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The Battle of Iwo Jima (19 February – 26 March 1945) was a major battle in which the United States Marine Corps (USMC) and United States Navy (USN) landed on and eventually captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) during World War II.
For the conquest of Iwo Jima, the Marine Corps assigned three divisions, a total of almost 70,000 troops, in stark contrast to the single division tasked with capturing Guadalcanal in August 1942. The conquest of Iwo Jima took five weeks, far beyond the American estimates.
Japanese 120 mm gun after the battle on Iwo Jima (knocked-out prior to D-Day) Next to arrive on Iwo Jima were artillery units and five anti-tank battalions. Even though numerous supply ships en route to Iwo Jima were sunk by American submarines and aircraft, substantial quantities of materiel did
Arriving on Iwo Jima on 20 February 1945, the battalion brought its flame tanks and played an important role in the capture of the island. From Iwo Jima the battalion returned to the US via Guam. In Guam the battalion received 18 upgraded tanks produced by the Seabees that had been intended for the Army's 713th flame tank Battalion on Okinawa.
Iwo Jima's strategic importance was debatable.The Allies considered the island to be an important staging area for future invasion forces, however, after the Allies captured Iwo Jima, their focus shifted from using the island as a staging area to employing the island as a base for fighter escorts and the B-29 Superfortress bombers recovery.
Iwo Jima has a history of minor volcanic activity a few times per year (fumaroles, and their resultant discolored patches of seawater nearby). [20] In November 2015 Iwo Jima was placed first in a list of ten dangerous volcanoes, with volcanologists saying there was a one in three chance of a large eruption from one of the ten this century.
Locations of the Mariana Islands, Iwo Jima and Japan. The first Japanese air attacks on the B-29 bases occurred while they were under construction. Small numbers of Japanese aircraft flying from Guam, Peleliu, Iwo Jima and Truk made occasional raids on the American forces on Saipan during the fighting there, but caused little damage. [11]
On 25 March the Battle of Iwo Jima was declared over and the island secured, although mopping up continued until June. Construction Battalions extended and transformed the former Japanese fields to accommodate B-29s and the first AAF units moved in during the beginning of March.