Iwo
Jima
Author:
Eric Hammel
ISBN: 0760325200
Publishers:
Zenith Press, An Imprint of MBI Publishing Company
Price
£25
Publication
Date: 2006
Publisher’s
Title Information
Iwo
Jima is perhaps the hardest won and most famous battle in the Pacific theater
during World War II. The award-winning, iconic photo of Marines raising the
American flag during the battle is known by millions of Americans as the symbol
of how hard fought the victory was in the war. Iwo Jima: Portrait of a Battle: United States Marines in the Pacific
takes this iconic flag-raising photo one step further. In incredible duotone
reproduction, over 500 photos taken by Marine Corps combat photographers are
featured, including over 300 never before published that were discovered in
Marine Corps archives by author and military historian Eric Hammel.
The photos vividly recreate the battle of Iwo Jima, as it happened: the
pummeling of inland targets, the strafing, and the rocket fire that accompanied
the landing; the eerie silence that greeted the Marines as they set foot on the
island; and then, as the newly-landed Marines regrouped on the shoreline, the
horrors of all hell breaking loose. The fighting that followed-thirty-four of
the bloodiest days of the Pacific War-comes to harrowing life in this volume. Iwo Jima is a uniquely fitting tribute
to the valiant struggle that gave us our most enduring image of victory in
World War II. The book is an instant classic military history of the Marines in
World War II and a necessary addition to any serious collection of World War II
literature. Includes full reproductions of Medal of Honor citations and
profiles of the recipients throughout.
Then in as bloody and bluntly violent a war as
Americans encountered in the Pacific, Iwo Jima, the ultimate expression of
death and mayhem. It was in a class by itself, a meatgrinder smashed by a blunt
instrument at exceedingly high cost. Relying upon a purely attritional strategy
of "defend-and-die," Iwo's Japanese commander oversaw the
construction of thousands of concrete bunkers, pillboxes, blockhouses, and
other fighting positions as well as multi-storey underground command centers
and barracks, some as deep as seventy-five feet.
By
D-day; February 19, 1945, most of these formidable defenses had been
interconnected by eleven miles of underground passageways. Manning these
positions were twenty-three thousand Japanese army and navy troops, many of
them elite veterans of combat in the Pacific and China. Hundreds of mortars,
artillery pieces, and rocket tubes had been painstakingly pre-registered,
allowing them to hit virtually any spot on the island with their first shot.
The
defenders had bonded into a brotherhood born of the hardship they endured
building bunkers and underground passageways in the extreme heat laced with
sulfurous fumes of the volcanic island. In the words of one Japanese soldier,
Iwo "was an island of sulfur, no water, no sparrow, and no swallow."
Beyond that, each defender took an oath to fight to the death, to give no
ground for any reason.
Following
a seventy-four-day air and naval bombardment that the American high command
believed had put the bulk of the Japanese defenders at least temporarily out of
action, two veteran regiments of the 4th Marine Division alongside two
regiments of the newly formed 5th Marine Division-eight battalion landing teams
in all-led the way toward the island. Aircraft, battleships, cruisers,
continued of back flap and destroyers pummeled ground targets near and far from
the landing beaches. As the first wave of Marineladen amphibian tractors
climbed ashore, nearby gunboats fired hundreds of rockets to suppress enemy
fire.
Then
a squadron of Marine Corsairs from the USS Essex strafed the ground just behind
the beaches at such low altitude that it looked to men on the water as if the
planes were on the ground. Nothing happened. There was no return fire. No
Japanese fired at the ships offshore, nor at the oncoming waves of amphibian
tractors, nor at the Marines, who were surprised to learn as their feet touched
down that all of southern lwo Jima was covered in a thick mantle of black
volcanic ash that offered no purchase for their feet or their shovels.
Shortly,
when the nearly eight thousand newly landed Marines had stopped along the
shoreline to regroup, every Japanese gun and mortar within range opened fire on
the exposed invaders. The gunfire did not die for thirty-four of the bloodiest
days of the Pacific War.
The
Author
Eric
Hammel is a critically acclaimed military historian and author of more than
thirty combat histories, including several on the U.S. Marines in World War IT.
He lives in Northern California. Leatherneck Magazine praised Hammel's most
recent work, Pacific Warriors, saying:-
"A
powerfully written history ... Hammel has demonstrated again his genius for bringing
the past to life in language that is both understandable and digestible.
He
accompanies his magnificent prose with many never-before-published photographs
of Marines in action during the war. The result is a history masterpiece ... A
must-read for future generations of Marines."
And,
from Marine Corps Gazette:
"Pacific
Warriors is worthy of the legacy that it seeks to honor.
Eric
Hammel's polished perspective as a military historian is both appropriate and
timely. Poignantly written and illustrated. Marines will not be disappointed with this work."