for American B-29 bombers. After the U.S. took Iwo Iwo Jima Today Jima, 2,400 B-29 bombers carrying 27,000 U.S. airmen The U.S. returned possession of Iwo Jima to Japan made emergency landings there. in 1968. The island, marked with shrines honoring American and Japanese soldiers, is open only once a year for a guided tour limited to veterans, their family and a limited number of journalists. Last year, American and Japanese survivors were brought together to the island to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the battle and to honor those who died there. Cledith Skeen passed on an opportunity to visit Iwo Jima last year. “I could have gone, but I had no desire to,” he said. Other Facts • In “Guadalcanal Diary,” the movie that inspired Tom Winemiller to join the Marine Corps, several Marines appeared as extras. Some of them were among the Marines who invaded Iwo Jima. Also, parts of the movie were filmed at Camp Pendleton in California, where Winemiller and Skeen took some of their military training. • Mount Suribachi derives its name from a Japanese term for “grinding bowl.” • Iwo Jima has no streams, ponds or lakes. The Japanese relied on wells and collected rainwater to survive. • The large flag raised over Mount Suribachi, which replaced the smaller one originally placed there, had been recovered from a sinking ship in Pearl Harbor. • The flag raising was also captured on 16mm film by Map of the island before the battle. Sgt. William Genaust, a Marine Corps photographer. According to Skeen, he didn’t live to see the footage he Japanese Strategy shot. Genaust was killed in action nine days later while Led by Gen. Tadamichi Kuribayashi, Japanese troops searching a cave for Japanese soldiers. planned to die on the island — at the hands of the enemy or by suicide. Each man was ordered to sacrifice his own Sources: “World War II Pacific Island Guide: A Geolife and take 10 American soldiers with him. The plan Military Study” by Gordon L. Rottman, World War II was to inflict heavy casualties so the U.S. would lose Database, the National WWII Museum in New Orleans, its resolve and be reluctant to further its attacks on iwojima.com, “Combat Camera” by Patrick Brion, “Iwo Japanese territory. The Marines sent in 70,000 troops Jima: Combat to Comrades,” a PBS documentary, Tom and lost nearly 7,000 men. Kuribayashi knew what he Winemiller and Cledith Skeen. Numbers of troops and was up against. He had been educated in Canada and casualties vary slightly, depending on the source. had served as a military attaché there and in the U.S. It’s assumed he was killed March 21, 1945. In his final official dispatch Kuribayashi commented, “The strength under my command is about 400. The enemy suggested we surrender through a loudspeaker, but our officers and men just laughed and paid no attention.” His body was never found.
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