The 76th Anniversary of Iwo Jima: Was it Worth the Sacrifice?

There has been controversy for years about Iwo Jima and whether or not it was worth all the sacrifice to seize this island (7,000 KIAs (Killed-in-Action) and 19,000 WIAs (Wounded-in-Action)). For decades after the war, many politicians and even historians said it saved more lives than it took in the overall view of the Pacific War—this, unfortunately, is patently false. Some historians estimate taking the island may have saved more lives than it took since, they argue, 25,000 airmen may have used the island as a safe haven after experiencing mechanical problems or combat damage on the flights to and from their Mariana bases en route to Japan. However, historian and USMC Lt. Colonel Robert Burrell argues the operation did not come close to saving that many. Historians Ronald Spector and Gerhard Weinberg say there were 2,400 “emergency” landings (if an average crew had 11 men, then one gets roughly 25,000 crewmembers out of these landings), but dispute that those landings saved all the crews. Historian Richard Frank says there were actually 3,092 landings due to battle damage or fuel shortage, although he further writes there is no way of knowing whether they “saved” the men because they could have made it on to the Marianas or could have successfully ditched and been recovered. By this reckoning, that these landings actually saved so many is an “illusion.” Iwo indeed provided some planes a safe place to land when they needed to repair, refuel or rearm, but most of their crewmembers were not “saved” by the island changing hands.

The 20th Army Air Force lost 218 B-29s out of 2,148 in combat. At its zenith, XXI Bomber Command consisted of 1,000 B-29s, so Iwo could not have “saved” 2,400 planes. In fact, there were only 2,242 B-29s at war’s end. The overstatement that the takeover of the island saved tens of thousands was used to justify the losses incurred while taking Iwo. USN Admiral Charles Adair, a “senior amphibious operations planner” of the 7th Fleet, said the invasion did not save anywhere near 25,000 airmen. Marine correspondents and historians have written that within three months of securing Iwo, more than 850 B-29s made emergency landings there—up to 9,350 crew members may have been saved, which was more than died taking the island if these numbers are accurate, but definitely much less than 25,000 cited in earlier works. General of the Army Henry “Hap” Arnold wrote in the summer of 1945 that the island supported three landing fields for three groups of fighter escort P-51s (circa 480 planes) and had provided safe landings for 1,299 “crippled planes or planes out of gas” according to historian Bill Yenne. If these landings saved their crews, then 14,289 men could have possibly been spared. This is a far cry from 25,000 and it’s impossible to prove these landings saved those men. Iwo did save lives, but the actual count remains controversial.

The sole reason given by General of the Army Arnold and Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz for taking Iwo was to provide a fighter base to escort bombers. The range of fighters was not as long as that of bombers, and specifically did not extend from the Marianas to Japan. Having fighter planes on Iwo allowed fighters to accompany B-29s on their bombing runs, protecting the crews and allowing them to bomb from lower altitudes, although the Japanese air force threat was basically finished by this time.

There were other, less compelling, reasons for taking the island. Because of its position on the route the B-29 bombers used, American commanders concluded that conquering the island prevented the Japanese on it from using their radar to detect the bombers and warn the mainland to scramble its fighters and alert antiaircraft batteries. Yet there were other islands nearby like Chichi Jima, and the Japanese there could also warn the mainland once they saw the same aircraft. On the other hand, the logic of this argument breaks down when one thinks about the inefficient manner of such a warning system. True, the enemy could see planes in the air over their Bonin Islands, but they had no way to know where these bombers would attack; and alerting the entire nation that planes were coming was not practical. Considering the Japanese homeland extends from north to south 1,869 miles, it would be like seeing planes in the sky over Hawaii, and then facing the decision of which West Coast city or state to warn planes were coming—Oregon? California? Portland? San Diego?

Some have argued taking the island prevented Japan from using it as an “island aircraft carrier” from which to send planes to attack bombers on their way to and returning from Japan. In addition, taking the island, they argued, would prevent Japanese planes from using it as a staging area to attack Saipan, which they had done in October 1944, leaving the base there with “burned and blasted B-29s.” Notably, by February 1945, the Iwo airfields were not functioning and Kuribayashi had few airplanes left. Iwo had been neutered as an airbase by months of bombing attacks and naval shelling. Chichi Jima and Haha Jima nearby had airfields, but by February they also had been rendered useless by bombing, and the higher-ups did not conclude they had to be conquered to decommission them. The U.S. Army Air Force’s history concluded: “Japanese raids against B-29 bases, though troublesome, were not important enough alone to have justified the cost of capturing Iwo Jima.”

Taking Iwo could possibly have saved billions of dollars’ worth of hardware instead of losing it to the ocean’s depths when planes ditched (in 1945, one B-29 cost $640,000 which was equivalent to $9,033,096.63 in 2019). There were indeed numerous B-29s that used the island instead of the ocean to land. With more than 117 planes needing Iwo to land, someone in the quartermaster’s office could calculate Iwo had saved $1 billion worth of hardware, not to mention the millions expended training the planes’ personnel. So, an economic argument could justify taking the island, if not for the fact that most citizens do not accept trading riches for lives. In the final analysis, there was one reason for taking the island that many had no clue about, but was indeed an important one: Having the island under American control allowed the U.S. to have a Plan B for the atomic bombs.

In case Nimitz had any doubts about the battle, a Washington emissary, U.S. Navy Commander Frederick L. Ashworth, hand delivered a top-secret letter from U.S. Army Major General Leslie Groves of the Manhattan Project just before Iwo that emphasized the importance the island being held for a “super bomb.” Nimitz pleaded with Ashworth to use atomic bombs on Iwo and Okinawa for which he was planning attacks. Ashworth told Nimitz they were on a strict schedule, but securing Iwo was imperative to deploying this weapon. Nimitz was disappointed, but assured Ashworth he would take the island before August. Had U.S. Air Force Colonel Paul Tibbets, the Enola Gay pilot who dropped the first atomic bomb, had mechanical problems flying from Tinian, he would have landed at Iwo and transferred his crew and bomb to another B-29 aptly named Top Secret. A loading pit and an emergency crew had been readied for this Plan B.

Had the U.S. been forced to conquer Japan with more conventional means, Iwo Jima would have played a major role in bringing down Hirohito’s Empire. There was no way of knowing whether deploying atomic bombs would convince the Japanese to surrender, so having the island for the continuation of a conventional war was part of the strategic groundwork required to attack Japan if necessary. As the truism states, it is better to be prepared for a situation and not have it than to have the situation and be unprepared. The victory at Iwo allowed for preparation for what would have been the largest amphibious invasion in history. Knowing this, it is easier to accept that Iwo was taken at a horrible cost “for an objective that never fulfilled the intended purposes” according to historian Robert Burrell.

So there were many benefits, realized and unrealized, exaggerated and real, for taking the island, and in the end, it was one of the best stepping stones to defeat Japan by bringing weapons, men and ships closer to its home islands, thus saving lives by ending the war sooner. Justifying the horrible carnage on Iwo is complicated. “There is no way for the calculus of war to achieve closure, nor for the calculus of life” according to historian Eric Hammel. In the end, Iwo’s conquest helped the war strategically and provided a forward base for the U.S. in case it had to execute the invasion of Japan, Operation Olympic.

To learn more about the battle of Iwo Jima, see “Flamethrower”:

https://www.amazon.com/.../173453.../ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0...

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