Iwo Jima: The Graveyard for over 24.000 Men | Frontlines Ep 8

the front line is combat at its most brutal drives people to extreme acts for many complex reasons they were fighting for each other not for patriotism but for their bodies we reveal the most decisive front lines in the Second World War been to the heart of battle with the men who were there they were attacking with divisions and I had one rifle company with about a hundred men I was down to my last box of ammunition we had no food and we was hurting Iwo Jima 1945 a tiny island in the Pacific and the biggest Marine Corps battle ever when we landed on the beach it was absolute chaos but the war's most iconic image over Shadows combat in its most intense form a strapped on a flamethrower and went to work and the horrendous losses compel the Americans to relearn The Art of War as the brilliant Japanese Commander outmaneuvers his enemy General karabayashi figured out that defending the beach was actually a critical mistake Iwo jima's brutal Relentless Frontline stands as an enduring symbol of sacrifice and courage that's why I lost the best friend I've ever had in my life eyewitnesses called it a nightmare in hell when the brutal fight for Iwo Jima begins in February 1945 a quarter of all the U.S Marines killed in the Second World War will die on this Speck of land in the Pacific to the system for Americans the unrelenting level of casualties they only understand over time that Iwo Jima itself is also the enemy in Japanese it means sulfur Island pear-shaped it's 8 000 meters long and covers 20 square kilometers dominated by the dormant volcano mount suribachi so why does Iwo Jima become the graveyard for more than 24 000 men by late 1944 the Japanese are in retreat their once proud Fleet is virtually destroyed in history's largest naval battle at Leyte Gulf in October with the Allies now in total control of the air and oceans General McArthur returns to liberate the Philippines while the U.S Marines have paid a terrible price storming tiny Islands such as Saipan and Guam [Music] foreign but above and below ground it has been turned into a stronghold where the front line will witness new levels of Carnage the Marines have to attack the Japanese Defenders head on they have no choice because Iwo Jima is an island they can't sneak around the back they can't come in from the side they have to attack from the front over and over and over again and that leads to Mass Slaughter on both sides but they forgot to tell the Marines tasked with this seemingly impossible mission what lies ahead so nobody could imagine that it was going to take that long to take 36 days to take that little piece of rock and we didn't have any intelligence about the Rock at all February in 1945 they're confident that about 70 000 Marines will overwhelm around 21 000 Defenders foreign Iwo Jima sits mid-ocean between the Mariana Islands and Japan [Music] the U.S Pacific strategy now depends on huge B-29 bombers from the Marianas flying an extraordinary 2600 kilometers to [ __ ] Japan's War economy but Iwo Jima can warn the defenses increasing American casualties so we were using b-29s and of an highly skilled Americans we couldn't protect them and we had no way of rescuing him so they told me that's why we had had to take Iwo Jima by early 1945 Iwo Jima is strategically crucial to the Americans because an Airship at Iwo Jima could serve as a useful emergency landing strip for those b-29s potentially saving many American lives but various U.S delays play into the hands of the Japanese from May 1944 Lieutenant General tadamishi kuribayashi transforms the defenses using Miners and engineers as well as hundreds of artillery pieces his strategy is to inflict as many casualties as he can and sap America's will to fight on life on iojima wasn't bad in the beginning we had a control of the air and seat so it was a pleasant peaceful place Iwo Jima is actually considered part of the Japanese home territory and because of that it's very strategically and psychologically important to the Japanese how to fight until the last man is dead we must kill 10 of the enemy before giving up our own lives the key thing to remember about General curabayashi is that he had a chance to study the tactics that had worked study the defensive tactics that hadn't worked and he fed all of that into his defense of Iwo Jima the Americans are equally determined to avoid the previous horrendous casualty tolls with careful planning and months of softening up from August 1944 massive Air Force bombing rates start enhanced in December by shelling from U.S Navy cruises by the end of January 1945 Iwo Jima has been hit by 72 days of sustained airstrikes to prepare the ground for a mass amphibious assault by two divisions of Marines [Music] when we boarded the ship they brought out a board that had a diagram on it that outlined the looks of Iwo Jima and that's where we first learned where we were going and the name of it the big gun battleships and carrier aircraft start a targeted bombardment of the beach defenses the Marines demand 10 days but the Navy only agrees to three causing huge resentment that only deepens as poor weather severely hinders accuracy I could not forget the sight of dead Marines who had died assaulting defenses which should have been taken out by Naval gunfire the bombardment seems devastating but the Navy refuses to accept they are essentially firing blind you need a forward Observer who can see the target who can correct the Fire or the bombing to have real effect the kind of blind firing and blind bombing that they were doing before the troops landed doesn't really work all that effectively waves of carrier airstrikes increase the intensity as the big warships close in protected underground The Defenders are extremely well motivated but sometimes poorly equipped 60 men but only has 20 rifles and two small mortars I pondered how I would meet my end Iwo Jima will be our tomb rather than a dull regular rations the Marines are fed steak and eggs a treat only served on the eve of battle the Americans believe that the main danger point was the moment that the troops came ashore at the beach and so they worked all of their tactics and strategy to try and make that moment as overwhelmingly in their favor as possible if you are a Marine waiting to attack the shores of Iwo Jima it just gives you a bit of a morale boost to see that the Navy is doing its bit and you see huge explosions on the island the fifth Marine Division will land on the left by Mount suribachi and fourth division on the right confronting the first Airfield and Quarry Cliffs the Navy unleashes the heaviest shore bombardment of the whole Pacific War thank you waves of Landing crafts set off as squadrons of carrier strike aircraft hit the beach and mount suribatch's defenses [Music] the first waves of Marines travel in protected amtraks spearheaded by armored assault guns the Marines are met with sporadic fire and an open expanse of black volcanic ash that quickly bogs down both man and machine there are so many of them I saw their numbers swell from several hundred to a few thousand but the bombardment has worked the Japanese fire falls away [Music] however the advanced units still struggle to get just 300 meters in land as the landing Zone becomes congested foreign [Music] erupt the Japanese spring their trap their carefully hidden batteries create a bloodbath a vast array of artillery and huge mortars love massive shells into the tightly packed Marines causing Carnage [Music] we were under a tremendous artillery barrage I had a piece of shrapnel about the size of a small refrigerator that landed along the side of my shell hole this whole full of men boats and vehicles that there was no way to miss them military combat is often about learning what your opponent does what he had figured out was that defending the beach was actually a critical mistake General Curry bayash's troops remain concealed but his gun batteries decimate the thousands of men now caught on the open Beach [Music] the Japanese Defenders on Iwo Jima fire on the Marines American warships encircling planes quickly Target them a pulverized one gun emplacement a few survivors escape to the fury of their officer how dare you desert your post in the face of the enemy the Supreme Commander has forbidden retreat All Hands would defend their posts to the death their only alternative is execution the beach fills with casualties and Those About to become casualties usually with a devastating blast wound an injury either from explosive laid in the territory or very high velocity very large caliber weapons being fired at them it's also an environment that is particularly problematic for disease and wherever you have that you have particular problems for infection the Medics are forced to make brutal decisions triage only regime are like everything else in the medical sphere is really concentrated down to a very fine and really very difficult point in life or death strong enough to live or have to be left to die [Music] about one in three of the Marines become casualties on the Left Flank armored vehicles support the 28th regiment's attack on suribachi its layers of mines and bunkers are held by an enemy determined to fight for every Rock we were charging downhill into fortified pill boxes and bunkers that stretched all the way across the base of suribachi the only cover we had was shell holes and bomb craters on the right flank one battalion assaults the quarries heavily defended Cliffs 750 of the 900 men are killed or wounded that day Iwo Jima is a very tough experience for the U.S marine progress is extremely slow on the American side sometimes a few meters a day it's always a fight you to death because these soldiers do not surrender in many ways the Marines are fighting Iwo Jima itself as much as the Japanese thanks to the tactics of General Curry bayashi his Innovative plan combines three elements forbidding Banzai suicide charges that expose his troops to the immense U.S Firepower [Music] holding every position to the death while never surrendering and completely exploiting the terrain by the time the Americans invaded the Japanese had built an interlocking network of defensive fortifications they could bring Firepower just about anywhere on the island that protected the Japanese soldiers and that enabled them to move around without detection by The Americans [Music] the Japanese have fortified the island exploiting its natural features to the full caves tunnels Ravines and ridges 1500 hidden pill boxes are armed with hundreds of heavy guns and mortars buried deep inside concrete bunkers block houses or reinforced caves [Music] 18 kilometers of tunnels linked Subterranean command posts ammunition dumps and Living Spaces [Music] these impregnable positions defy the American Firepower and prowess of the Marines who fall far short of their objectives on day one [Music] reaching just the fringes of Mount suribachi the first airfield's perimeter and the cliffs by the Quarry the just 18 hours U.S casualties surpass 2 300. I don't know who he is but the Japanese General running this show is one smart bastard the Relentless Japanese shelling continues overnight and the Frontline reporters witnessed the dawn Carnage it's like a nightmare in hell they died with the greatest possible violence nowhere in the Pacific have I seen such badly mangled bodies many were cut squarely in half legs and arms lay 50 feet away from anybody [Music] heavy fighting the Marines Advance just 70 meters towards suribachi it was an awful sight to burn them alive we could hear the screams on a daily basis I saw the after effects which were grisly each man should think of his defense position at his graveyard fight unto the lust and inflict much damage to the enemy the fighting on Iwo Jima quickly descends to new levels of barbarity No Quarter is asked or given one of our comrades was captured by the Japanese and pulled into a cave where they tortured him by splitting his finger webs up to his wrists he was screaming uncontrollably [Music] the Japanese always fight to the last man but beyond the appalling conditions the cruel behavior of the competence on both sides is partly fueled by racial hatred The Savage fighting in Iwo Jima in part is a consequence of two racial groups who have both encouraged their troops to think of the enemy as not being human so that they're much more willing to commit atrocities the racist approach of dehumanizing the enemy applies to both sides on the conflict so the Japanese do it to the Americans and the Americans do it back to the Japanese and we can see it very clearly here from this poster where there's the phrase death trap for the jab and it's a way of encouraging soldiers to be particularly brutal in battle so you can see in this poster here that the Japanese it's got crawl like hands which are soaked in blood he's depicted as evil aggressive not a human being so this is direct brutal racist propaganda used to inspire American troops this kind of racial animosity on both sides the Americans seeing the Japanese as inferior and the Japanese seeing the Americans as weak really fed into the fighting on Iwo Jima both sides were dehumanizing the other side using a lot of really nasty and barbaric techniques and then the Japanese hit the Americans with another truly shocking tactic foreign offshore the veteran Fleet carrier USS Saratoga suddenly detects waves of aircraft on its radar and scrambles fighters to join its circling Interceptor Force but they are overwhelmed by these Japanese fanatics 50. divine wind kamikaze pilots whose planes are their bombs they're not the first such suicidal attacks they had started five months earlier [Music] the few that survived the wall of anti-aircraft Fire Smash Into the Saratoga and sink a smaller carrier killing over 350 American sailors this front line no longer has any rules evidence suggests some kamikaze pilots are high on crystal meth but they're extraordinary attacks are motivated by something deeper [Music] almost six thousand young men were involved in Kamikaze attacks and you have to ask the question why would a 20 year old some even as young as 17 sacrifice their life at this early point they were enshrined in this belief of Bushido of loyalty to the nation loyalty to the emperor a salute sacrifice for a higher cause and persuaded to do it for their families and the good of the country ritual is very important in persuading young men to depart on a suicide mission one of the things they would wear would be a samurai headband which indicates that they are willing to die for the cause it was a way of reinforcing in the Pilot's mind that he really had to do this this was his fundamental duty to the nation and the m The Defenders of Mount suribachi follow the same code virtually none surrender after four days on the island the Marines have suffered over 4 500 casualties e-company 2nd battalion 28th Marines finally stormed the rim of suribachi's crater Ray is a small flag on a piece of pipe as recorded by Marine photographer Sergeant Louis Lowry but this is not the iconic picture that fills the world's front pages that has taken spontaneously by ap's Joe Rosenthal when a much bigger flag is brought up [Music] then everything broke loose down below the troops started cheering ships blew their whistles and horns it's something you don't forget it really seemed to summarize a moment of Triumph when these tired these exhausted these wounded Americans had overcome Japanese resistance and had managed to raise Old Glory over the most dominating feature in Iwo Jima it summarized a moment of Triumph for Americans watching on the beach the head of the U.S Navy understands the significance of the moment foreign of that flag on suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next 500 years the Marines may have raised their flag but we still held most of the island the island is now split in two but the reserve third Marine Division has had to land to compensate for the appalling losses to the 4th and fifth divisions in the center Corporal Herschel Woody Williams leads his unit's attack to take the second Airfield we became the spearhead of the group blind crashed the Airfield we lost a tremendous number of marine because there's no protection tanks try to clear a path but are blocked by devastating fire from rows of bunkers they were reinforced concrete Bill boxes a bomb hitting it wouldn't destroy it artillery hitting the front of it wouldn't do it Bazookas wouldn't do it because it was so thick Corporal Williams is commanding officer asks if he will try to burn out the bunkers marriage March was I'll try but he gave me for a Marines their job was to whatever pill box I selected that I was going to try to burn out they were to fire at that pill box to keep them from being able to fire for me toe I strapped on a flamethrower and went to work during the course of four hours most of it is absolute no memory I don't know why I eliminated or burned out seven of those the cumbersome rig makes him an easy target the heavy tanks can project Flames effectively up to 20 meters but only for eight seconds and Corporal Williams has to use six separate flamethrowers but getting rid of seven of those pill boxes that gave us an opening so that we could get through right through their line I sealed a lot of caves and I blew up a few pill boxes uh but I never used a flamethrower again his actions that day when him America's highest Military Award the Medal of Honor after six days the Marines now battle for the main runway on the second Airfield the cost now exceeds one thousand American lives with more than 3 700 wounded as a result of the Savage combat it's virtually impossible to estimate Japanese casualties at Key moments any records that were kept have been lost Major General Erskine the commander of the third division comes ashore on the 24th of February private Don Mates is part of his bodyguard detail when we landed on the beach it was just absolute chaos they hadn't yet started to bury any of the bodies they were bloated they were maggots there were Parts about these there were Marines they were had no head missing legs private mates God's the General on his way to the front line right in the center of the island their Advance is blocked by more High Ground rising to 116 meters the third and fourth divisions combine in the assault but the few men that reached the summit are quickly surrounded by the Japanese only a hasty barrage of smoke allows the Marines to withdraw an advance of less than 100 meters that day has cost 500 more casualties the area now earns its nickname the meat grinder they were ripped apart turned to shred and Scattered isotosis with no limbs dismembered legs arms and hands an internal organ splashed on the rocks the Japanese used The High Ground to Shell the Marines with a particularly devastating weapon the ghost rocket or 320 millimeter spigot mortar a spigot motor is bigger than a 55 gallon oil drum it's just loaded with explosives it's a rocket propelled and it tumbles it blew a tremendous hole in the ground you'd bleed from the ears everybody from the nose the huge screaming missile rounds hit them day and night so General Erskine calls for eight volunteers and we've set out on February 28th to look for these spigot Motors and see where they were coming from climbing to the Ridgeline between two Hills that is still held by the Japanese it overlooked and opened my sulfur pit and when a shell would come and land in the sulfur pit it would ignite the sulfur but what came out of the sulfur fumes were the Japanese who were coming at us we know we're in big trouble the battle lasted about three hours and thank God we had grenades the way we did I read to me was bayonetted that McCluskey they never found his body that's so he died of wounds received Garrett for some reason the Japanese bayonetted him and they took his rifle and left their rifle just something symbolic Tribble and I did the best we could to hold him off there was no talking there was just screaming but one sound would always stand out the Japanese armed their grenades by hitting them together I didn't hear the click but Trimble did he hollered grenades and I blew away the Japanese who got within a couple feet of me grenades came flying in and peppered Jimmy's back and broke both of my legs when I looked down my crotch was just a bloody mess as well as the blast injury the shrapnel Cuts him apart Blanchard picked me up carried me back white put on tourniquets he took my my belt took his belt and did both my legs with my advantage and his bandages but his buddy Jimmy Trimble is killed we know that Don must have been pretty badly injured because the field medic from his unit is looking to control the bleed applies not only a field dressing in a bandage as a tourniquet but also a belt belts are ideal they've got a buckle which means you can tighten them as far as they'll go and then they'll hold there there must have been enough exposed Flesh on his wound for the field medic to be really worried about infection so he sprinkles sulfur over the open soft tissue damage Sulfur powder is a very basic antibiotic used to stop the spread of bacterial infection and Corman came along and I gave me a shot of morphine that morphine just spreads a warm feeling over you and you just completely relax and the pain goes away it's just marvelous he's evacuated but all the hospital ships are full so private mates operation is on a troop ship in the kitchen and where he was given The Cutting Edge of infection control this is penicillin and this is in tablet form and we also know that that's where things started to go wrong that's where I got a shot of penicillin and it turned out that I'm allergic to penicillin because I went into a coma for 10 or 11 days and your blood pressure drops down to nothing and your skin just peels right off [Music] the people who invented and developed penicillin had a sense that the allergic reaction was going to be a problem they didn't at this stage know exactly how much but people like Don bring it home to them that nothing is a straightforward win whatever progress we make is often checked and we have to be brave enough to understand that this may happen Don unfortunately was at the sharp end of that he has flown home for a long convalescence they can't use penicillin they're back to solve for drugs and this is a long and difficult process to manage his wounds and his General Health for the rest of his life only in 1982 does Don mates undergo his last operation to remove bits of Iwo Jima from his body [Music] whatever is thrown at them the Defenders fight on even when cut off without food water or ammunition ensign omagary hides himself amongst the bodies and then tries to blow up a U.S tank as it passes by dead were no longer seen as human beings but as objects even the dead were called to fight Ensign or McGarry and his men remain loyal to their military code inspired by their unwavering Commander so here we have a letter from General Curie bayashi who's the commander-in-chief on Iwo Jima and he's writing to his daughter takako so here in the letter he's describing the dream that he's had about how they will be reunited at some point in the future but he knows he's gone to war he knows he's not going to survive this battle he won't see his family again and this is him he's a cultured man expressing how he feels and trying to understand the position he's in so these letters are an enormously important source of how Japanese soldiers were thinking and feeling it's the major way we know about how they suffered and how they coped with the intense stress of these battles the Japanese Defenders on Iwo Jima are motivated by the Bushido culture the idea that you can't surrender you must fight to the death you can't let the emperor down official Japanese military ethics described surrender as one of the most shameful things you could possibly do the constant combat 24 7 sometimes with 50 unit casualties or worse begin to sap even the Marines renowned fighting spirit when you get to a stage where you're completely exhausted because you live in constant fear you haven't slept because you haven't really eaten and this is where Drew kicks in comrade ship for a better word quite often does play a role so that you are actually fighting and keep going not only for you but for the people to the left and right of you rotations off the front line plus the regular supply of food ammunition and reinforcements keep the Marines in the fight bolstered by the supporting Firepower volleys of rockets mounted on trucks become more effective as they are now targeted by forward Observers the Americans have to figure out ways to get the Japanese up out of these buried fortifications without risking their own lives and so they were willing to use just about any tactics to do that whether it be flame throwers white phosphorus incendiary devices satchels of TNT that they threw down into the bunkers and killing them meant using a lot of really nasty and barbaric techniques these slowly begin to blow blast and burn the Japanese inside their bunkers caves and tunnels many are just sealed inside and left to die other caves are found filled with the wounded who have committed suicide flamethrower tanks increased the Napalm Inferno you Japanese who seem to surrender often detonate hidden grenades in an attempt to kill their captors Knight holds a particular Terror as Japanese attacks often end in brutal knife and grenade fights at Close Quarters slowly the Marines push further east taking heavy casualties for every piece of land after more than two weeks of Slaughter the Japanese hold out along the northern and Eastern sections of the island our strong points might be able to fight delaying actions for several more days I comfort myself a little seeing my officers and Men die without regret after struggling in this inch by inch battle against an overwhelming enemy but General Curry bayashi is being premature somehow his beleaguered forces will hold out for another three weeks the crippled B-29 Superfortress approaches Iwo Jima and is able to land even Under Fire after 14 days of nothing but conflict and casualties the Americans finally have something to cheer about Dynamite is quickly repaired on the new U.S Airfield in the shadow of suribachi the Marines now enter a lunar landscape of Hills valleys Ravines and canyons which tanks can't penetrate every Mound hides a defensive position while any movement attracts fire Corporal Woody Williams is one of the few original Marines still left in the fight we were the first group to reach the northern shore of the island that was five miles from where we started when we hit the beach we had about 278 people in Sea company that was the company I was in and on March the 5th we were down to 17. but we got some Replacements and the next morning we were ordered into to the attacks peace shrapnel caught up with me and the corpsman came and practically cut my dungarees off and uh took this rapper out of me put some software drugs on then put a pressure Madness around my leg and then put a tag on me when he ties you and tells you that you must go back you got to go back but those are the instructions really critical that we have some sense of who the pain it is so this is another really well thought through well-designed piece of Kit and we haven't done much better than this today it's the book of emergency medical tags and it's effectively the medical record of every single casualty you fill it in you tear on away and it contains details really important details like the name of the casualty where they were wounded in most important of all the time that they were wounded the idea is that the patient will be got back to somewhere like the hospital ship and they'll probably need surgery and before you can give them the right amount of anesthetic or indeed any more morphine we need to know what chemicals he's already got in his bloodstream and most importantly of all a little bit of string that ties the tag to the bottom of whatever bit of the uniform is left so that properly stays with the casualty he tagged me and told me now you got to go back and because of the new Marines and so few of us still left and knew what the heck we were doing I said I'm not going to go so I reached up and pulled the tag off and I said I'm not going to go I don't have a tag on me but in just a short time after that my assistant came running by me and uh mortar cutting smack dab in the center of the head and killed him instantly that's why I lost the best friend I've ever had in my life we were much closer than I was to any of my brothers because our lives depended on each other when we do that the two had made a solemn pact to return the other's favorite Signet ring to their families if either fell he was stretched out on the ground and there was that ring and that's a court martial offense to take anything off of a dead Marine they tell you that verse cringedly very forcefully but I've made that pact with him and I said Court martial me a court martial me so I finally got the ring off call for Williams kept his word and returned the ring to his Fallen comrades family in America [Music] his third division finally breaks out to the furthest Coast pinching out a Japanese salient The Defenders only hold out in Pockets to the Far East and Northern tip which now earns its nickname Death Valley with American casualties now exceeding 11 000. anger grows on the home front of the appalling scale of the losses the American public wasn't really used to getting reports of massive casualties the government actually starts to get very worried that American homefront morale is going to crumble under the pressure they declare victory at home it's a lie but it's a lie that's designed to make Americans feel better about what's happening Iwo Jima is declared secure on the 14th of March if this damn place has been secured where the hell is all this gunfire coming from public opinion is extremely important to support Armed Forces when they're in combat and even though there was some censorship of the news media during the time there was also quite a few headlines about just how difficult the fighting on Iwo Jima was with headlines talking about casualties reaching 6 000 individuals next page here taken a couple of days later where gaining 400 yards during the battle was seen as worthy of a headline and moving to our last wand they start to actually question whether the price is worth paying the Armed Forces need to have the support of the public they're the ones who are sending their sons brothers and husbands overseas to fight and if public support drops for a war then your country's in trouble [Music] further proof of the racial undertones is even evident on the front pages and here we have an example of a headline yank planes using Iwo second nip Airfield near capture needless to say not the sort of language that we would use to denote the enemy these days the main resistance is now focused on General Curry bayashi's bunker headquarters in Death Valley the enemies bombardments who are very severe so Fierce that I cannot express or write it here it takes the Marines 10 days to clear them out at the cost of over 1700 more casualties the intensity of the sustained Combat on Iwo Jima is in part demonstrated by the number of medals awarded America's highest military decoration is the Medal of Honor Marines win 22 of the 27 awarded on Iwo Jima the most in any single battle [Music] two of the things that motivate soldiers are promotion and medals this is a bronze star awarded for meritorious or heroic conduct by members of the American armed services to receive a bravery award in any armed forces is a sign of courage and achievement particularly with your peer group and that is a big motivator my life completely changed the day that I received the Medal of Honor it probably was the best thing that happened to me I was forced to talk about what happened and those moments of of emotion and those moments of the memories that you can't forget and I think it was a therapy for me thank you after 36 Days of Slaughter the capture and occupation phase ends Iwo Jima is deemed to be conquered no one knows how General karibayashi died and his men fight a guerrilla War for months before a few hundreds surrender in small groups in 1968 America hands sovereignty of Iwo Jima back to Japan nearly 6 000 Marines were killed and over 17 000 wounded along with more than 880 American Navy fatalities it's estimated Japan loses around 18 to 20 000 men a terrible price paid to win a refuge for damage B-29 bombers but over 2250 will make emergency Landings on Iwo Jima however many now argue a lot of them would have limped home anyway given the level of casualties that the U.S took to take Iwo Jima it's hard to see how there could have been enough b-29s and their crew saved from the emergency airstrip to balance that out I have a hard time saying that this was completely without meaning or that they shouldn't have done it in retrospect because no matter what happened no matter which Iowans they invaded it was going to be a horrific Bloodbath Iwo Jima is the clearest warning yet of the horrors that lie ahead for a full-scale invasion of Japan with an estimated body count of well over 2 million casualties the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 brings the war to a shocking close

Channel: hazards and catastrophes

Views: 581,658

Keywords: world war 2 documentary, documentary world war 2, history documentary, documentary ww2, world war 2 battle, iwo jima, u.s. marines, battle of iwo jima, sulfur island, american invasion of japan ww2, Suribachi, pacific campaign, pacific campaign ww2, pacific war ww2, Imperial Japanese Army, pacific war, pacific war documentary, iwo jima documentary, marines documentary, us marines, documentary iwo jima, us marines battle, pacific war battle, imperial japanese navy

Id: 5lUlgWlR6-A

Length: 51min 35sec (3095 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 17 2023