World War II Day by Day

Saipan Island, Northern Marianas · January 7, 1945

In early October 1944 the U.S. high command decided that, after securing the Philip­pine island of Leyte (done before the end of Decem­ber), Gen. Douglas Mac­Arthur was to lib­er­ate neigh­boring Lu­zon Is­land, while Fleet Adm. Ches­ter Nimitz, from his station in the Cen­tral Pacific, would attack the Japa­nese-held island of Iwo Jima, an eight-square-mile vol­can­ic rock located 675 miles from the Japa­nese capital, Tokyo (see map). The cap­ture of Iwo Jima would be followed up by an attack on the island of Oki­nawa 950 miles to the north­west. Oki­nawa was mid-posi­tioned in the Ryu­kyu Island chain some 325 miles from the southern­most Japa­nese home islands and pre­sented itself as a po­ten­tial for­ward base for land, air, and naval for­ma­tions in the inva­sion of Japan. On this date in 1945 the U.S. Seventh Air Force sent eleven B‑24 Liber­ators from Sai­pan Is­land in the west­ern Pacif­ic Ocean to pum­mel and destroy air­fields on Iwo Jima. Since the start of the year, more than 130 air­craft from Sai­pan and Guam had bombed Iwo Jima day and night. Typ­i­cally com­prising less than 20 air­craft, day­light missions bombed air­fields, anti-air­craft posi­tions, and radar sites. Night­time harass­ment mis­sions, or snooper (radar-assisted bomb release) mis­sions, com­prised half that. The island’s Japa­nese defenders, with their fighters and bombers, posed seri­ous problems for XXI Bomber Com­mand’s fleet of mas­sive B‑29 Super­fort­resses; for exam­ple, bombing U.S. bases on Sai­pan and sending advance warning to the home islands every time Super­for­tresses passed over­head. At least 39 more days of bombing runs would take place before the Iwo Jima oper­a­tion began on Febru­ary 16, 1945, when fire-support ves­sels and carrier air­craft began a three-day pre-landing bom­bard­ment of the island. U.S. Marines would face over 22,000 well-trained and well-led Japa­nese soldiers and sailors sheltered in caves and tun­nels nearly im­per­vi­ous to U.S. air and naval bom­bard­ment. For nearly 40 days, Iwo Jima became the most bitterly con­tested spot on the planet, a place of death for 6,821 Amer­i­cans and close to 19,000 Japanese. The signi­fi­cance of the Amer­i­can victory meant that begin­ning April 7 P‑51 Mus­tang fighter escorts based on Iwo Jima would accom­pany B‑29s from the Marianas on their deadly mission to end Japan’s ability to continue the war.

Iwo Jima, Japanese Citadel Protecting the Homeland

Above: Location of Iwo Jima in relation to Tokyo (675 miles away) and the Mari­ana Islands (Sai­pan, 650 miles away). Japa­nese air­craft from Iwo Jima were able to bomb U.S. B‑29 bases in the Mari­anas. Also, Iwo Jima radio opera­tors were able to send advance warning to the Japanese home islands every time B‑29s passed north overhead.

Left: The battleship USS New York uses its 14-in main guns to bombard Japanese defenses on Iwo Jima, February 16, 1945. Eight months earlier, starting on June 15, 1944, the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Army Air Forces began naval artillery shellings and aerial bombings against Iwo Jima that would become the longest and most intense conflict in the Pacific theater. The cataclysmic bombardments and aerial bombings continued through February 19, 1945, the first day of U.S. Marine Corps amphibious landings.

Right: A Marine lieutenant discusses the overall importance of seizing Iwo Jima at a pre-invasion briefing aboard ship. On February 19, 1945, the first of nearly 30,000 U.S. Marines from the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Marine Divisions invaded the tiny volcanic island, less than a third the size of New York’s Manhattan Island, in what was supposed to be a 10-day battle. About 40,000 more Marines would follow. Over the next 35 days, approximately 28,000 combatants died, including nearly 22,000 Japanese and 6,821 Americans, making Iwo Jima one of the costliest battles of World War II.

Above: U.S. Marines going ashore on Iwo Jima, February 19, 1945. Photos made by a U.S. Navy photo­grapher who flew over the 880-ship armada. Marines, who began landing on the island at 8:59 a.m., said the island looked like it was on fire due to the preceding three-day naval bom­bard­ment. The initial wave was not hit by Japa­nese fire for some time. Only after the front wave of Marines reached a line of Japa­nese bunkers defended by machine gunners did they take hostile fire. Many concealed Japa­nese bunkers and firing positions opened up, and the first wave of Marines took devastating losses from the machine guns.

Left: Tracked landing vehicles (LVTs), jam-packed with 4th Marine Division troops, approach the invasion beach at H-hour on D-Day, February 19, 1945.

Right: Marines of the Fifth Division inched their way up a slope toward Mt. Suribachi at the south end of the island as smoke from the battle drifted above them, Febru­ary 19, 1945. The first minutes of fighting took a terrifying toll on the Marines. From their beach­head they could not see where the Japa­nese, who were heavily dug in and forti­fied, many in bunkers and caves, were hiding. Marines ran 2 miles across the open beach while taking heavy machine-gun and artil­lery fire. Weighed down with over 20 pounds of gear, running across the beach was an unimag­i­nable horror. Seven hun­dred and sixty Marines made a near-sui­ci­dal charge across to the other side of the island on the first day. By that evening the 545‑ft-tall Japa­nese citadel, with its heavy artil­lery behind rein­forced steel doors, had been cut off from the rest of Iwo Jima.

Left: U.S. Marines encountered intense artillery fire from enemy positions, Febru­ary 19, 1945. Japanese troops under their commander on Iwo Jima, Gen. Tadamichi Kuribayashi, were responsible for the deaths of a third of all U.S. Marines killed during the entire four-year Pacific conflict. Twenty-seven Medals of Honor were awarded to Marines and sailors, many posthumously, more than were awarded for any other single operation during the war.

Right: Members of the 1st Battalion 23rd Marines burrow into the black volcanic sand on the beach of Iwo Jima, while their comrades unload supplies and equipment from LSTs (landing vessels) despite being pounded by artillery fire from enemy positions in the background. Based on the LSTs shown on the beachhead, this photo was taken on either the February 21 or 22, 1945.

U.S. Government Film Circa 1945 Titled “To the Shores of Iwo Jima”