The battle of Ewoima was fought for over a month on a rocky area of only 21 square kilometers.

It’s basically the size of the small city of Parody in Rio de Janeiro.

It was filled with underground tunnels that housed and supplied the Japanese.

The island of Ioima was not a densely populated territory, nor particularly important from a cultural or social standpoint for Japan.

Geographically, it was an obscure and remote location situated in the far northwest of the Pacific Ocean.

There were no cities, villages, or outposts.

It was a small island about 21 square km, and its terrain was extremely hostile, composed of volcanic rocks where little vegetation could grow, making it impossible to sustain life.

There was no civilian population there.

Every person present was a Japanese soldier determined to fight to the death to defend the island.

However, Iuima was strategically located between Tokyo and the American territory of Guam, making it an ideal point for the Allied forces during World War II.

The Allies intended to use it as an observation post and a base for air missions against Japan.

For the Americans, the island would also serve as an emergency landing strip.

However, before that, they needed to drive the Japanese out in a bloody and brutal battle, made worse by the island’s small size and rugged terrain.

Get ready.

Despite the relatively small size of the island, the Battle of Eoima involved an astonishing number of combatants.

Among the US Marines of the V Amphibious Corps and several US Navy battalions, about 70,000 Americans fought on the island in 1945.

Defending the territory were 22,600 Japanese soldiers.

The fighting lasted for 36 days, resulting in devastating losses for both sides.

The American forces suffered 6,821 deaths and about 20,000 serious injuries, marking the highest number of casualties in the history of the US Marine Corps.

More than 3,000 Marines never left the island, including two cameramen who filmed the conflict.

The Japanese military presence was almost completely annihilated.

Of the 22,600 soldiers, most of whom were forcibly conscripted, around 18,800 died in the battle, resulting in an 85% death rate.

Another 216 Japanese soldiers were captured as prisoners of war.

Of the 82 Marines who received the Medal of Honor for their service throughout World War II, 22 fought at Ewoima and 14 of them were awarded postumously.

In June 1944, Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi was assigned to command the defense of Ewoima.

Kuribayashi knew that if the Americans decided to land on Ewima, his garrison could not win the battle, but he hoped to inflict heavy casualties on the American forces so that the United States along with its Australian and British allies might reconsider the invasion of Japan’s main islands.

Inspired by the Japanese defensive tactics used in the battle of Pelu, Kuribayashi designed a defense strategy that broke with traditional Japanese military doctrine.

Instead of setting up defenses on the beach to directly contest the landings, he opted for defense in depth.

Kuribayashi’s troops built a complex system of interconnected fortifications, often linked by a vast tunnel network equipped with heavy machine guns and artillery.

Takichi Nishi’s armored tanks were camouflaged and used as static artillery positions.

Since the tunnel connecting Mount Suribachi to the rest of the island was never completed, Kurabayashi organized the southern area of the island and the area around the mountain as a semi-independent sector with his main defensive zone built in the north.

The anticipated American naval and aerial bombardment led to the creation of an extensive tunnel network connecting scattered combat positions so that a shelter that had been cleared could later be reoccupied.

This network of bunkers and shelters strongly favored the defense and was designed for prolonged resistance.

For example, the Nanpo bunker, Southern Island Air Headquarters, located east of airfield number two, had enough food, water, and ammunition for the Japanese to hold out for 3 months.

The bunker was 27 m underground and had tunnels in various directions.

Approximately 555gal drums filled with water, kerosene, and fuel oil for generators were stored within the complex.

Gasoline powered generators enabled the operation of radios and lighting underground.

When the Americans invaded on February 19th, 1945, 18 km of a planned 27 km tunnel system had already been excavated.

In addition to the Nanpo bunker, there were numerous other command centers and quarters 23 m below ground.

The tunnels allowed troops to move undetected between various defensive positions.

Hundreds of hidden artillery and mortar positions were placed throughout the island and many areas were extensively mined.

Among the Japanese weapons were 320 mm mortars and a variety of explosive rockets.

However, the Japanese supply situation was inadequate.

The troops were receiving only 60% of the ammunition normally considered sufficient for a single division battle and food for a maximum of 4 months.

Numerous sniper nests and camouflaged machine gun positions were set up.

Kuribayashi designed the defenses so that every part of Ioima was subject to Japanese defensive fire.

He also received a limited number of kamicazi pilots to use against the enemy fleet.

Their attacks during the battle killed 318 American sailors.

However, against his will, Kuribayashi’s superiors in Honshu ordered him to construct some beach defenses.

Starting on June 15th, 1944, the US Navy and the US Army Air Forces began coastal bombardments and air attacks against Ewima, which would become the longest and most intense preliminary bombardments of the Pacific theater.

They consisted of a combination of naval artillery attacks and aerial bombings that lasted 9 months.

Unaware of Kuribayashi’s tunnel defense system, some American planners assumed that most of the Japanese garrison had been killed by the constant bombardments.

On February 17th, 1945, the destroyer USS Blessman deployed underwater demolition team 15 UDT-15 to Blue Beach on Ewima for reconnaissance.

They were spotted by Japanese infantry and attacked, killing one American diver.

On the night of February 18th, the Blessman was hit by a bomb dropped by Japanese aircraft, killing 40 sailors, including 15 members of the UDT.

Unlike the days before the invasion, the morning of the landing, D-Day, was clear and bright.

1 minute before the scheduled time, the first wave of Marines landed on the beaches in the southeast of Ewima’s coast.

Unfortunately for the landing forces, military strategists in Pearl Harbor had completely misjudged what General Schmidt and his marines would face.

The beaches had been described as excellent, and advancing inland was expected to be easy.

In reality, after crossing the beaches, the Marines were met with slopes about 5 m high, formed by volcanic ash sand.

This not only made it difficult for the soldiers to advance, but also hindered the construction of improvised fortifications such as trenches to protect the Marines from enemy fire.

However, the volcanic ash helped absorb the impact of fragmentation projectiles from Japanese artillery.

To the Allies surprise, the first troops to land faced virtually no resistance.

This lack of response from the defenders led the US Navy to assume that their pre-invasion bombardment had been successful and so the Marines began landing in good order on the coast of Ewima.

All of this, however, was part of General Tadamichi Kuribayashi’s plan.

The Japanese allowed the Americans to land in complete silence, also letting the Marines advance across the volcanic sandy terrain, unaware of the danger.

After allowing the Americans to clog the beach with men and equipment, waiting at least an hour, Kuribayashi ordered his soldiers to open fire.

Soon after, all the machine guns and mortars began raining bullets and projectiles on the beaches, turning the calm into a violent bloodbath.

Journalist Robert Shered, correspondent for Time Life, described the first day of battle as a nightmare in hell.

The heavy Japanese artillery on Mount Suribachi opened its reinforced steel doors and opened fire, then quickly hit again to avoid retaliation from the American Marines or their naval fleet.

To make matters worse for the Allies, the Japanese bunkers were interconnected by tunnels, which allowed them to evacuate and reoccupy positions.

It was not uncommon for American troops to clear a pill box with flamethrowers and grenades and then move on, unaware that within hours the Japanese had already reoccupied that position, walking underground through their tunnels, surprising the enemy from behind.

Soon the Marines began to suffer heavy casualties on the first day of fighting.

The American amphibious landing vehicles were not able to do much due to the difficult terrain.

Unable to go beyond the slope, the troops they carried, had to disembark earlier than desired and advance inland on foot, exposed to artillery and machine gun fire.

The CBS, the Navy’s construction teams, tried to improve the situation by clearing paths through the slope with bulldozers.

This allowed the Marines to make some progress and move beyond the overcrowded beaches.

By 11:30 a.

m.

, some Marines had managed to pass the beaches and reach airfield number.

One, whose capture was one of the Americans initial objectives for the first day.

About 100 Japanese soldiers fought fiercely to try to hold the airfield, but by nightfall, they had already been eliminated.

By nightfall, on the first day, 30,000 Marines had landed on Ewima, with another 40,000 still waiting aboard ships.

Aboard the flagship El Dorado, Holland Smith began receiving reports that his troops were suffering heavy losses and that the progress made had been minimal.

He ended up confessing to the war correspondence.

I don’t know who he is, but this Japanese general in command is one smart bastard.

The first days were a bloodbath with both sides suffering heavy losses.

By this point, the Americans expected that upon seeing they had lost the coast, the Japanese would launch their standard suicidal banzai attack.

This was the recurring Japanese strategy in the Pacific.

When the ground battle seemed decided, they would launch nighttime human wave attacks as a last line of defense, as had happened during the Battle of Saipan.

In those attacks, which the American Marines were already expecting and prepared for, most Japanese soldiers were killed with relative ease, and their combat force was severely reduced.

However, General Kuribayashi had strictly forbidden human wave attacks by the Japanese infantry, stating that such tactics were feutal.

The fight for the beaches of Ewima was brutal.

To advance inland, the Americans had to face pill boxes, machine gun nests, and artillery positions.

During the night, the Japanese would leave their positions under the cover of darkness to attack American trenches, but the US Navy would fire special flares that illuminated large areas.

On Ioima, Japanese soldiers who spoke English would provoke the Americans or try to trick them in order to kill them.

They would shout, “Coreman!” pretending to be a wounded marine to lure American medics into exposing themselves.

The Americans realized that their heavy weapons had little effect on the Japanese defenders and began using flamethrowers and grenades to destroy the Japanese inside their tunnels.

One of the technological innovations introduced in the battle was eight Sherman M4 A3R3 tanks armed with flamethrowers which proved highly effective in overcoming and annihilating fortified enemy positions.

The Shermans were quite resistant with defenders only able to face them in open ground where they were exposed to smaller American arms fire.

In previous battles on the South Pacific Islands, the Japanese had faced American troops in direct and close combat.

However, Ioima was a unique case due to its geographic features, and Japanese General Tadamichi Kuribayashi took full advantage of this.

He ordered his troops to shelter inside the island, waiting for the right moment to strike.

Ioima had only 21 square kilmters of surface.

But the real challenge was below the ground.

The Japanese army built a vast network of underground tunnels, allowing their soldiers to hide, regroup, and attack without being detected by the Americans.

Kuribayashi knew that the Allies would eventually take the island.

So, he formulated an ambitious plan to turn it into an underground fortress.

The tunnel network, a classic guerilla warfare strategy, was vast, complex, and difficult to navigate.

The Japanese constructed 1,500 distinct underground structures, including bunkers, depots, and security rooms, all interconnected by over 18 kilometers of protected tunnels.

This allowed the troops to move freely without being detected.

In these tunnels, the Japanese stored weapons and had safe refues to protect themselves when cornered.

In addition, they could use them to surprise and ambush the adversaries, becoming almost like ghosts on the battlefield.

However, once the Americans realized the strategy, the Japanese were trapped underground.

Many lost their lives stuck inside the tunnels, surrounded by the well-armed enemy forces.

This was the fate of a large number of Japanese soldiers on Ewima.

Japanese troops armed with machine guns gunned down dozens of American soldiers in the early days of the Ewima invasion.

Marine Woody Williams recalled the story.

As we attacked, they just mowed us down and we had to retreat.

The tanks weren’t doing much good either.

Then an officer asked Williams to be the flamethrower operator for his regiment.

And that’s when things changed.

It’s one of the most brutal and terrifying weapons.

Nobody wants to be burned alive.

He had to morally adjust to what he was being asked to do.

With the help of four other Marines providing cover fire, two of whom were killed almost immediately.

Williams and his flamethrower incinerated several Japanese fortifications in rapid succession.

He then fired into an underground fort through a ventilation shaft, leaving no survivors.

Williams made several trips back to the American side to refuel the gas powered flame machine, but over 4 hours, he destroyed all his targets.

Williams’ efforts allowed the Americans to make progress on Ewima, and within a few weeks, the battle was over.

At the end of the war, President Harry Truman awarded Williams the Medal of Honor.

The Americans who fought in Ewima were almost exclusively Marines and mostly white men.

However, a small number of US Army units participated in the Battle of Ewima, including the 400th Amphibian Truck Company made up of 177 black soldiers.

This vital support unit drove 32ton vehicles around the island’s beaches, dodging Japanese fire to deliver ammunition, bombs, and reinforcements to the Marines in combat.

Since the US Army was segregated throughout World War II, no black soldier was part of the combat brigades.

This practice only ended in 1948 through an executive order from President Truman.

Another group of non-white Americans played a crucial role in the victory at Ewima.

In 1942, the army recruited members of indigenous tribes affiliated with the Navajo to help the war effort.

The Navajo language is complex and unlike widely used European and Asian languages.

So 29 Navajo speakers and writers created a coded message system to transmit information to the front lines.

Marines who identified as Navajo took part in the Battle of Ewima as code talkers.

Six specialists sent and received about 800 messages during the battle, none of which were decoded by the Japanese.

The iconic photograph Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal captured the iconic image of five members of the American forces raising the US flag at top Mount Suribachi on Ewima.

One of the most famous news photos ever taken, earning him the Pulitzer Prize.

However, the story behind the photo is a bit more complicated.

When Rosenthal heard that the Marines were climbing Mount Surabaki, he followed them.

When he reached the top, Sergeant Lewis Loey, a photographer for the military publication Leatherneck, was already there taking photos of the Marines as they raised the US flag.

When the American soldiers below saw the flag, they fired celebratory shots, which provoked retaliatory gunfire from the Japanese soldiers.

As Loey ran for cover, he fell from a height of 15 m, breaking his camera.

On the way down, he encountered Rosenthal, who was climbing with another photographer and a cameraman.

This time, Rosenthal found another group of Marines with another flag, which had been ordered to replace the initial one with a larger and more visible flag.

When the Marines raised the replacement flag, Rosenthal took the photo, and that was the one that went down in history.

On January 9th, 1949, almost four years after the Battle of Ewima and the end of World War II, a US Air Force jeep driver picked up two Asian men who were hitchhiking, dressed in combat uniforms, walking along a road near a Coast Guard facility.

Initially, the officers believed the two might be crew members from a Chinese Navy ship that was working nearby.

After escaping custody, the men were found again and the island commander interviewed them for a long time.

The two men had served as machine gunners in the Imperial Japanese Navy.

The fugitive soldiers had survived underground for years without being detected, living off the land and eating canned food and materials stolen from American military posts.

They even moved between caves occasionally, hiding near very busy areas.

Thank you very much for your audience.

May God bless you all and see you soon.