The History of Iwo Jima Essay -- Military History

IntroductionThe island of Iwo Jima is fitting one of the many islands in the pacific that make up the island chain of Ogasawara. The Ogasawara chain of islands are determined approximately 750 miles south of Tokyo. In comparison to most of the different islands in the pacific Iwo Jima is relatively teeny-weeny, 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 backing 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 horde our fleet of bombers.HistoryBefore 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 t here 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/PreparationThe Japanese commander in charge of Iwo Jima was cosmopolitan 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... ...olicy denying nuclear weapons on Japanese soil.REFERENCESChen, Peter, C. (n.d.). Battle of iwo jima. Retrieved from http//ww2db.com/battle_spec.php?battle_id=12OBrien, Cyril, J. (n.d.). Iwo jima retrospective. Retriev ed from http//www.military.com/NewContent/0,13190,NI_Iwo_Jima2,00.htmlTrueman, Chris. (n.d.). The battle of iwo jima. Retrieved from http//www.historylearningsite.co.uk/battle_of_iwo_jima.htmMiller, Kimberly, J. (n.d.). Battle for iwo jima Wwii fact sheet. Retrieved from http//www.history.navy.mil/library/online/battleiwojima.htmMorison, 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.