Trajan
conscientia mille testes
for an island that covered no more than 8 sq. miles.......
6,522 dead, over 19,000 wounded...
5 weeks.
6,522 dead, over 19,000 wounded...
5 weeks.
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Iwo Jima could have been bypassed. Marines asked for ten days of shelling and got three. The stated purpose for taking the island which intell said was fortified with 40 years of tunnels and concrete bunkers was to surppress Japanese fighter plane harassment of US bombers on the way to bomb the Japanese mainland. It is said that the dying president visibly gasped when he received word of the Marine casualties. After the god-forsaken 4X2 mile island was secured the stated mission was changed. Crippled bombers were ordered to find tiny Iwo Jima which wasn't on their charts. Changing the mission was a slick political maneuver that intended to justify the sacrifice of over 6,000 Marines killed in combat in about a month.
Iwo Jima could have been bypassed. Marines asked for ten days of shelling and got three. The stated purpose for taking the island which intell said was fortified with 40 years of tunnels and concrete bunkers was to surppress Japanese fighter plane harassment of US bombers on the way to bomb the Japanese mainland. It is said that the dying president visibly gasped when he received word of the Marine casualties. After the god-forsaken 4X2 mile island was secured the stated mission was changed. Crippled bombers were ordered to find tiny Iwo Jima which wasn't on their charts. Changing the mission was a slick political maneuver that intended to justify the sacrifice of over 6,000 Marines killed in combat in about a month.
the purpose was to give b-29s a way point if damaged and to fly fighter cover for mainland bombing runs....aside from preventing the Japanese from using it thankless, that was always the plan.
Iwo Jima could have been bypassed. Marines asked for ten days of shelling and got three. The stated purpose for taking the island which intell said was fortified with 40 years of tunnels and concrete bunkers was to surppress Japanese fighter plane harassment of US bombers on the way to bomb the Japanese mainland. It is said that the dying president visibly gasped when he received word of the Marine casualties. After the god-forsaken 4X2 mile island was secured the stated mission was changed. Crippled bombers were ordered to find tiny Iwo Jima which wasn't on their charts. Changing the mission was a slick political maneuver that intended to justify the sacrifice of over 6,000 Marines killed in combat in about a month.
the purpose was to give b-29s a way point if damaged and to fly fighter cover for mainland bombing runs....aside from preventing the Japanese from using it thankless, that was always the plan.
That's the trouble with pop-culture history. There are many references to the stated mission to take Iwo Jima. Wiki says that Iwo was stragically important because it provided an airbase for Japanese fighters to intercept long range B-29 bombers. It also served as an early warning radio station to report incoming US bombers. Taking Iwo would cut the distance in half that B-29 bombers had to travel and offer a base for p-51 Mustang fighters and a staging area for the invasion of Japan. Crippled bombers was not in the original plan.