historian mark depue discusses

the battle of iwo jima. he discusses details of the military maneuvers during the >> it is a pleasure to33vmzvi b, to talk about this important subject. i did a presentation about a year ago, on the day. and it went over very well i think. but i got several comments, hey how come you never talk about the pacific feeder. i got that comment from some marines in fact. and a couple of them are here tonight. it isn't by accident that we are doing this presentation on the 13th of august. on the 14th of august, was the official surrender of the japanese. and so the war ended, and all

those celebrations back in the united states, we're on that date. and on the 2nd of september, was the official signing ceremony of the uss missouri. so that is the reason for the timing for the okinawa presentation. but he would jima, one of the costliest battles of the war. and because of a pitcher, that we're going to be talking about here in a little bit. it captured peoples imaginations like nothing else did in the pacific theater. and there is something that is very iconic now in terms of peoples identity, with that flag, with that picture, and with the battle of iwo jima has itself. and a couple times we weave that into the process as we go through it now. but we have to start with a little bit of strategy. for the first few slides, it's very much an overview. july of 1944, what is going on in the pacific theater at that

time? well, let's see if this works pretty well. in the central pacific, you have basically a navy force. supported with marines. and i was warned about that, they are driving through the central pacific. and, there's one of the real blood fights from the marines. the seizure of the gilbert islands, and the marianne us. which includes warm and -- . and here is the marianne us islands. that's as far as the navy and marines got by june of 1944. so how about the army, that's coming up from the south. primarily that is led by douglas mcarthur. so then they went through new guinea, and they slip through some places, and they headed

towards the philippines. but least that is mcarthur school at the time. june of the 19th and the 21st, 1944, you have the battle for the philippine sea. in that case you have, the u.s. fifth fleet, 15 aircraft carriers. 15 aircraft carriers, against nine japanese aircraft carriers. and, in the process the japanese lose three carriers. to actually two submarines. so that is a setback for them. in the same timeframe, you have what is now known as the great marianne as turkey shoot. where the japanese naval air force, there's really not much left. a lot of their senior, best naval pilots died in that process. so that's where we are at in july. so july 1944, then you have

franklin roosevelt, that goes out to pearl harbor. and sits down with mcarthur. and with admiral king, and others. admiral leahy, who is essentially serving as the joint chief of staff, that was not the official title he was there as well, and there was quite a debate. these gentlemen, some of them had big egos, i think almost all of them did, and they had serious disagreements about what to do. mcarthur, what he wanted, was to return to the philippines. he had a strategic argument for that, but essentially the argument was, the emotional appeal. the promise he had made to the filipino people, that i shall return. and he certainly wanted to do exactly that. to return to the philippines. and as you recall, the united states had guaranteed the filipino people their freedom in 1946. and that happened before the war. it is far as the americans were

concerned, that was an obligation that we owed to the filipino people. so that was mcarthur's argument. and admiral earnest king, and chester nimitz. they had a different proposal, they wanted to go to formosa. that would make sense because they are coming from the central pacific. all the way over to formosa. why did they recommend for melissa? because most of the things that the japanese military, and the japanese homeland really needed, we're down here in the dutch east indies. rubber, oil, and some other key supplies that they needed for the war machine. and if you are sitting in for melissa you basically cut that off. that was the argument that the navy was proposing. well, franklin roosevelt is a politician. and he finds ways to compromise. but the compromise essentially,

ended up favoring mcarthur's plan in a large part. and allowed mcarthur to continue his attack, and his invasion of the philippines. and also now, the navy is going to have to think about, and adjustment to their strategy. because they're not allowed to go to formosa. now they set their eyes on, he would jima. that seems to be the next logical step for them. so one more battle, that i wanted to talk about while we are on the slide, and that is the battle of four separate gauge mince. these are all naval battle and's essentially. for engagements, around the philippine sea. what you have is the bulk of the imperial japanese navy, versus the u.s. third fleet. you have six japanese carriers, versus 34, u.s. carriers.

a lot of fleet carriers, a lot of smaller jump carriers. but 34 u.s. carriers. the japanese lost four of their aircraft carriers. and they do not have the ability to replace those like the united states was doing at the time. the u.s. lost three of their aircraft carriers. but the advantage is on the u.s. side at this point. and after that the japanese navy, is not going to present a major threat to the u.s. as they move forward. so one other comment here, the air force, they're equation in their, this is the u.s. air force. we're talking about a bit more in this, basically they're getting their aircraft to japan. where they go in a strategic bombing, it was to bomb germany, and berlin and some of the main manufacturing areas, their goal was to go to tokyo and so many of the other major

manufacturing cities. so you could do that from china, and supply these air bases in china by flying over the hump or over the cairo who just torturous to begin. that's why this island is going to be important. so ... it looks like lee -- the marion islands but the place to go for that. so let's look at logistics. it's all about logistics. and this is logistics on a massive scale. you've got 6200 miles between okinawa and the west coast. i should say, between iwo jima and the west coast of the united states. that is 26 days on the water.

if you're talking from pearl harbor, now it's not 6200 miles, it's only 4000 miles and 17 days. this is a major hurdle. and now you've got to figure out, you can't just sail this huge fleet of hundreds of ships from pearl harbor to the -- or the west coast to iwo jima. you need a staging area. the ulithi atoll is the place to do that. it's out in the middle of nowhere. look at this. here's the scale down here. five miles. look how small these islands are. it's basically just a coral reef that you're talking about with a few islands peeking through. but when you get inside this coral reef, as you can see right here, hundreds and hundreds of ships. that is where they had the major staging area. that is where they were able to

do some major reconstruction and repair work on the ships. and huge supply depots. again, it's only 1000 miles from okinawa and iwo jima. the third, the fifth and the seventh fleet are all there. the seventh was the fleet primarily supporting mccarthy. you shipping everything across the ocean. everything from bulldozers to q-tips. can you imagine the amount of oil they had to ship from the united states? or the tons and tons of ammunition that you had to ship over. or aviation fuel and cigarettes. the only thing you did not want cigarettes pretty much. the army ran on cigarettes at the time. you had the supply, hundreds of thousands of soldiers, airmen, marines. not only that, the war in europe at this time is still going on. so a big portion is still

heading to europe. on top of that, the russians and the chinese are all screaming for more supplies and we are accommodating them with thousands of tons of supplies, which includes a fair amount of the food that both of these countries are getting at the time. all of this because of this miracle of american production, both in factories and on farms, that is going on at the time. and that is something that i don't think you want to overlook at all. okay. now for my air force friends. the b 29. the b-29 was the most expensive project the united states did during world war ii. a lot of people think it was the atomic bomb. the b 29 cost three billion dollars, atomic bomb development cost two billion. both of them are almost

unimaginable to try to figure out the scale of these things. here are some comparisons for you. it's close to being, i think it is, the largest aircraft during world war ii. maybe 24, another four engine bomber, is 110 foot wingspan. the b 29 has 841 foot wingspan. so it is much larger. qg0 ñthe b -- b-24 maximum takeoff awozxv a 65,000 pounds. the b 29, over twice that, 133,000 pounds. it has a longer range by quite a distance. it has a range now that reaches all the way from the island to japan. nothing else we had was going to be able to do that and then get back. january 20th, 1945, a gentleman by the name of criticism a. a lot of you will recognize that name from both world war

ii, but also up through vietnam. he commanded the 21st bomber command. he started the war as a major. there was some fast rank being made in the air force during world war ii because the air force was about that big at the beginning of the war. it was a massive scale by the end. he switched the main bomber force in the pacific from china to the mary anastasia -- islands. he also made an important change as well. before that time, with the air force was doing was daylight bombing. because of the enemy defenses, they ended up portioning those aircraft much higher. part of the reason for the b-29 success is it had a pressurized cabin as well as some very new logistics and new firing procedures as well.

but anyway, you can put these aircraft much higher. but then when you're flying that high in daylight over cloud cover most of the time and over tough winds, the accuracy was pretty dismal. so what lemay does, he says let's switch from daylight bombing at high out to toot tonight bombing at low altitude. by the way, let's switch to incendiary bombs. and basically burn the japanese cities out one after the other. that is what they ended up doing. many of you are familiar with the results for tokyo. the worst fire bombing of the war wasn't hamburg or dresden, it was tokyo with the estimates of something like 100,000 casualties in that one bombing raid. and this is just one of many. by the end of the war, they had to make some decisions about what's cities not to bomb so that they had something left over to use an atomic bomb

with. that's a different story. so, march 9th and tenth is the bombing of tokyo. that is right in the midst of the combat at iwo jima. but it's very much part of the story. from tinian island, tokyo is 1477 miles. one way. from it will jima, which is pretty much right in the middle, i quit distant, it's 760 miles. so instead of flying from tinian island and flying around iwo jima, now you can capture iwo jima and use that as an intermediate base in case some of these aircraft get in trouble, maintenance wise, or they are damaged somehow, then they can land on their way back from japan on people jima. that is the strategic reason for iwo jima as far as that is

concerned. you can see at the bottom left of that picture, the size of the crew. a little bit about the japanese command of the war jima. lieutenant general kuribayashi, and i will try to pronounce some of these first names because it's a tongue twister for me. he takes commanded able jima. that is him at the bottom right. he takes command in may of 1944 and quickly recognizes that he needs to make some serious changes. primarily, he will be focusing his attention on building the defenses. we will get into more of that in a little bit. he was of the samurai tradition. the weight of the warrior, that is what it stood for. they were emphasizing the principles of honor, courage,

skill in the martial arts, how to use a sword properly, how to use a bow and arrow properly, but beyond that point as well. and loyalty. loyalty to your master above all else. that was the code in which they lived. and he was one of those. he was also a very pragmatic man. part of his pragmatism came because he spent quite a time -- quite a bit of time in the united states. in 1928 i believe, he was an attaché in washington d.c.. and during that time, he would travel across the united states saying -- seeing all kinds of different things in the that were going on at that time. he even spent some time at harvard university. here was his comment that he made at the time that he was there. in the united states.

united states is the last country in the world that japan should fight. he knew. but he's now the commander at iwo jima during a time where the japanese fortunes are on the way down. , where the two gentlemen disagreed, was how the tactics were changing for the japanese soldier at the time. before this time, especially places like guam and other areas, and side pan, you would often have you would have a major event for the japanese on the beach, and he stop the americans right there on the beach. and effective work, oftentimes it would be accompanied by bonsai attacks and we all know

about the bonsai attacks that and this was machine guns and artillery in the decimated the process and they thought it was lunacy and he wanted nothing to do with that. his approach was to dig in, allow the enemy to wait till they get all clung down on the beaches, and then unleash everything. but the layer defenses, caves tunnel systems, bunkers that were built. and again he had close to nine months to do that for you would yuma. so the more traditional soldier, he thought he was still holding on to the >> -- code. the last thing you want to do is to surrender because there's great shaman surrendering. and the japanese had about

21,000 defenders in iwo jima. there was the imperial japanese defense, there was support troops, and they have the word kamikaze up there. kamikaze's had been introduced shortly before that time, and we're talking about naval air ships attaching american ships. they were used to a certain extent here any would jima. it's going to be much more prevalent when you get to okinawa. and a few other support troops as well. so one of the colorful characters, that i want to mention here. lieutenant colonel the -- . not sure how you pronounce is first name. he commanded the 21st tank regiment on the island. he was in a question. he purchased a horse when he went to italy. because the japanese were embarrassed in the 1928 olympics. and i was almost embarrassed to

say the name of the horse, the horse he purchased the name of it was your rain us. and he entered that horse in the 1932 olympics, in los angeles. and he won a gold medal, in equestrian show jumping. and that's the one and only equestrian metal that the japanese have ever won. he was something of a man around town. he had a convertible, he would drive around town he coldhearted with people like mary pictured, douglas fair banks, he he cohosted with them, he was very popular, and he ends up in iwo jima. he was popular in the united states, and a lot of the old guard in the japanese army, especially the old calgary, look down their noses at him. and it they thought it might be a good place for him to end his career. but he would walk around, and

inspect the defensive works, as they were being done with his riding crop in one hand, and his cavalry boots that he was wearing at the same time. he was a colorful gentlemen. so let's take a harder look, at iwo jima itself. okay the geography of the place. it is a volcanic island. it looks like a pork chop doesn't it? it is 8.1 one square miles, and the name of the island is iwo jima because essentially, in japanese it means sulfur island. and that's what it smells like. the volcanic sand. and one author that i read, described iwo jima as a cinder clog. four and a half miles long, two and a half miles wide. so a tiny piece of land. they have so they dormant

volcano is on the island, 554 feet tall. that was the elevation. and doug from there you can see the entire island. and probably the entire u.s. flee out there, east of the island itself. and the way that the japanese looked at this, the way that care about she looked at this, is that their defeat was inevitable. they went with the notion that every single soldier there, all 21,000 plus, soldiers, naval personnel who are serving their, on the island were going to die in the defense of the island. that was a given. he had told his wife, when you got posted there that that is the way it would work out. and i talked a little bit about the evolution of the tactics. and the new tactics, were to where the americans down, to bleed them and i thought it

might be illustrative to read what the general orders were to his troops. so this is a quote. we shall defend this island with all our strength to the end. we shall filling ourselves against the enemy tanks, clutching explosives to destroy them. we shall slaughter the enemy, dashing in among them to kill them. and every one of our shots, shall be on target, and kill the enemy. we shall not die until we have killed ten of the enemy. we shall continue to harass the enemy, even if only one of us remains alive. those were his orders. can you imagine american soldiers getting those kinds of orders. and the expectation that, you're going to be staying here until you die. one way or another. he forbade, bonsai attacks. so just the opposite, of what they wanted to do he forbade

them to use those tactics at all. and to dignity, that's what his goal was. and again they have nine months to do that. and i believe, that here is a small example, of some of the tunnels, that were in mounts or about she, but the entire island as well. that most of the japanese, were deep underground. okay let's look at the american command. admiral chester nimitz, he was a texan such appeal for the. american navy, they have everyone from places in the plains area, that end up in the navy. and annapolis carat 1905, he was commander and chief, and enable doug jargon he is a six packs. he is quiet, a bit on the

introverted side. fdr, elevated him after he fired admiral kimmel, who was the commander at pearl harbor. the day that pearl harbor was attacked. so kimmel is sacked and nimitz comes in. so admiral raymond's prudence. 1906 naval graduated. so kind of a halsey had been sick at the time, and midway was this incredible victory. okay, so he is the commander of the fifth fleet. here's one of the curiosities. so policy is in the halsey, is a pacific theater as well, and wentz bruins is there, it's the

fifth of the fleet. don't ask me how, i'm an army guy don't understand the navy figures how they figure those things out. and lieutenant general holland smith. he had 70,000 season troops during this campaign. and he went by the nickname howling mad smith. howling mad. he is remembered as the father, of amphibious warfare. and he was rigorous in trading his marines how to do exactly that. how to land and then uncontested beaches and survive the process. and i have a hard time trying to sort through this. i don't know if i want to call him a figurehead, but he will not be directly involved in the combat as well as the next gentlemen. and that is major general summit. the dutchman, who commanded the fifth and cbs core.

that included the third, the fourth and fifth marine divisions. a lot of these divisions, a couple of these, this is the first major combat that they will see. but, they have plenty of veteran soldiers and veteran marines in their ranks. who had been transferred so there's plenty of experience in these units. they also had cbd there. that's important because one of the first things you want to do when you get on land is to get the airstrips fixed so you can get the b-29 land there. you had some underwater demolition teams and you had three black companies that are on the logistics and support side of things, but they will play an important role once they get the major force on land. the plan of attack. operation detachment. that is what they called this. kind of a curious name i think. they anticipated, schmidt

anticipated that this would be a ten-day campaign. he did not know for sure how many japanese were there. some estimates were in the neighborhood of 10,000. so they were off on that number as well. the underwater demolition teams are going to go in and recon as early as february 17th. that recon will be crucial. their job was to find out with the condition of the beaches were. where the defenses were. what kind of soil or sand they are going to encounter once they get their. the fifth marine are going to land on the left and green and red beach. and the 28 regiment is right here. their job is to take mount suribachi. that is their mission. to do it as quickly as possible, because again, at mount suribachi, you can see the entire island. if you have artillery up their, and they obviously did, you can harass and shell the entire

landing force. the fourth marines were on beaches yellow and blue. and the quarry was the toughest objective that they had. see, i did it again. sorry about that. that was going to be the toughest not they had to crack that first day. the third marine were in reserve. we will get to them in a little bit. okay. before hand, you want to have a major bombardment of this. and the button barred meant -- the bombardment actually started months and months before. june of 1944 with some of the earliest bombing. obviously at that time, you're not talking of bombardment from ships, you're talking about some of the air force assets that they head, even naval aviation assets they had at

that time. going into the battle itself though, general schmidt, the ground force commander, fifth amphibious court commander, he asked for a ten-day naval prep. and the naval commanders at the time said, ten days? we don't have that type of ammunition to use on ten days. that's almost impossible. we can't do it. they argued back and forth and they finally agreed to three days. and because of the weather, and because of a couple of other factors, those three days were largely ineffective. and only in the last day or so did aircraft from aircraft carriers join in. this is much more of a pinpoint operation when talking about naval air coming in and blasting away. but again, how long have the japanese had to prepare all of this? how deep did they dig into the island itself? the day, february 19th, 1945.

there is the naval bombardment. that begins. a little more on the naval bombardment. some of you might recall that i interviewed charles say he many years ago. charles was at pearl harbor on the uss and divided on pearl harbor day. his battle station, and the searchlight position high up on the mast. can you imagine? he's watching pearl harbor happen high up on the mast of the uss nevada. uss nevada was sunk that day, but they raised it, they refurbished it. by iwo jima, it's their offshore providing naval gunfire support. just on monday, i open up a letter from charles, who's now

97 years old, and he wrote about what you're going to hear. he amazes me. >> the nevada was the flagship of the u.s. will jima invasion fleet. this means there would be an admiral aboard the nevada that will command the activities of the gunfire support warships. eight battleships, 12 aircraft carriers, 19 cruisers, 44 destroyers and 130 troop transport vessels and auxiliary ships. on february 16th, d date minus three, the nevada's main 14 inch counts provided gunfire to prove -- to destroy enemy shore batteries. 20 millimeter gun positions stood ready to repel any incoming aircraft missed by the five inch anti aircraft batteries. as the nevada closed to within 5000 yards, she fired wide phosphorus shells onto the beaches, creating a dense acrid smoke to obscure the japanese

observations, with an added painful application of burns on exposed skin. the underwater demolition teams, the have fish and have nuts, coined by war correspondents, would enter into landing craft and then rubber boots that took them towards the beaches. after action report of the swimmers included presence of mines, anti tank traps, fixed obstacles, firmness of black sand, coral amounts, water current, temperature, direction and serve height and strength. >> again, that is a 97 year old who's writing that, those memories of that day. and it ends with this description of with the underwater demolition teams to, going into the beaches to find out more about the sand. so for the marines out there, i'm sure when you went to marine corps basic training, but you've heard lots about the sand of iwo jima. i've interviewed two people,

i've heard from others, who have vials or containers of sand from that beach. not necessarily because they were there that they, but that is the meaning it has. we will learn more about that and why it's so important to marines in just a minute here. because next up is the landing itself. the 19th of february, d-day. where and sunny. it is 6:45 and the naval bombardment begins. about that time, we personnel are being loaded up and headed to the beach. you see the landing craft in wave after wave heading to the beach there. at 0700, the landing craft or two miles out. at 8:00, the navy stops firing, they stopped their bombardment, and carrier aircraft hit the

targets with bombs and napalm. by 8:30, the first wave of the landing vehicle tracks goes in to follow by nine more ways. and that first wave lands at 8:59, the official designated time they were going to land is 9:00. so they were off by only one minute. that is the precision that they had gotten to buy this time at the war. they encountered no significant enemy fire. kuribayashi was very deliberate to hold off any kind of major fire for that time. he wanted to have the forces to startd3uz

sand. that dark, black volcanic sand. you step in it, sink to your ankles, and then you have 100 pounds of equipment on your back, your hundred 40 pounds to begin with. try to run in that. it was almost impossible. they had plenty of track vehicles that were landing about the same time as well, but the track vehicles had the same problem of getting bogged down in that sand. it was not until subsequent waves that they got some bulldozers there that they were able to cut their way through some of these trellises and actually get in -- onto firmer ground. so those bulldozers are going to be very important. they said they landed at 8:59, roughly 10 am is when the japanese opened up, when things were really congregated on those beaches. by 10:35, you have elements of

the 28 that are actually gone far enough that they've reached the western side of the island. so they are pretty much contract. things farther up the beach are really bugging down. it wasn't too much after that that the 27th regiment, i believe, yes, the 27th regiment, also of the fifth division, they got to the base of airfield number one. just a bit north of there. the toughest resistance, as they had anticipated, was around the quarry all the way on the right flank. a couple of the commanders figure that the -- those ports souls who was the right most man on the right most unit of the right most regiment on that side, you can only pity them and figure whether chances are going to be. here is what john lauren are said, a new york -- a new yorker reporter, about

the marines who landed on red beach. let me advance this slide. here they are heading to the beach. you can see mount suribachi on the front left in front of them. and there they are once they actually got to the sand. look, you can tell how soft that sand was that they are trying to navigate. here is what's john lardner said. looking around, i had a leisure for the first time to think was a miserable piece of real estate iwo jima is. no water. you birds. no butterflies. no discernible animal life. nothing but sand and clay. humpback hills, stunted trees, a grass where mites that carrie typhus lived, and a steady wind. that was the evil jima that

greeted them when they land. >> we were in uss lob. for breakfast in the morning we had steak and eggs. at the proper time, we climbed down the cargo nets and then rendezvous around the mothership. that at a designated time, we took off on a departure line, which is where we all lined up to head toward the landing beaches. the first waves that landed hit the beach. in an hour and a half or two hours we were clear across the neck of the island without meeting any resistance of any kind. i landed in the 13th wave at 1:00 and missed it by a minute or two of being right on schedule. by that time, i guess the best

way to describe it was all hell broke loose because the japanese had all their mortars, artillery, machine guns, everything, zeroed in on the beaches. they were giving us all they had. we hit the beach and the ramp went down and we all ran out. we hit the deck, so to speak. well, my first impression when i hit the beach on the island was that i could touch a dead marine with my left hand and one with my right hand. that's when the shock really hit me. i was in the midst of the real thing. i started to raise up. as i started to raise up, enemy machine gun knock that volcanic sand into my face. i ducked down, looked down to my right, and another landing craft was coming in. as the ramp went down, a mortar

shell went amidst the men running off. i quickly decided the beach was no place to be and took off running. from shell hole to shell hole. to me, it's still a mystery how myself and my 18 men all arrived at the right place at the right time, the designated spot. >> pretended warren mush was the battalion intelligence officer from one of the battalions in the 28th regiment. that was the regiment that had to take mount sarah bocce. by the time the battle was over, his regiment had suffered 70% casualties, which was pretty typical for the fighting troops at iwo jima. the main target for his regiment was mount suribachi. the defense was commanded by 2000 japanese soldiers.

but again, on d-day itself, they had already isolated monster about you from the rest of the island. and the battle was bloody, it was foot by foot. as the marines are finding their way up the slope of the hill, mainly on the north slope, that is obviously the one that was observing the rest of the island. and by d plus three, they had basically fought their way up all the way to the top. in fact, right at the end of d plus three, there was a small patrol that reached the top and able to come back down. there was not much resistance they had by that time. and they reported they were able to make it up to the top. the decision was made, well, let's move on d plus four. and more determined push, they would make the slope and secured permanently. about that same time, about a

force of 300 japanese decide that the gig is up on mount suribachi. it's time for us to move north because we're not going to be able to survive this. so a group of 300 japanese head north, only 20 of them were actually able to make it through the american lines to reach japanese forces. they are met by navy captain inoue, was one of the senior naval officers in the naval force there. and captain inoue was outraged. this is not with japanese soldiers are supposed to do. they are supposed to die in place and cause the enemy to bleed. here is wet he screamed out at these 20 who survived, especially to this lieutenant, a senior member of that group. you trader. why did you come here. don't you know what's shame is?

you are a coward and deserter. i shall condescend to behead you myself. so being a good samurai, he takes his sort out and he's about ready to decapitate this young lieutenant when his junior officers got a hold of him and grabbed the sword. he didn't actually do it. what is his response to that? he's reduced to tears. all he can say over and over again is, suribachi has fallen. sir about she has fallen. while he's trying. one of the more dramatic moments in a battle that has lots of dramatic moments. on d+4, you've got mount suribachi that gets isolated. you've got a small group that then goes for it and gets to the top with a flag, someone is

taken a flag with them, and the first flag raising occurs on d+4. this is a picture taken by a marine photographer. but that is the flag that the marines around the airstrip and the ships bombarding in supporting the landings, everybody sees this flag go up. everybody sees the moment where they realize there is a flag at the top of mount suribachi. there is this huge cry of cheering, the ships start to blast their horns, and they are excited because we have achieved something. it is at about that time that you have navy secretary james forestall whose with general smith. they have now landed in the vicinity of the airstrip.

he says, that would be something to have. i would like to have that flag. you can imagine with the commander of the troops that got it up there in the first place thought about some brass that wants to latch onto that flag. so lieutenant colonel chandler johnson decides we are going to secure that first flag, but i will have my man take another flag up there to replace it. we will give that first flag away. so that is what happens. they decided that they got a larger flag. several marines take it up to the crest of the hill, and that is around 1200 hours, noon.

it's that second flag now that you have a civilian photographer, joe rosenthal, who takes that picture. that's the famous picture. here's what forced all says to smith about that time. >> he says, holland, the raising of that flag on suribachi means the marine corps for the next 500 years. he knew the significance of that symbol that they had. a lot of people probably think that was the end of the fighting. no, the fighting is really just getting started on d+4. ábwlxso now r2 j9■we've got a sn that looks like this. they've got the rest of the island.

let's see, it's about right here at that particular point in time. they have the rest of the island to secure afterwards, and a very determined enemy to prevent them from doing just that. so, who is how i would explain this, combat on the will gmo, and i've spent a lot of time studying civil war battles where you see this regiment or that division or brigade moves their. there is none of that. it's all individual, small unit actions. a squad, maybe a platoon, somebody would have to step forward and take initiative. i was reading about one company that went through six company commanders in a single day. six. and oftentimes you had a squat or platoon that would be commanded by a corporal or a private first class or something like that.

somebody who was willing to step forward and take the initiative. the japanese had carefully set all their bunkers and pillboxes so they would be interlocking fire. you think you've accomplished one thing in before you know when you get fired from the flight. it was a bloody foot by foot slog that they had. when american artillery and mortar and air strike came in, the japanese would simply withdraw into their caves until it passed and then move forward again. they fought in place. they stayed in place. they willingly died in place. here's what's general smith, we just talked about him again, here's what he said about kuribayashi's japanese defenses. >> kuribayashi's ground organization was superior. the only way we can move was behind rolling artillery barrages. then we went in and reduced each position with fine throws,

grenades and demolition charges. some of his mortar and rocket launchers work cleverly hidden. we learned about them the hard way, through sickeningly heavy casualties. every cave, every pillbox, every bunker, was an individual battle where marines and japanese fought hand to hand to the death. i'm reading a lot of these quotes because i think that's the only way that i can begin to convey with the combat was actually like, here is one of the authors that i was reading and how he described it. one of the crucial weapons, and consider this is one of the crucial weapons, was the flame thrower. the flame thrower was the most practical weapon for clearing the enemy from caves, mailboxes and bonkers. horrific and its effect. it's saved the lives of countless marines, who would otherwise have had to pry the enemy out in hand to hand finding with an opponent who did not consider surrender an option. i don't know about you, but i

can't think of a more gruesome way to die then being engulfed by a flame thrower. one of the people who played a role was a gentleman i had the honor of intervene last year. her shoal woody williams, one of 27 combatants on iwo jima who ended up receiving the medal of honor. he was in the third division. that was basically the reserve division, but i think it landed on d+1 and was very quickly in the heat of the battle. here is what he said about being selected for a crucial mission. >> we went across the airfield, we had no protection. so we lost most of our people. just as a statistic, when we hit the beach, we had 275

people in our company. on march the 5th, we were down to 17. as we would try to breakthrough the pill boxes, they had all of the protection because they are in a confined area. we are in an open area, jumping out and trying to move forward. and of course, they would just mow us down. and my commanding officer had lost all of his officers except to. and all of his platoon leaders and gunnery sergeants and sergeants and squad leaders, they were gone. we were trying to breakthrough a line of pillboxes that had been built to protect the airfield. so that is when he called for a meeting of and ceos that were left in the company. so, we gathered in a great big shell crater that had been blown out, and we could get below ground in that shell crater. so that we at least would not

be shot at. he was looking for ideas and trying to figure out what we're going to do from here, because there was not very many of us left. that is when he asked me if i could use a flame thrower to eliminate some of the pillboxes. when i hit the beach, i had six individuals that were in my little unit, a special weapons unit. they were flying for demolition operators. by that day, the 23rd, we had only been there three days, they were gone. i did not have any left. i was the only flame thrower demolition guy in the company. so he asked me if i thought i could do something about some of the pillboxes with a flame thrower. and that was my job. i have no idea what i said in response to him. some of the other guy said,

later, that my response was, i'll try. so he gave me four marines to support me, to protect me, and i just said come with me. i put them in position to shoot at the pillboxes while i'm trying to get to the bill box. i put the flame to iran in took off. -- i put the flame thrower on and took off. >> i think he was too modest to talk about the event itself where he earned the medal of honor. so i would like to read the citation. quick to volunteer his services when our tanks were maneuvering mainly to open elaine for the infantry through the network of rainforest, conch -- reinforced concrete pillboxes, buried mines and black volcanic sent. corporal williams daringly went forward alone to attempt the reduction of devastating machine gun fired from the unyielding positions. covered only by four riflemen,

he fought desperately for four hours under terrific enemy small arms fire, and repeatedly returned to his own lines to prepare demolition charges and obtain serviced flame throwers. struggling back frequently to the rear of hostile emplacements to take out one position after another. on one occasion, he daringly mounted a pillbox to insert the nozzle of his plane throat through the air meant to kill the occupants and silence the guns. on another, he currently charged enemy riflemen who attempted to stop him with bayonet's and destroyed them with a burst of the flame thrower. his unyielding determination and extraordinary heroism in the face of ruthless enemy resistance were directly instrumental to neutralizing one of the most fanatical japanese strong points encountered by his regiment. that's the essence of his medal

of honor citation. those four riflemen or regarding him, i believe all four were casualties and two were killed. again, that tells you something about the ferocity. and it's only something of a small miracle that he survived. only to be injured at the very end of the iwo jima campaign. with all of these casualties that we've been talking about, you can imagine the field hospitals being filled up very quickly. i wanted to read this quote as well because i think it is indicative of the attitude, the spirit that the marines had at that time. and this is a comment that a surgeon, lieutenant graham evans, wrote to his wife in a letter. i've seen all the surgery i want for a while, he wrote. they come in with wounds that make you sick to look at, and they -- and you tell them they must be evacuated, and they cry. think about that.

it's for that kind of reason that admiral nimitz said about the brave -- bravery that he was seeing and it will jima. among americans who served at iwo jima, uncommon valor was a common virtue. and that very much, this will be replicated in okinawa as well, but that very much is what resonates about the battle of iwo jima i think. so the long haul. d+4, mounts are about she is ceased. increasingly, the challenge for the americans is to support the marines on the shore. and you can see landing craft on the beaches themself. these are landing ship tanks. both of the atlantic and pacific theater once you get in there. the challenge now is how do you supply this monstrosity.

and this is where, you can see the congestion that you have on the beaches, this is where the black marines in the army company were also performing most of their duties. crucial duties to make sure the supplies are moving forward. all the while, occasionally japanese far would end up in the midst of this as they're doing this work. february 21st, >> kamikaze attacks start. and where can they go? they can't go anywhere. the japanese know exactly where they're at. february 27th, airfield number two is seized. you're moving north by this time. an airfield number three by march 3rd. and again, the day was february 19th. to give you some sense of it. and again, general schmidt said

this will last for ten days. when we have a long way to go. march 4th, the first b 29, lands on airfield number one thing. and there it is. the dynamite. the dynamite. that was the name of the ship. it had a faulty fuel gauge, it had to land there in an emergency, they were able to fix the fuel gauge, philip and get it off. the first of hundreds, that will lend their. saving thousands of lives in the process. and that was one of the main reasons, that they thought iowa jima was worth the fight. . japanese counterattack. on march 8th, the japanese pose a significant night attack. 1500 japanese soldiers, a

mixture of troops,dtjs■and naval personnel. tñ of this? because remember, they said there is not going to be any bonsai charge. but that is what they're going to be doing. it is general send a, and the captain who is about to behead that young lieutenant, these are the two men that decided they were going to do a bonsai attack with 1500 japanese and their objective was to get all the way back so kuribayashi could raise the japanese flag. so exactly the opposite of what kuribayashi wanted. why did they do it? because they believed in that samurai code. and put yourself in the role of the average japanese soldier, what way would you prefer to die?

doug now i don't know if this is a factor, but in my mind, i will go to the bonsai rather than wake wait for a bunker somewhere to hold up, and way to be burned out. they attacked at 2400 hours, with some arms and grenades and swords. bamboo spears. they were quickly eliminated, by flares being fired by artillery and mortars. it wasn't too much of a surprise for the americans. they cut them down, as much as the americans could. for the bonsai attack. by the time was over, 800 japanese died in the attack. but not until there was hand-to-hand combat, and some touch and go experiences. i'm sure for the americans it was a terrifying experience for them. so, now we are starting to make progress. as we move farther north. so a series of dates, by march

9th, the third division patrols, reaching the northeast coast. close to -- that point. and here is where kuribayashi is deep in the bunker. by march 11th, the last escort here has departed. they are moving on to other targets. okinawa, and some of the other targets. air support is now the responsibility of the army. so now they begin to load for departure the plains, and they are the war department is tired of explain to the worried parents of the bloodletting that's going on at he would jima, they say that the island is mostly secured. march 16th, the last japanese resistance.

that's crushed. -- . general sandra, his body is never found. and only the northwest corner of the island, is still in japanese hands. march 20th, the fifth division, destroys the last japanese pocket of resistance. and the u.s. army, arrives for garrison duty. general kuribayashi and his staff, in that area i pointed out on the screen, the evening of march 23rd, general kuribayashi sends out one last message, to the japanese homeland. and he says this. goodbye. that was the only message. the night of march 25th and 26,

the survivors, but 200 300 of them, launched a desperate predawn attack. they slipped through the fifth marines, they attacked with knives, grenades, pistols, rifles and often firing at the gis in their sleeping bags. that is a bloody melee as well. but some african american troops come to the rescue, and blunt that attack. so 53 dead, and 119 wounded. the japanese lose 262. and in a rare occasion, 18 japanese men are captured. march 26th, at zero 800, the battle of iwo jima is completely done. and kuribayashi his body is never found.

maybe he committed suicide, or died in an a tech somehow, and he directed his soldiers, to bury him deep, so he would never be found again. and the battle lasted not ten days, as was initially predicted, but 36 days. from february 19th, through march 26th. so, that just leaves this. as marines, died in the wood jima, they had really nothing else you could do want to bury them there. 6821 did, and of course a lot of them, the nature of the wounds they kept dying. so that was the eventual death toll. but 19, 000, 217 wounded. a total of over 26,000 casualties on this one battle. against 21, 000, losses for the japanese. that is the highest, percentage total of american casualties

and japanese anywhere in the world. and it speaks to the ferocity of the battle. now those who have been to he would jima can verify this. those grays are no longer there. eva jima is japanese land, it was the first japanese territory, that the forces reached during world war ii and it's american policy, that we will not allow american soldiers or marine or the personnel to be buried buried on and we land i believe both of those have been brought back to hawaii but it's in all on inspiring sight to look at all those graves, perfectly aligned. 216 p.o.w.'s, and this is a curiosity, 3000 japanese hiding. a lot of those would've been people who are never found, because it burned out, they were destroyed, they committed suicide deep in these caves.

but that number of 216 p.o.w.'s, that continue to grow over the next few months, as some of these japanese would come out of their holes and surrender. even i believe, after the war officially ended in august. so, what is the next step? the navy brass again, they meet in september 1944. this is several months before the iwo jima battle itself. and they're trying to sort out what do we do after we do get iwo jima. what do we do after that? you've got the same kind of discussion, admiral king, still favors formosa down here. and most of the other brass, nimitz and certainly mcarthur, but nimitz is more a factor in this, what he says from iwo jima we go to okinawa. and okinawa, is much closer

than for melissa, it's a much smaller area. it's easier logistically. and that is the decision that is made. and the code name for okinawa, is iceberg. so we will end with this, the most famous pitcher of world war ii. the flag raising in iwo jima. the three gentlemen who are part of the seventh drive across the united states, and the story about the bond drive, and those gentlemen, and the debate about who was actually part of that six man crew who raised the flag in iwo jima is a mystery. and that is only recently been resolved. i have the next presentation here, on thursday september 3rd,

that's for okinawa. i hope you check that out as well. so here with a three, that went around the united states,. some of you are country western fans, you remember the song that johnny cashed it about ihra hayes. a native american. and here were the names of the people, initially at the time of the fund-raising drive, that they thought were actually in that picture. so here they are. three of them died in the battle. bradley had been wounded. that tells you something right there. of the six in this picture, which happen on d plus for at the end of iwo jima three were dead and one was wounded. but here's the curiosity.

now in 2019, those are the names that we attach. he is no longer in the picture it all. he is no longer in the picture at all, bradley. it's his son james bradley, that wrote it. and when he wrote it, he thought his dad was part of the flag raising. but his dad was always a face of about it and didn't want to talk about it at all. he would get calls, around memorial day, he would get calls from some journalist or somebody who want to sit down and interview him for a nice piece in the newspaper, and the family was instructed, tell them that my father is at his college fishing. that's what they would always say. and james bradley, finally did reach the conclusion himself,

that his father was not part of the flag raising. he was there, but not part of the six. there were not just these pitchers, there was actually motor motion picture film. and if you look here it's difficult to see. and all you can really see is the head of one of them. and in this picture but there are other ones, but a couple of these ones i think they determined that it wasn't actually bradley in the pitcher, because i think he was not wearing a ring, and the individual in the picture was wearing a ring. and that's something the marine corps did official studies to try to sort this all out. and iran hayes, insisted all along, that this was not you know if i can go back a slide here. that was not henry hansen. ihra hayes insisted all along, that that was harold black.

for harold block. and i believe it was his mother who looked at the pitcher initially, and insisted that that was my son. i know my son. i changed his diapers as a little boy. i've watched him growsú8x5 up. i know that butvo'm. let's [laughs] . for her it wasn't funny at all, it was an emotional thing. but she identified with that. and you know that your son, was at the most important pitcher world war ii. that is some comfort i guess anything else? thank you all. >> ladies and gentlemen, pack in, if you've noticed that we have a few heads here and there in the camera shots and we had a very small audience of family and close friends giving him encouragement tonight. for those of us in the room, let's give mark a big round of applause. [applause]

okinawa was a major battle of world war ii, it took place

from april through june of 1945, next historian mark depue details the u.s. strategy of invading the island and the japanese plans for defense which included kamikaze attacks on u.s. warships, he also describes the months of hard combat that resulted in the deaths of more than 12,000 u.s. soldiers, sailors and marines. over 200,000 military and civilian deaths. the abraham lincoln presidential library hosted this event and provided the video. >> okinawa, the doorstep of japan. the last battle of world war ii and if you recall, our conversation last time about you would jima, this is a larger, larger and bloodier version of it. the intensity of the combat was every bit the same but involved lots more troops on both