Last Saturday marked the 75th anniversary of a major battle of World War II: the Battle of Iwo Jima. Iwo Jima, or Sulphur Island as known to the Japanese, was a tiny piece of lava rock marked by a cone-shaped mountain along its southern shoreline that stood about 540 feet high. The rest of the island, ringed by sandy, rocky, loose soil, was relatively flat. The Japanese military deemed this place strategic to the defense of the home islands and had constructed to airfields and were building a third to hold aircraft that could intercept American planes enroute to bombing missions over Tokyo.
No harbor exists along its shoreline. There are not any trees, no water features beyond the shore, there are no civilians, no towns or cities. It is essentially a desert. The Japanese began fortifying the island in 1942 as a defensive position. They made every effort to conceal and protect all their positions to ensure survival when the air attacks that would be necessary begin.
The invasion was a well-planned amphibious operation: the most difficult of military operations because of the need of specialty water craft(landing craft); naval delivery ships(troop transports); armed fleets to defend from air and naval attacks; air cover by aircraft carrier groups; leadership roles among often first-time leaders(Captains and lieutenants); and logistical support to sustain an operation of open-ended time frames for the numbers of troops involved.
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