Tactical Defeat of US marines at Iwo Jima?

[Carl Schwamberger]

I'd have to dig to find the Japanese commanders actual intent on Pelilu. His main defense was in the hills & revolved around deep tunnels and bunkers. Col Yahara who had been the operations officer for the army defending Okinawa makes it clear the defense was designed to 'defeat' the attack by exhausting it to stalemate. The refrences to repeling the enemy from Okinawa seem to have been a sop to the fanatics, who continued to refer to such a thing despite the Army commanders adherence to a strategy of attrition & goal of stalemate. Yahara makes the Army command on Okinawa appear a little schizophrenic with part of the commanders and staff working the attritional strategy and part thinking they could actually chase the US Army and Marines back into the sea.

On Leyte & Luzon the army commanders staff and a portion of their documents survived. In those cases it is clear there were only token efforts to defeat the enemy on the landing beaches. The strategy on both islands was to attrition and stalemate the US Army.

[LWD]

Interesting. Might even warant a thread of its own. Again my impression but on Iwo Jima they didn't even plan on stalemating they just hoped to inflict enough casualties to discourage further offenses. Looks like the evolution of Japanese defensive strategy was more involved than I thought though (not really a surprise as I haven't studied it that much).

[Carl Schwamberger]

I guess it depends on who's strategy you are looking at. Some sources suggest the commander on Iwo expected a counter offensive by the navy and air forces to create conditions for a stalemate. I'll hold judgement. Yahara's testimony, which inevitablly has a self serving element in it, describes a divided command & staff. Some were delusional and were trying to drive the US army back into the sea, others seem to have worked the stalemate line, and others sought to execute the 'Blood Cost' strategy. The Japanese operations on Luzon seem to me to be clearly aimed at the stalemate outcome. Aside from that the soldiers were in some danger of starving that strategy was still in place when the August 1945 surrender came.

[Junglemike]

Greetings to all, I'm new to this forum but have found this thread very interesting. Keeping it short, the Japanese goal was to hold Iwo. They would not have relinquished it lightly or in a cavalier fashion. It touched an emotional thread in the national psyche being part of the Tokyo prefecture so the loss of the island had to be a tactical defeat for the japanese. They rigorously defended it as we know. However, island and higher command structures doubted they could hold Iwo without something providential occuring. Kuribayashi was quoted by Major Horie as believing that staunch Iwo defense would hold US forces in place for IJN combined fleet to intervene yet he wrote to his wife not to expect him back. So Kuribayashi could do two things with his defense plans, buy some time and also bleed the americans. I don't think it would have changed the outcome-our force was too powerful to lose but Kuribayashi was really hoping to complete tunnels connecting Suribachi with the other defense sectors. He was greatly disappointed that Suribachi-sama fell so quickly. Those tunnels would have prolonged it's defense I think, allowing it's reinforcement from the Motoyama plateau section. He also would have loved to obtain more of the dual-purpose 23mm guns he requested. They proved to be a formidable anti-personnel weapon. The Marines lost the equivalent of two regiments in KIAs so the question still stands whether it was worth the cost but I don't see it as a tactical loss by the marines.

cheers

[donsor]

What was the purpose of taking Iwo Jima other than capture the airfield? How soon after the initial landing did we take control of the airfield and made it operational? Wasn't it a fact that the Japanese had no way of reinforcing or resupplying Iwo Jima since we had control of the adjoining seas and control of the air. So why the rush which resulted in a lot more casualties?

[Carl Schwamberger]

Actually the USN had only partial control of the air over the Bonin islands. It was at the extreme limits of practical fighter range & impractical to isolate with land based aircraft. Alternately keeping carrier patrols on station 100% or even 50% was not very practical either. Frequent bombing raids could not guarantee the nuetralization of the airfields and would detract from operations elsewhere.

Japan did have a fair reserve of aircraft in 1945 and some trained aircrew. Lacking our hind sight the US leaders could not discount the enemy using Iwo & the Bonin islands as a forward staging base for reconissance and strikes against the US LOC to Okinawa and to the flank of operations directly against Japan. The massive air operation against the US fleet off Okinawa showed the Japanese air forces were not impotent against naval forces in 1945.

[Junglemike]

I haven't read or heard anything about this but Paul Tibbets had already been training for the nuclear drop and arrived in Tinian in May. Somewhere down (up?) the pipe, the idea that Iwo was in the way of an atomic bomb operation, had to have been factored in. Iwo WAS in the way. All of the discussed reasons still applied but Iwo being negated for early warning of the atomic raid plus an additional safety factor if the nuke plane needed to abort early perhaps. A few japanese fighters could have made a difference under that scenario.

[sonofsamphm1c]

Iwo was a long way from Japan. When my dad's platoon came upon the Japanese radar on Iwo it was totally destroyed - presumably by aerial bombing. They snapped a photograph. There is a battered bicycle. I guess that was the power source.

[Junglemike]

According to a captured war-trophy map, the radar on Hill 382 was powered by a 15 kilowatt generator. I'm sure the radar mast could have been destroyed by aerial bombing or by the pre-invasion shelling. I don't know if it would have survived all that to be destroyed by pre-assault prep artillery, either navy or marine. I would guess the bike power could have run emergency radio or lights.

[Carl Schwamberger]

According to a captured war-trophy map, the radar on Hill 382 was powered by a 15 kilowatt generator. I'm sure the radar mast could have been destroyed by aerial bombing or by the pre-invasion shelling. I don't know if it would have survived all that to be destroyed by pre-assault prep artillery, either navy or marine. I would guess the bike power could have run emergency radio or lights.

There were several electrical generators in the tunnels, safe from bombardment.

The use of Iwo as a air raid warning station was on the mind of the US planners - part of its value to the Japanese as a reconissance base. Post war we learned the Japanese radio signal analysis capability was a lot better than we had estimated. The Japanese had warning of the air raids launched from the Marshall islands from monitoring the radio chatter from the airfields and bomber crews. What value Iwo or the other Bonin islands had as a radio monitoring station I cant say. The text I've read on the subject suggest the signal monitoring work was mostly in the main Japanese islands.

A quick look shows the Japanese used over 9000 aircraft to attack the US fleet in the Okinawa campaign, losses were in excess of 7,000. Exactly was the reserve was any time in 1945 depends on which historian is checked, but the front line combat strength was between 3800 & 4400 aircraft in July 1945. Despite every effort of the USN & USAAF to suppress the Japanese airfields in range of Okinawa the Japanese air forces were able to launch thousands of sorties & inflict considerable damage on the US fleet. This suggest the potiential of Iwo & the other Bonnin islands were they not nuetralized as a airbase.

[sonofsamphm1c]

It could also suggest Iwo had little military usefulness to either the Japanese or the US, and which would fit into why it was consistently rejected as an objective by US planners until it became valuable as a bargaining chip between the various agendas on the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

[donsor]

Why couldn't the US have totally neutralized the Japanese air forces around the area? After all by that time we had superior types of aircraft and unlimited support.

[Carl Schwamberger]

Like I wrote & posted earlier.... There were no US held land bases near enough to Iwo to do this, keeping a large enough carrier group near enough was not practical. ... and the battle over Okinawa showed how difficult the Japanese airforces could still be for a naval force without land airbases in easy range.

Beyond that I'd recommend you hit the books

[Carl Schwamberger]

It could also suggest Iwo had little military usefulness to either the Japanese or the US, and which would fit into why it was consistently rejected as an objective by US planners until it became valuable as a bargaining chip between the various agendas on the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

I'll leave the chiefs bargaining thing for others to argue over. Leaving a enemy air base on the flank of the planned Okinawa operation, in a position to reconoiter part of the US LOC and potientially strike at the LOC or at the Okinawa flank has a degree of risk. The Japanese had more than once suprised the US leaders with fairly destructive actions. The US lucked out that none of these came out worse & more than a few came close. The Japanese leaders used a number of advantages they found along the way. If you think it ok to leave a usefull airbase to them thats your business. From the PoV of the US leaders at the start of 1945 it looks to me a stupid risk to do so.

[sonofsamphm1c]

They left Formosa. Many of the attacks on Navy vessels at Okinawa originated from Formosa.

Starting in 1944, Iwo Jima was bombed repeatedly by B-24s. The Japanese could do little to defend it against those attacks.

"The Joint War Plans Committee neatly summed up the study: "the one outstanding advantage to be gained from the execution of these operations lies in the denial of the use of the Bonins to the Japanese . . . this advantage is more apparent than real, since repeated aerial and surface bombardments should cancel the effectiveness of these islands as enemy bases, thus obviating the necessity for their cap- ture."16 Ominously, the Joint War Plans Committee further predicted that "operations planned herein are likely to entail heavy losses, and to divert forces out of all proportion to the anticipated value of these islands to us."17In accordance with the planners' recommendation, the Joint Chiefs of Staff shelved the Bonin Islands plan. ..."