Blood on the sands of Iwo Jima
Blood on the sands of Iwo Jima
By December of 1944 the war in Europe and the Pacific had bankrupted the United States Treasury. The American public had become tired of blackouts, casualty lists and those telegrams from the Secretary of War offering his condolences to the next of kin of a fallen member of the United States Armed Forces. Just how jaded the American population had become was being reflected by their lack of enthusiasm to invest in government war bonds. The financial woes of the United States Government was one of the worst kept secrets of the war and the knowledge hardened the resolve of the German and Japanese Governments to fight on to the last man in the hope that the money troubles of the Americans would force them to the peace table.
Unfortunately for the German people the United States had already paid for the final demise of the Nazi Empire by providing the Russians with billions of dollars worth of war machinery. By January of 1945 the Russian bear was so big and powerful that any country would have had trouble in holding back a Soviet onslaught.
The United States decided to slow down its advance on the Western front to preserve its resources to use against the Russians if they decided not to stop at Berlin. The American’s were more than confident that the Russian Armed Forces could take Berlin; they were also confident that the task of doing so would sap the strength of the Russians due to the difficulty and ferocity of fighting that would take place in the streets of the German Capital if the Nazi’s failed to surrender in the face of the Russian fire storm that was coming fast their way. This slow down in the fighting on the Western European Front also meant that supplies could be redirected to the Pacific campaign.
The war in the Pacific was fought just as bloodily on the sea as it was on the land. The two major Japanese defeats of the Pacific War were sea based battles: the first took place in the Coral Sea where the United States stopped the Japanese Invasion of Australia; and the second on the sea around the Midway Islands where the Japanese carrier forces were decimated.
With the threat of Japanese Naval opposition largely eliminated, the United States was able to begin its plan of island hopping towards the Japanese homeland. The intention being to secure airbases close enough for its Air Force to reach Japan and hopefully bomb the Japanese into submission.
On the morning 19th of February 1945, an armada of 800 ships carrying 110,00 Marines was anchored off the first island in the Japanese homeland chain. The island was a small piece of volcanic rock covered in black sand. Its name was Iwo Jima which translates into English as Sulphur Island. On shore 21, 000 Japanese soldiers waited in tunnels and bunkers for the American invasion to begin.
