stuttgart
- Comprehensive website about the battle on iwojima.com (English)
- Uncommon Valor: The Battle for Iwo Jima. Battle description on ibiblio.org (English)
- Jost Dülffer: Über-Helden - The image of Iwo Jima in the representation of victory. A study on the American culture of remembrance since 1945. In: Zeithistorische Forschungen / Studies in Contemporary History, online edition, 3 (2006) H. 2
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Robert S. Burrell: The Ghosts of Iwo Jima
- ↑ 1945 February. On the website of the Württemberg State Library in Stuttgart
- ^ Raymond Cartier: The Second World War
- ↑ a b Fifty Years Later, Iwo Jima Photographer Fights His Own Battle ( Memento from April 12, 2004 in the Internet Archive )