largest tank battle in ww2 battle of iwo jima

He decided to junk the defensive tactics used by his predecessors in the ill-fated campaigns in the Gilberts, Marshalls and Marianas.

Formerly a cavalry officer, Kuribayashi was a savvy fighter, one who could glean realistic lessons from previous combat disasters. Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi commanded the 21,000 troops on the island. But the Japanese had also benefited from the prolonged island campaigns in the Pacific. Seizing Iwo Jima would be tough, planners admitted, but the operation should be over in a week, maybe less.īy all logic, the force invading Iwo Jima should have prevailed, quickly and violently. Spruance‘s Fifth Fleet enjoyed total domination of air and sea around the small, sulfuric island, and the 74,000 Marines in the landing force would muster a healthy 3-to-1 preponderance over the garrison. The huge striking force was more experienced, better armed and more powerfully supported than any other offensive campaign to date in the Pacific War. This particular amphibious assault was the ultimate “storm landing,” the Japanese phrase describing the American propensity for concentrating overwhelming force at the point of attack. The Battle of Iwo Jima represented to the Americans the pinnacle of forcible entry from the sea.

“I knew immediately we were in for one hell of a time.” “You could’ve held up a cigarette and lit it on the stuff going by,” he recalled. “Jumpin’ Joe” Chambers led his 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines, across the first terrace on the right flank of the landing beaches, he encountered interlocking bands of automatic-weapons fire unlike anything he had faced in Tulagi or Saipan. The Japanese defending Iwo Jima on D-day displayed superb tactical discipline. 'In for One Hell of a Time': Bloody Sacrifice at the Battle of Iwo Jima Close

Largest tank battle in ww2 battle of iwo jima