Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Iwo Jima - 65 years ago today

Thank you Sailors & Semper Fi, Marines.
Plinker

Mar. 2, 2010 07:04 AM
Associated Press

IWO TO, Japan - Hundreds of U.S. Marines landed on the remote island of Iwo Jima on Tuesday to prepare for the 65th anniversary of one of World War II's bloodiest and most iconic battles.

The Marines flew in trucks, water and food from Washington to support Wednesday's commemorations of the 1945 battle that was a turning point in the Pacific theater. It claimed 6,821 American and 21,570 Japanese lives in 36 days of intense fighting. A drill team also arrived on the island.

The commemoration was to be attended by about 1,000 people, including Marine Corps commandant Gen. James Conway, members of Japan's parliament and representatives of the Iwo Jima survivors' association.

Only about two dozen American veterans of the battle are expected to attend the "reunion of honor" ceremony because few of the survivors - now in their 80s and 90s - are able to make the trip.

It was not known if any of the fewer than 1,000 Japanese who survived the battle would be able to attend.

Inhabited only by about 300 Japanese troops, Iwo Jima, a tiny island the size of Manhattan, is a maze of tunnels, caves and dense, scraggly underbrush. It is believed to be covered with too much unexploded ordnance left over from the battle to be developed, and has been largely untouched since the war.

It is, instead, an open tomb.

Though dozens of remains are recovered every year, about 12,000 Japanese are still classified as missing in action and presumed killed on the island, along with 218 Americans.

The island formally reverted to its old name of "Iwo To" in 2006. Both "to" and "jima" mean island, but the name of "Iwo Jima" carries the stigma of the treacherous battle and subsequent two decades of occupation.

The Marines who arrived Tuesday from the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force on the island of Okinawa, many of whom have been to battle either in Iraq or Afghanistan, said they were visiting hallowed ground.

"I can't imagine fighting in this kind of terrain," said Cpl. Daniel Flynn, 24, of Mount Airy, North Carolina. "I fought in Afghanistan, but that was in open desert. I probably would not have had the same experience here had I not been to Afghanistan."

Joined by Japanese troops and U.S. Navy sailors, many of the Marines trekked down to the beach where the invasion of the island began on Feb. 19, 1945, and filled bottles with its famous black volcanic sand. Others jogged to the top of Mount Suribachi, where the U.S. flag was raised on Feb. 23 - an image captured by AP photographer Joe Rosenthal that became one of the most enduring ever taken of war.

Iwo Jima was declared secured on March 26, 1945. Japan surrendered in August of that year.

"It's like going back in time," said Staff Sgt. Daneil Dumas, 28, of the U.S. Virgin Islands

The "Greatest Generation" indeed.

+1 a rough battle

my friends father was a 17 year old kid that lied about his age to get into the Marines 2 years previous,he was involved in Bougainville and Tarawa also I think,it was 2 other big USMC fights before Iwo.
I can't imagine doing what he did as a 16 year old kid,today you can't get many teens to even shovel snow.

they were an amazing group of people.

God Bless the Leather Necks,past,present,and future.

Anybody been watching WWII in HD this past week?

Awesome footage of the hell these guys saw.

It was on some time back as well. I watched a lot of it then.

Amen.

incredible documentary,makes me wonder if I would've had it in me to do what those guy's did.

Red Blood Black Sand is another great Doc on Iwo Jima.

I didn't mean to exclude the Navy Corpmen,every Marine I have known considers them Marines also.

Sadly, the Navy & Marines were under the impression that taking the small, barren, island would be done in 5 days. It took 36 days of hell. Most of the shelling and pre-invasion aerial bombing was ineffective against the well prepared and dug in Japanese.

Today I was privileged to serve on the honor guard for the burial of a sailor who had been in the action off Okinawa. He was wounded in a kamikaze attack on his destroyer, and I believe he had a messed up leg for the rest of his life.

RIP

Paul

I had the honor of walking Iwo Jima some years ago, to the top of Mt. Suribachi and down into the tunnels and caves. It's amazing how much is left of the battlefield all these years later.

Thanks for posting this.

Semper Fi, Guy

My Father who passed away in 2005 at the age of 88 served on a Landing Ship Escort and helped get the Marines and their equipment onto the landing boats at Iwo Jima and also at Saipan, and Okinawa. He and his shipmates witnessed the entire landing operation as well as the planting of the flag on Mt. Suribachi from the ship. I have a map of the Island along with all of the instructions for the landing that were issued to the Marines before landing that he retained among other things from the war. Pretty interesting document. Has a series of questions that the Marines were drilled on for the landing such as "If my commanding officer does not make it on to the beach I am to report to... If I am serperated from my unit upon landing I am to... etc, etc.

Luckily my Dad told us many, many stories from his experiences during the war. Some sad, some funny, but all very real to him. And luckily I remember most all of them and will some day, God willing, pass on to my grandchildren. He was very proud of his service in the war and of what he and all of his comrades contributed to the effort. And I am very proud of his service as well.

My Dad had a great deal of respect for the Marines after his WW 2 experiences and had some great verbal fisticuffs with his (Army) neighbor about who accomplished what during the war!

I was walking into a WalMart a year of so ago, and the greeter at the lawn and garden entrance struck up a conversation. We stood out there for awhile, and he eventually mentioned that he had landed on Iwo Jima.

I stood out there with every hair on the back of my neck standing straight up while he told me about getting his Browning Automatic Rifle shot out of his hands. He told me that he took a .30 caliber M1 Carbine off one of his dead buddies and continued up some little hill.

Mr. Cooper still lives about a half mile from me. I sometimes find him at the end of his long driveway trying to put his garbage out to the curve. I stopped and asked him to let me get the bags out of his truck for him.

It was absolutely my pleasure.

My uncle was a marine in WWII, and never made it back from Iwo.

I've got an Iwo Jima vet living two miles down the road from me. He's missing part of one of his hands from the battle. He told me that he dove into a foxhole with seven other guys, he was the only one to come out alive.

Total agreement. Thank you to all those folks.

Yes 458, I understand. My Dad told me there were many that didn't. I believe his words were "those fellas had it pretty rough there..."

There was a precursor to Iwo Jima. South of Iwo was an island named Chichi Jima that had a vital Japanese radar installation. We sent bombers to knock it out before the assault on Iwo. This was where George HW Bush was shot down and rescued. There were 8 other planes shot down and what the Japs did to the survivors was an atrocity of the worst kind.
Read the book "Flyboys" by James Bradley for a detailed report of what happened. It's not a book about Bush. He's not mentioned other than that fact that he was there and was rescued by a sub. It's about the men who died there.

Two men I attended church with landed at Iwo Jima. I said the same thing, almost the same words, to one of them when he was telling me what it was like. He said he wet his pants on more than one occasion and was scared to death, but after the first few hours he gave himself up for dead and went on and did what had to be done. Really humble, really impressive old man. He said when the Japs ran out of water he had to stay awake all night because they would try to come in the foxhole with him for his canteen, said he shot more than a few off the end of his barrel.

Embarrassing that my wife drives a Japanese car. He never would.