Iwo Jima

Incredible. Of course you know what they say about hindsight, long read but informative....:

Worth the Cost? Justificaton of the Iwo Jima Invasion

"....U.S. commanders had seriously underestimated the defenses on Iwo Jima, incorrectly assumed Japanese defensive strategy, and overrated the effects of American technological and numerical superiority.....resulting in the most appalling battle of the Pacific War.

"...Operation Detachment (the code name for the U.S. war plan to invade Iwo Jima) was the largest U.S. Marine Corps operation ever conducted. It cost the lives of over 25,000 Americans and Japanese."

"....tragically, the decision of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to seize Iwo Jima cost thousands of American lives for an objective that never fulfilled its intended purposes—a truth that historians have not addressed for over 60 years. The valuable lessons of Iwo Jima lie covered and dormant, buried under myth and legend."

"....the planning for Iwo Jima demonstrates that the service rivalry resulting from the dual advance of the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Army in the Pacific heavily influenced the decision to initiate Operation Detachment. Rather than waiting for the army to complete its seizure of the Philippines in 1944...."

"...This alliance between the navy, which was seeking to outflank the army, and the Army Air Forces, which wanted to prove the case for strategic bombing in order to create an independent postwar air service, satisfied their respective interests. However, the U.S. Marine Corps, which paid by far the heaviest price for carrying out Operation Detachment, remained excluded from the decision-making process...."

"Combat on Iwo Jima was perhaps the most brutal, tragic, and costly in American history. Scholars have never yet sufficiently addressed the strategic decisions and ensuing justifications for Iwo Jima."

"After Iwo Jima had failed to fulfill its purpose as a fighter escort base, the military presented several other justifications for Operation Detachment. Some of those reasons have more validity than others; none outweighs the tremendous cost incurred in capturing the island.

"The major weakness in the conduct of the Pacific War was in the inability of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to unify the efforts of the army and navy. Consequently, the army, navy, and Army Air Forces conducted separate and competing campaigns against Japan. Operation Detachment derived from Army Air Forces strategy, brought about by the need to improve disappointing B-29 operations, in an atmosphere of fierce competition, and with the fear of losing potential autonomy. At the cost of thousands of lives, Operation Detachment provided an air base of questionable value, with a price that neither the public nor the military could swallow."

Initially, at least, there was public criticism about the need for Iwo Jima. Writing in Newsweek, Adm. William V. Pratt, a retired chief of naval operations, summarized the situation on the home front: "There has been a certain amount of public criticism over this expenditure of manpower to acquire a small, Godforsaken island, useless to the Army as a staging base and useless to the Navy as a fleet base. The public wants to know if the occupation of Iwo Jima was a military necessity and wonders if the same sort of airbase could not have been reached by acquiring other strategic localities at lower cost."

That assessment rings true today."

 

From the above article:

""Combat on Iwo Jima was perhaps the most brutal, tragic, and costly in American history."

Not quite true though:

"The Battle of Antietam also known as the Battle of Sharpsburg.... was the bloodiest single-day battle in American history, with 22,717 dead, wounded and missing on both sides combined"

 

Tough books to read. Even with his skills I doubt Sharra described the horrors as horribly as they were. I stand in awe of those who fought through such battles and came back with any sanity left within them.

In the 21st century we have sanitized war, making it more acceptable to the general public.

Here is a photo from Iwo Jima that gives some perspective: