largest tank battle in ww2 battle of iwo jima

Each defender was expected to die in defense of the homeland, taking 10 enemy soldiers in the process. The aim of the defense of Iwo Jima was to inflict severe casualties on the Allied forces and discourage invasion of the mainland. The defenders under the command of Tadamichi Kuribayashi were ready. Thus, Operation Detachment against Iwo Jima was decided. In the Philippines, the operation on the island of Leyte was pushed up by eight weeks due to lack of significant resistance, which opened up a window for an additional operation. Moreover, the Japanese could (and did) launch aerial operations against Saipan from Iwo Jima.įinally, the United States could gain an additional airfield for future operations against Japan if Iwo Jima could be captured. First, the Zero fighters based on Iwo Jima physically threatened the bombers secondly, Iwo Jima also acted as an early warning station for Japan, giving Tokyo two hours of warning before the American bombers reached their targets. The bombers, however, were threatened by Iwo Jima in two ways. Since winning Saipan in the previous year, American bomber commander Curtis LeMay had been planning raids on the Japanese home islands from there, and the first of such bombings took place in Nov 1944. Yellow sulfuric mist routinely rises from cracks of earth, and the island distinctly smells like rotten eggs. Iwo is the Japanese word for sulfur, and the island is indeed full of sulfur. Iwo Jima is a small speck in the Pacific it is 4.5 miles long and at its broadest point 2.5 miles wide.

The American amphibious invasion of Iwo Jima, a key island in the Bonin chain roughly 575 miles from the Japanese coast, was sparked by the desire for a place where B-29 bombers damaged over Japan could land without returning all the way to the Marianas, and for a base for escort fighters that would assist in the bombing campaign.

Largest tank battle in ww2 battle of iwo jima