Iwo Jima

For the battle, see Battle of Iwo Jima.

Landsat photo of Iwo Jima, circa 2000

Iwo Jima (Japanese 硫黄島 Iōtō, or Iōjima, meaning "sulfur island") is a volcanic island in Japan, part of the Volcano Islands (the southern part of the Ogasawara Islands), approximately 650 nautical miles (1200 km) south of Tokyo (24°47'2"N, 141°18'46"E). It is famous as a site of Battle of Iwo Jima in February and March, 1945, between the United States and Japan during World War II. Iwo Jima was occupied by the U.S. until 1968, when it was returned to Japan.

It has an approximate area of 8 square miles (21 km²). The most prominent feature of the island is Mount Suribachi (or Suribachisan), a vent which is thought to be dormant, and is 546 feet (166 m) in height. Iwo Jima is unusually flat and featureless for a volcanic island. Suribachi is the only obviously volcanic feature, although Iwo Jima is almost entirely volcanic in origin, as it is only the raised center of a larger submerged volcanic caldera.

The island is a part of the city and prefecture of Tokyo. Major industries have included sulfur mining and sugar refining, but the island has no civilian inhabitants and access requires special permission.

Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima

Naval air base

The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) operates a naval air base on Iwo Jima. The airstrip has a length of 2,650 meters (8,700 ft) and a width of 60 metres (200 ft). Its orientation is 07/25. The four-letter ICAO code is RJAW and the three-letter IATA code is IWO. The JMSDF is in charge of support, air-traffic control, fuelling, and rescue. The Japan Air Self-Defense Force also utilizes the base. The Japan Ground Self-Defense Force is in charge of explosive-ordnance disposal. The United States Navy also utilizes the base for operations such as nighttime landing practice.

US nuclear arms base

Iwo Jima appears to be one of a number of Japanese islands which has been used by the United States to host nuclear arms, according to Robert S. Norris, William M. Arkin, and William Burr writing for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists in early 2000. [1] [2] This is despite the Japanese Constitution being explicitely not just anti- nuclear-weapons, but anti-war. [3] Whether the site is currently used for this purpose is unknown, as great secrecy surrounds the United States' siting of nuclear arms bases.

"There were nuclear weapons on Chichi Jima and Iwo Jima, an enormous and varied nuclear arsenal on Okinawa, nuclear bombs (sans their fissile cores) stored on the mainland at Misawa and Itazuki airbases (and possibly at Atsugi, Iwakuni, Johnson, and Komaki airbases as well), and nuclear-armed U.S. Navy ships stationed in Sasebo and Yokosuka."

"It is true that Chichi Jima, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa were under U.S. occupation, that the bombs stored on the mainland lacked their plutonium and/ or uranium cores, and that the nuclear-armed ships were a legal inch away from Japanese soil. All in all, this elaborate strategem maintained the technicality that the United States had no nuclear weapons 'in Japan.'"

See also

• Battle of Iwo Jima
• Raising the flag on Iwo Jima

External links and references

• Siebert L, Simkin T (2002–present). Volcanoes of the World: an Illustrated Catalog of Holocene Volcanoes and their Eruptions. Smithsonian Institution, Global Volcanism Program Digital Information Series, GVP-3 (http://www.volcano.si.edu).
• Iwo-Jima, Volcano Islands, Japan
• History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II Volume IV: Western Pacific Operations by George W. Garand and Truman R. Strobridge
• [4],[5] - Satellite photos taken on Dec 4, 2003, from www.spaceimaging.com
• http://www.3rdrecon.org/Webber.htm
• 3-D Stereo Photograph of Iwo Jima Flag-raising - From The Tampa Tribune and TBO.com
• Photograph of a C130 fly-by past Iwo Jima and the original source can be found here.

24°47′N 141°19′E