At 9:00 AM on February 19, 1945, one of the most infamous battles of the Second World War commenced. In an invasion termed Operation Detachment, Marines landed on beaches of volcanic rocks and ash, greeted by the fire of Japanese artillery. Over the next few days, American soldiers advanced toward the summit of Mount Suribachi, finally securing it on February 23. Though the iconic flag-raising on Suribachi’s summit symbolizes the triumph of American troops at Iwo Jima and in the Pacific War in general, fighting raged on for about another month. It was not until March 26 that hostilities on the island ceased. The battle was one of the bloodiest of the Pacific War; some 18,500 Japanese and 6,800 Americans lost their lives, with another 19,200 Americans wounded.
Considering the Imperial Japanese Navy had been ravaged by its prior engagements with American naval forces, Japan’s military leaders were likely aware that they would need to defend the island in the most optimal conditions possible. Accordingly, Iwo Jima’s small civilian population of around 1,200 was forcibly evacuated in 1944, and vegetation was burned or cleared to make defensive combat easier. Japan was determined to fight to its last breath, even though an American victory became increasingly inevitable in the weeks before Marines first landed on Iwo Jima’s beaches. The ferocious resolve of Japanese troops and shrewd defensive tactics of General Tadamichi Kuribayashi turned a clash American military leaders expected to finish in a few days into a 36-day slugfest. As iconic of a victory as it was for the Americans, it was far from an easy one.
But what is particularly peculiar about Iwo Jima is its post-war identity. Most of the places unfortunate enough to be ravaged by the horrors of World War II do not bear those scars today. In Europe, German cities destroyed by Allied bombing were revitalized by the Marshall Plan, while Eastern European countries hit hard by combat on the Eastern Front were reorganized under Communism. Even the devastated island of Okinawa pieced itself together despite losing as many as 150,000 people — about half its pre-war population. Iwo Jima remains the isolated, strategic, militarized patch of land that made it worth the lives of tens of thousands some seventy-six years ago. What happened to Iwo Jima after Japan’s surrender, and why has it not enjoyed the post-war rebound that even the most decimated warzones experienced after 1945?
Why was Iwo Jima invaded in the first place?
One would be forgiven for not knowing anything about Iwo Jima besides the battle that has made it so famous. At about eight square miles in size and more than 750 miles away from Tokyo, this scab of volcanic rock is quite unassuming. Iwo Jima lived up to its reputation as a crucial stronghold in the Pacific soon after the fighting ceased in March 1945. Before its invasion, the island’s extreme isolation had provoked controversy over its strategic value among top American commanders planning future attacks. However, more than 2,000 B-29 bombers used Iwo Jima as an emergency landing site. The U.S. military’s occupation of the tiny pork chop-shaped island ultimately saved the lives of some 24,000 American airmen. Nonetheless, these numbers were lower than American military leaders had anticipated, continuing to provoke controversy that persists among some historians to this day.
What happened after the Americans won the battle?
While Iwo Jima was officially secured on March 26, 1945, its last Japanese defenders did not surrender until January 1949, when Yamakage Kufuku and Matsudo Linsoki finally gave in to American forces. Otherwise, little happened on Iwo Jima in the decades following the end of the battle and the war. In 1968, the U.S. military ended its occupation of the island, returning the island to Japan to improve bilateral relations. In 1985, veterans returned to Iwo Jima to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Operation Detachment. Nearly four hundred former soldiers and family members were in attendance. Forty years after American and Japanese soldiers fought in one of the nastiest battles of the Pacific War, former combatants and family members from both nations came together in a moving display of camaraderie and friendship. Since the 1985 reunion, memorial services have been held on Iwo Jima each year.
What is life like on Iwo Jima today?
Iwo Jima has managed to maintain some of its status as a strategic military site. For the better part of two decades, American Air Force pilots have used the island to practice the intense procedures used in takeoffs and landings from aircraft carriers. Though the U.S. military abandoned most of Iwo Jima’s airfields following the end of the war, Central Field (also known as Motoyama No. 2 Airfield) remains in use by the Japan Self-Defense Forces. Today its official name is Iwo Jima Airport, but its legacy as an airfield in one of the bloodiest engagements of the Second World War lives on. Political controversy has also gripped the island in the past; the U.S. had allegedly placed nuclear weapons on Iwo Jima in secret, even though such a move directly violated the Japanese Three Non-Nuclear Principles.
But for the most part, Iwo Jima has little reason to be relevant aside from the infamous battle that has kept it in the attention of historians and much of the public for more than 75 years. The 1,200 people removed from the island in 1944 were never allowed to return, and no permanent populations exist on Iwo Jima today. Iwo Jima is now inaccessible to civilians besides those who gather each year to remember the fighting that gripped this island so tightly in February and March 1945. But regardless of how relevant this tiny volcanic island finds itself today and in the future, Iwo Jima will forever be a site where cruelty, bravery, reconciliation, and amity have all been forged under the most unforgettable of conditions.
References
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