Iwo Jima is an inactive volcanic island located 660 miles south of Tokyo, Japan (Josephy 93). Its name means sulphur island (Paull 1). It is eight square miles (Iwo 1) and in the shape of a pork chop. Iwo's southern tip is composed of an inactive volcano, Mount Suribachi, the highest point of the island (Josephy 93). The land is made of coarse black sand and jagged rock, and the air smelled of rotten eggs from the sulphur emissions. The water circling the island is twelve feet deep only two feet away from the shore. This made it difficult for the Marines to get on the island from boats (Paull 1). Iwo Jima is only two miles wide and four miles long (Josephy 93).

The Americans were to fit 70,000 Marines on this tiny island, and would fight 22,000 Japanese soldiers. It took

the Marines 36 days to travel four miles on Iwo (Iwo 1). The Americans began

The Navy Bombardments from offshore were to last ten days requested by the Marine generals. The Navy did not comply with this. They were to give them only three days of bombardments, then the Marines were to invade. The shelling took place on February 16th through February 18th. On February 16th bombarding was cut short because of a heavy cloud cover. February 17th was the only complete day of shelling. On February 18th the bombing was cut short because of heavy rains. It was now time for the Marines to move in (Bradly 144-145).

The reason for the second flag was from Colonel Johnson, "So every son of a bi... on this whole cruddy island can see it!" All the other Marines thought nothing of it, to them there was only on flag raising. No one cared about it, and no now cared who raised it (Bradly 222). The second flag was considerably larger, it was 96 inches by 56 inches, and was found in the salvage yard of Pearl Harbor (Bradly 209).

The actual invasion of Iwo Jima didn't begin until February 19th, 1945 at 8:59 A.M. The Marines would soon

The battle of Iwo Jima ended on March 16th, (Iwo 1) and declared secure on March 26th (Battle 4). The results were horrific. Some of the most costly fighting took place here. It was a 26 day long battle of constant carnage. 6,318 Americans died and 19,189 were wounded. The Japanese had over 20,000 soldiers die (Josephy 93). In the 43 months of World War II, 1/3 of all the American losses took place at Iwo Jima (Bradley 246-247).

to the summit (Bradly 202). The orders for the platoon were to climb to the summit of Suribachi, secure the crater, and then raise the flag (Wheeler 104). The five leaders who raised the flag were Lieutenant Schrier, Platoon Sergea

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Approximate Word count = 1155
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)