Battle of Iwo Jima

Battle of Iwo Jima
Part of World War II, Pacific War
U.S. flag over the Mount Suribachi
Date February 19 1945 - March 16, 1945 Location Iwo Jima, Japan Result U.S. victory
Belligerents
United States	Empire of Japan
Commanders and leaders
Holland Smith	Tadamichi Kuribayashi †
Strength
110,000	22,000
Casualties and losses
6,825 killed in action, 1,401 died of wounds, 19,189 wounded, 494 missing Total: 27,909	20,703 dead, 216 captured Total: 20,919

The Battle of Iwo Jima was fought by the United States and Japan in February and March 1945, during the Pacific Campaign of World War II. The U.S. invasion, known as Operation Detachment, was aimed at capturing the airfields on Iwo Jima.

The battle was marked by some of the fiercest fighting of the campaign. The Imperial Japanese Army positions on the island were heavily fortified, with vast bunkers, hidden artillery, and 11 miles (18 km) of tunnels. The battle was the first American attack on the Japanese Home Islands, and the Imperial soldiers defended their positions tenaciously; of the 22,000 Japanese soldiers present at the beginning of the battle, over 20,000 were killed, and only 216 taken prisoner.

Joe Rosenthal photographed five Marines and a U.S. Navy corpsman raising the U.S. flag atop the 166 meter (546 ft) Mount Suribachi. The photo is actually of the second flag to be raised on the mountain. The first flag was taken as a souvenir by a high ranking Navy Officer. The picture became the iconic image of the battle, and the most reproduced photograph of all time. (Note that Rosenthal's famous photograph was possible because it was the second raising of the flag, after Navy Secretary James Forrestal requested the first flag as a souvenir.)

The Island

Main article: Iwo Jima

Iwo Jima is a volcanic island about 1,800 km (1118 miles) south of Tokyo, 1,130 km (702 miles) north of Guam, and nearly halfway between Tokyo and Saipan (24.756°N, 141.290°E) It is approximately 21 square kilometers, with Mount Suribachi as its most prominent feature, at its southern tip. In June 2007, the island was officially renamed Iwoto, a name that had been used by local residents before the war.

Background

After the American seizure of the Marshall Islands and devastating air attacks against Truk in the Caroline Islands in February 1944, the Japanese military leadership reappraised the military situation. All indications pointed to an American drive towards the Marianas and Carolines. To counter such a move, they established an inner line of defense extending generally northward from the Carolines to the Marianas, and thence to the Ogasawara Islands. In March 1944, the Thirty-First Army, commanded by General Hideyoshi Obata, was activated for the purpose of garrisoning this inner line. The commander of the Chichi Jima garrison was placed nominally in command of Army and Navy units in the Ogasawara Islands.

Following the American seizure of bases in the Marshalls in the battles of Kwajalein and Eniwetok in February 1944, both Army and Navy reinforcements were sent to Iwo Jima. Five hundred men from the naval base at Yokosuka and an additional 500 from Chichi Jima reached Iwo Jima during March and April 1944. At the same time, with the arrival of reinforcements from Chichi Jima and the home islands, the Army garrison on Iwo Jima had reached a strength of over 5,000 men, equipped with 13 artillery pieces, 200 light and heavy machine guns, and 4,552 rifles. In addition there were a number of 120 mm coastal artillery guns, twelve heavy anti-aircraft guns, and thirty 25 mm dual-mount anti-aircraft guns.

The loss of the Marianas during the summer of 1944 greatly increased the importance of the Ogasawaras for the Japanese, who were well aware that the loss of these islands would facilitate American air raids against the home islands, disrupting war manufacturing and severely damaging civilian morale.

Final Japanese plans for the defense of the Ogasawaras were overshadowed by the fact that the Imperial Japanese Navy had already lost most of its strength and could no longer prevent American landings. Moreover, aircraft losses throughout 1944 had been so heavy that, even if war production were not affected by American air attacks, combined Japanese air strength was not expected to increase to 3,000 aircraft until March or April of 1945. Even then, these planes could not be used from bases in the home islands against Iwo Jima because their range did not exceed 900 km (559 miles); besides, all available aircraft had to be hoarded for possible use on Taiwan and adjacent islands near land bases.

In a postwar study, Japanese staff officers described the strategy applied in the defense of Iwo Jima in the following terms:

In the light of the above situation, seeing that it was impossible to conduct our air, sea, and ground operations on Iwo Jima toward ultimate victory, it was decided that in order to gain time necessary for the preparation of the Homeland defence, our forces should rely solely upon the established defensive equipment in that area, checking the enemy by delaying tactics. Even the suicidal attacks by small groups of our Army and Navy airplanes, the surprise attacks by our submarines, and the actions of parachute units, although effective, could be regarded only as a strategical ruse on our part. It was a most depressing thought that we had no available means left for the exploitation of the strategical opportunities which might from time to time occur in the course of these operations.

Daily bomber raids from the Marianas hit the mainland as part of Operation Scavenger. Iwo Jima served as an early warning station which radioed reports of incoming bombers back to mainland Japan, allowing Japanese air defenses to be prepared for the arrival of American bombers.

At the end of the Battle of Leyte in the Philippines, the Allies were left with a two month lull in their operations prior to the planned invasion of Okinawa. Iwo Jima was strategically important: it provided an airbase for Japanese aircraft to intercept long-range B-29 bombers and provided a haven for Japanese naval units in dire need of any support available. The capture of Iwo Jima would eliminate these problems and provide a staging area for the eventual invasion of the Japanese mainland. The distance of B-29 raids would be nearly halved, and a base would be available for P-51 Mustang fighters to escort and protect the devastating bomber raids. Intelligence sources were confident that Iwo Jima would fall in five days, unaware that the Japanese were preparing a quintessentially defensive posture, radically departing from any of their previous tactics. So successful was the Japanese preparation that it was discovered after the battle that the hundreds of tons of allied bombs and thousands of rounds of heavy naval gunfire left the Japanese defenders almost unscathed, and ready to wreak losses on the U.S. Marines unparalleled up to that point in the Pacific War. In the light of the optimistic intelligence reports, the decision was made to invade Iwo Jima: the landing was designated Operation Detachment.

Planning and preparation

American landing plan

Main article: Planning for the Battle of Iwo Jima

Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, who was assigned to command the defense of Iwo Jima by June 1944, designed a defense that broke with Japanese military doctrine, while drawing inspiration from the defense in the Battle of Peleliu. Rather than contest a beach landing, Kuribayashi ordered the creation of strong, mutual supporting positions in depth. The southern area around Mt. Suribachi was organized as a semi-independent sector, while the main defensive line was built in the north. The nearly constant American naval and air bombardment further prompted the creation of an extensive system of tunnels, bunkers and pillboxes that greatly favored the defender.

The American plan of attack was relatively straightforward. The 4th and 5th Marine Divisions were to land on the southern beach and initially focus on securing Mt. Suribachi, the southern airfields and the west coast. Once this was completed, the line, reinforced by the 3rd Marine Division, would swing and advance to the northeast.

The Battle of Iwo Jima

Ground fighting on the island took place over approximately 35 days, lasting from the landings of February 19th to a final Japanese charge the morning of March 26, 1945.

Initial landings

At 02:00 on February 19, battleship guns signaled the commencement of the invasion of Iwo Jima. Soon 100 bombers attacked the island, followed by another volley from the naval guns. Although the bombing was consistent, it did not deter the Japanese defenses, as most of the Japanese positions were very well fortified and protected from shelling. At 08:59, one minute ahead of schedule, the first of an eventual 30,000 Marines of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Marine Divisions, under V Amphibious Corps, landed on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima.

The initial wave was not hit by Japanese fire for quite some time, as it was the plan of Japanese General Kuribayashi to hold fire until the beach was full of American marines. Only after the front wave of Marines reached a line of Japanese bunkers defended by machine gunners did they take hostile fire.

Aside from the Japanese defenses situated on the actual "beaches", the Marines faced heavy fire from Mount Suribachi at the south of the island. It was extremely difficult for the Marines to advance due to the inhospitable terrain, which consisted of volcanic ash. This ash allowed for neither a secure footing nor the construction of defensive foxholes to protect the Marines from hostile fire. Yard by yard, the Marines advanced while taking heavy firearm and artillery fire. Thanks to the arrival of armored units and heavy naval artillery and air units shelling Suribachi, the Marines were eventually able to advance past the beaches. By that evening the mountain had been surrounded and 30,000 Marines had landed. About 40,000 more would follow.

In the days after the landings, the Marines expected a banzai attack during the night. This had been the standard Japanese defense strategy in previous battles against enemy ground forces in the Pacific, during which the majority of the Japanese attackers would be killed and the Japanese strength greatly reduced. However Kuribayashi had strictly forbidden any banzai charges as he knew the futility of it.

U.S. Marines landing on Iwo Jima

Taking Mt. Suribachi

By the morning of the fourth day of the battle, Mount Suribachi was effectively cut off from the rest of the island—above ground. By that point, the Marines knew that the Japanese defenders had an extensive network of below-ground defenses, and knew that in spite of its isolation above ground, the volcano was still connected to Japanese defenders via the tunnel network. They expected a fierce fight for the summit.

Two four-man patrols were sent up the volcano to reconnoiter routes on the mountain's north face. Popular legend (embroidered by the press in the aftermath of the release of the now-famous photo "Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima") has it that the Marines fought tooth and nail all the way up to the summit. But although the riflemen were tensed for an ambush, none materialized. The riflemen did encounter small groups of Japanese defenders on Suribachi, but the majority of the Japanese troops stayed underground in the tunnel network. They attacked in small numbers, but all attackers were killed. They made it to the summit and scrambled down again, reporting the lack of enemy contact to Colonel Chandler Johnson.

Johnson then called for a platoon of Marines to climb Suribachi. With them, he sent a small American flag to fly if they reached the summit. Again, Marines began the ascent, expecting to be ambushed at any moment. And again, the Marines reached the top of Suribachi without incident. Using a length of pipe they found among the wreckage atop the mountain, the Marines hoisted the U.S flag over Mount Suribachi, the first foreign flag to fly on Japanese soil in centuries.

As the flag went up, Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal had just landed on the beach at the foot of Mt. Suribachi. He decided that he wanted the flag as a souvenir. Popular legend has it that Colonel Johnson wanted the flag for himself; in fact, he believed that the flag belonged to the 2nd Battalion, 28th Marines, who had captured that section of the island. He sent Sergeant Mike Strank (who was photographed in the Flag Raising picture) to scrounge up a second flag, and sent that one up the volcano to replace the first. As the first flag came down, the second went up, and it was then that Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal took the famous photograph "Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima" of the replacement flag being planted on the mountain's summit.

U.S. 37 mm gun fires against the Japanese cave positions

After Mount Suribachi

Despite the loss of Mt. Suribachi, the Japanese still held a strong position. Kuribayashi still had the equivalent of eight infantry battalions, a tank regiment, two artillery and three heavy mortar battalions, plus the 5,000 gunners and naval infantry. The struggle to take the Motoyama Plateau, including "Turkey Knob" was to take the better part of three weeks. The Japanese actually had the Marines outgunned in this area, and the extensive tunnels allowed the Japanese to reappear in areas thought "safe".

The fighting was extremely fierce. Japanese troops would occasionally spring out of tunnels and ambush the Marines. However, the situation heavily favored American victory despite the Japanese advantage of superior firepower. Though the Marines occasionally encountered defensive positions augmented by artillery, they were still able to advance. The Marines learned that firearms were relatively ineffective against the Japanese defenders and learned to effectively use flamethrowers and grenades to flush out Japanese troops in the tunnels. One of the technological innovations of the battle, the 8 Sherman M4A3R3 medium tanks equipped with the Navy Mark I flame thrower ("Ronson" or Zippo Tanks), proved very effective at clearing the Japanese positions.

Close air support was initially provided by fighters from escort carriers off the coast. This shifted over to the 15th Fighter Group, flying P-51 Mustangs, after they arrived on the island on D+15. Similarly, illumination rounds (flares) which were used to light up the battlefield at night were initially provided by ships, shifting over later to landing force artillery. Navajo code talkers were part of the American ground communications, along with walkie-talkies and SCR-610 backpack radio sets.

Japanese troops became desperate towards the end of the battle. Kuribayashi, who had advocated against banzai attacks at the commencement of the battle, began to realize that Japanese defeat was imminent. Marines began to face increasing amounts of nighttime attacks; these were only repelled by a combination of machine gun defensive positions and artillery support. In some cases, there was abundant hand-to-hand fighting before the Japanese were repelled.

Several M4A3 Sherman tanks equipped with flamethrowers were used to clear Japanese bunkers

Final days of the battle

"The life of your father is just like a lamp before the wind." - Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, in a letter to his son

With the landing area secure, more troops and heavy equipment came ashore and the invasion proceeded north to capture the airfields and the remainder of the island. Most Japanese soldiers fought to the death. On the night of 25 March, a 300-man Japanese force launched a final counterattack in the vicinity of Airfield Number 2. Army pilots, Seabees and Marines of the 5th Pioneer Battalion and 28th Marines fought the Japanese force until morning but suffered heavy casualties—more than 100 killed and another 200 American wounded. The island was officially declared "secured" the following day.

Although still a matter of speculation due to conflicting accounts from surviving Japanese veterans, it has been said that Kuribayashi himself led this final assault which unlike the loud banzai charge of previous battles, was characterised as a 'silent' attack. If ever proven true, Kuribayashi will have been the highest ranking Japanese officer to ever personally lead an attack during World War II. Additionally, this would also be Kuribayashi's final act of departure from the normal practice of the commanding Japanese officers committing seppuku behind the lines while the rest perished in the banzai charge, as happened during the battles of Saipan and Okinawa.

U.S. Marine Browning M1917 machine gun firing at the Japanese

Aftermath

"Among the men who fought on Iwo Jima, uncommon valor was a common virtue"—Admiral Chester W. Nimitz

Of the over 22,000 Japanese soldiers, 20,703 died and 216 were captured. The Allied forces suffered 27,909 casualties, with 6,825 killed in action. As all the civilians had been evacuated, there was not one single civilian casualty at Iwo Jima, unlike at Saipan and Okinawa.[1]

After Iwo Jima was declared secured, the Marines estimated there were no more than three hundred Japanese left alive in the island's warren of caves and tunnels. In fact, there were close to three thousand. The Japanese bushido code of honor, coupled with effective propaganda which portrayed American G.I.'s as ruthless animals, prevented surrender for many Japanese soldiers. Those who could not bring themselves to commit suicide hid in the caves during the day and came out at night to prowl for provisions. Many did eventually surrender, and were surprised that the Americans often received them with compassion, offering water, cigarettes, or coffee. The last of these stragglers, two of Lieutenant Toshihiko Ohno's men, Yamakage Kufuku and Matsudo Linsoki, lasted six years, surrendering in 1951 (another source gives the date of surrender as January 6, 1949).

Over a quarter of the Medals of Honor awarded to Marines in World War II were given for conduct in the invasion of Iwo Jima. The Marines, both active duty and reservists, were commended with 24 Medals of Honor. An additional five Medals of Honor were bestowed upon five Navy servicemen and reservists.

Given the amount of casualties, the necessity and long-term significance of the island's capture to the outcome of the war was a contentious issue from the beginning, and remains disputed. As early as April 1945 retired Chief of Naval Operations William V. Pratt asked in Newsweek magazine about the

expenditure of manpower to acquire a small, God-forsaken island, useless to the Army as a staging base and useless to the Navy as a fleet base ... [one] wonders if the same sort of airbase could not have been reached by acquiring other strategic localities at lower cost.

Dinah Might surrounded by Marines and Seabees after emergency landing on Iwo Jima

The Japanese on Iwo Jima had radar with which they notified their comrades at home of incoming B-29s flying from the Marianas. Fighter aircraft based on Iwo Jima sometimes attacked these planes, which were especially vulnerable on their way to Japan because they were heavily laden with bombs and fuel. The island was also used as an air-sea rescue base after its seizure. However, the traditional justification for Iwo Jima's strategic importance to the United States' war effort has been that it provided a landing and refueling site for American bombers on missions to and from Japan. As early as March 4, 1945, while fighting was still taking place, the B-29 bomber Dinah Might of the USAAF 9th Bomb Group reported it was low on fuel near the island and requested an emergency landing. Despite enemy fire, the airplane landed on the Allied-controlled section of the island, without incident, and was serviced, refueled and departed. In all, 2,251 B-29 Superfortresses landed on Iwo Jima during the war.

None of these calculations played much if any of a role in the original decision to invade, however, which was almost entirely based on the Army Air Force's belief that the island would be a useful base for long-range fighter escorts. For a number of technical reasons these escorts proved both impractical and unnecessary, and only ten such missions were ever flown from Iwo Jima.. Other justifications are also debatable. Although some Japanese interceptors were based on Iwo Jima, their impact on the American bombing effort was marginal; in the three months before the invasion only 11 B-29s were lost as a result . The Superfortresses found it unnecessary to make any major detour around the island. The capture of Iwo Jima did not affect the Japanese early-warning radar system, which continued to receive information on incoming B-29s from the island of Rota (which was never attacked).

The memorial on top of Suribachi

Some downed B-29 crewmen were saved by air-sea rescue aircraft and vessels operating from the island, but Iwo Jima was only one of many islands that could have been used for such a purpose. As for the importance of the island as a landing and refueling site for bombers, USMC Captain Robert Burrell of the US Naval Academy has suggested that only a small proportion of the 2,251 landings were for genuine emergencies, the great majority being for minor technical checkups, training, or refueling. According to Burrell,

this justification became prominent only after the Marines seized the island and incurred high casualties. The tragic cost of Operation Detachment pressured veterans, journalists, and commanders to fixate on the most visible rationalization for the battle. The sight of the enormous, costly, and technologically sophisticated B-29 landing on the island's small airfield most clearly linked Iwo Jima to the strategic bombing campaign. As the myths about the flag raisings on Mount Suribachi reached legendary proportions, so did the emergency landing theory in order to justify the need to raise that flag.

The United States Navy has commissioned several ships of the name USS Iwo Jima.

The USMC War Memorial outside Washington, D.C. memorializes all U.S. Marines with a statue of the famous picture.

File:P3110030.JPG

2005 Reunion of Honor

On February 19, 1985, an event called the "Reunion of Honor" was held. It was on this day in 1945 when U.S. forces invaded Iwo Jima.

The veterans of both sides who fought in the battle of Iwo Jima attended the event. The place was the invasion beach where U.S. forces landed. A monument on which writings were engraved by both sides was built at the center of the meeting place. Japanese attended at the mountain side, where the Japanese writing was carved, and Americans attended at the shore side, where the English writing was carved. After unveiling, and offering of flowers were made, the representatives of both countries approached the monument; upon meeting, they shook hands. The old soldiers embraced each other and cried.

The combined Japan-U.S. memorial service of the 50th anniversary of the battle was held in front of this monument on March, 1995. Further memorial services have been held on later anniversaries.

U.S. Marines with a captured Japanese flag on Iwo Jima

See also

• Doss
• Flags of Our Fathers
• Flags of Our Fathers (film)
• Letters from Iwo Jima
• List of Medal of Honor recipients: World War II: Iwo Jima
• Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima
• Ralph Ignatowski

References

Books

• Allen, Robert E. (2004). The First Battalion of the 28th Marines on Iwo Jima: A Day-by-Day History from Personal Accounts and Official Reports, with Complete Muster Rolls. McFarland & Company. ISBN 0-7864-2158-4. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Bradley, James (2001). Flags of Our Fathers. Bantam. ISBN 0-553-38029-X. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Bradley, James (2003). Flyboys: A True Story of Courage. Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 0-316-10584-8. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Buell, Hal (2006). Uncommon Valor, Common Virtue: Iwo Jima and the Photograph that Captured America. Penguin Group. ISBN 0-425-20980-6.
• Burrell, Robert S. (2006). The Ghosts of Iwo Jima. Texas A&M University Press. ISBN 1-58544-483-9.
• Hammel, Eric (2006). Iwo Jima: Portrait of a Battle: United States Marines at War in the Pacific. Zenith Press. ISBN 0-7603-2520-0.
• Hearn, Chester (2003). Sorties into Hell: The Hidden War on Chichi Jima. Praeger Publishers. ISBN 0-275-98081-2. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Kirby, Lawrence F. (1995). Stories From The Pacific: The Island War 1942-1945. The Masconomo Press. ISBN 1-4140-1760-X. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Leckie, Robert (2005). The Battle for Iwo Jima. ibooks, Inc. ISBN 1-59687-246-2. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Lucas, Jack (2006). Indestructible: The Unforgettable Story of a Marine Hero at the Battle of Iwo Jima. Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-81470-6. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Morison, Samuel Eliot (2002 (reissue)). Victory in the Pacific, 1945, vol. 14 of History of United States Naval Operations in World War II. Champaign, Illinois, USA: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0-252-07065-8. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
• Newcomb, Richard F. (2002). Iwo Jima. Owl Books. ISBN 0-8050-7071-0. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Overton, Richard E. (2006). God Isn't Here: A Young American's Entry into World War II and His Participation in the Battle for Iwo Jima. American Legacy Media. ISBN 0-9761547-0-6. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Ross, Bill D. (1986). Iwo Jima: Legacy of Valor. Vintage. ISBN 0-394-74288-5. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Shively, John C. (2006). The Last Lieutenant: A Foxhole View of the Epic Battle for Iwo Jima. Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-34728-9. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Toyn, Gary W. (2006). The Quiet Hero: The Untold Medal of Honor Story of George E. Wahlen at the Battle for Iwo Jima. American Legacy Media. ISBN 0-9761547-1-4. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Veronee, Marvin D. (2001). The Battle of Iwo Jima. Visionary Art Publishing. ISBN 0-9715928-2-9. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Wells, John K. (1995). Give Me Fifty Marines Not Afraid to Die: Iwo Jima. Ka-Well Enterprises. ISBN 0-9644675-0-X. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Wheeler, Richard (1994). Iwo. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1557509220. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Wheeler, Richard (1994). The Bloody Battle for Suribachi. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1557509239. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Wright, Derrick (2007). The Battle of Iwo Jima 1945. Sutton Publishing. ISBN 0-7509-4544-3. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)

Web

• Alexander, Col. Joseph H., USMC (Ret). Closing In: Marines in the Seizure of Iwo Jima, Marines in World War II Commemorative Series, History and Museums Division, United States Marine Corps, 1994.
• Bartley, Lt. Col. Whitman S., USMC. Iwo Jima: Amphibious Epic, Marines in World War II Historical Monograph, Historical Section, Division of Public Information, United States Marine Corps, 1954.
• Garand, George W. and Truman R. Strobridge. History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II Volume IV: Western Pacific Operations
• IwoJima.com: A site dedicated to Iwo Jima and the famous battle
• WW2DB.com: Battle of Iwo Jima with 220 photographs
• Iwo Jima Combat Footage in Color - From WW2incolor.com
• 3-D Stereo Photograph of Iwo Jima Flag-raising - From The Tampa Tribune and TBO.com
• Mt. Suribachi HDR Image - A tone-mapped High Dynamic Range Image taken of Iwo Jima in February 2007
• A lesson plan with primary sources Iwo Jima: Forgotten Valor from the Portal to Texas History
• Animated History of The Battle for Iwo Jima
• Scholarly article/overview of the Battle of Iwo Jima
• Jeremy Lemer (February 15, 2005). "Remembering the Battle of Iwo Jima". Columbia News Service. Retrieved 2006-10-06. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

Audio/visual media

• To the Shores of Iwo Jima, a 1945 American documentary produced by the United States Navy, Marine Corps and the Coast Guard.
• Sands of Iwo Jima, a 1949 American film starring John Wayne.
• The Outsider, a 1961 film starring Tony Curtis as the conflicted flag raiser Ira Hayes.
• Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima (previously titled Red Sun, Black Sand): two films directed by Clint Eastwood, one from the American perspective from the book by James Bradley and Ron Powers, and the other from the Japanese perspective.

Notes

24°47′N 141°19′E