48 Fun Facts About Iwo Jima

Which island did American forces invade days after securing Iwo Jima?

Okinawa was invaded on 1 April 1945, a date that could not slip, so when the Iwo Jima landing ran a month late its planners were left with no slack at all.

What was the codename of the American invasion of Iwo Jima?

Operation Detachment was set in motion in October 1944, after Nimitz's admirals persuaded him to drop a planned invasion of Formosa and take Iwo Jima instead.

Which Hollywood star played Sergeant Stryker in the 1949 war film Sands of Iwo Jima?

John Wayne earned his first Oscar nomination as Stryker, and three veterans then credited as the photograph's flag-raisers appear briefly in the film as themselves.

Which Associated Press photographer took the famous flag-raising picture on Iwo Jima?

Joe Rosenthal had been turned down for military service because of his poor eyesight, so he went to the Pacific war with a camera instead.

The Japanese name Iwo Jima translates into English as what?

Sulfur Island is what the name means, and British sailors from Captain Cook's last expedition called it the same in 1779 after catching its smell from the sea.

Who directed two 2006 films about Iwo Jima, one told from each side of the battle?

Clint Eastwood shot Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima back to back, and it was Letters, told in Japanese from the defenders' side, that was nominated for best picture.

Of roughly 21,000 Japanese defenders on Iwo Jima, how many were taken prisoner during the battle itself?

216 were taken alive during the battle, and an estimated 3,000 more hid in the caves, most of them killed or captured over the following months.

How did America's killed and wounded on Iwo Jima compare with the Japanese garrison's?

Americans suffered more casualties, over 26,000 against a garrison of some 21,000, but most of the American wounded lived while almost every defender died.

How did Iwo Jima's defenders greet the first Marines ashore?

Held their fire: Kuribayashi waited about an hour, until men and vehicles were packed together, then opened fire with everything at once.

How did Iwo Jima's Japanese garrison get most of its drinking water?

Catching rain in concrete cisterns was the mainstay on an island with no springs or streams, and the garrison spent months on short water rations before the landing.

Before Iwo Jima, the Marines asked for ten days of what and got three?

Naval bombardment was held to three days because the Navy said it had neither the time nor the shells to spare, even after the Marines offered to settle for four.

Which Fifth Fleet admiral commanded the Iwo Jima invasion from his flagship, USS Indianapolis?

Raymond Spruance kept his flag in Indianapolis, the cruiser that five months later carried parts of the Hiroshima bomb to Tinian and was sunk days afterwards.

Which Marine general, nicknamed 'Howlin' Mad', commanded the Expeditionary Troops at Iwo Jima?

Holland Smith shocked reporters on the eve of the landing by forecasting 15,000 casualties, and the real figure turned out far higher.

Code talkers from which Native American nation sent over 800 error-free messages in Iwo Jima's first two days?

Navajo was a language Japanese code-breakers never cracked, and the division's signal officer said that without it the Marines would never have taken the island.

What loose material on Iwo Jima's beaches stopped Marines digging foxholes or finding their footing?

Volcanic ash rose behind the beach in terraces some 15 feet high, and digging a foxhole in it was likened to digging a hole in a barrel of wheat.

Which Guadalcanal Medal of Honor hero left a home-front war-bond tour and was killed on Iwo Jima's first day?

John Basilone was wanted at home for morale but wrangled his way back overseas, and he was killed leading a machine-gun platoon towards the airfield.

Though it lies hundreds of miles out in the Pacific, Iwo Jima is governed as part of which Japanese city?

Tokyo is about 750 miles to the north, yet the island counts as part of the metropolis; the United States ran it until 1968 before handing it back to Japan.

What traditional Japanese tactic did Kuribayashi forbid on Iwo Jima as a futile waste of men?

Banzai charges were banned because Kuribayashi wanted every man to kill ten Americans from cover before he died, not throw his life away in a single rush.

The eight flamethrower-equipped Sherman tanks on Iwo Jima were nicknamed after what?

Cigarette lighters: the 'Zippo' tanks fired through a tube made to look exactly like the 75mm gun it replaced, and Marines rated them the battle's most valuable weapon.

The famous Iwo Jima photograph shows which of that day's flag-raisings on the summit?

The second flag went up a few hours after the first, a bigger one sent up, by the Marines' official account, so it could be seen across the island.

On what improvised pole did Marines hoist the Stars and Stripes on Iwo Jima's summit?

A Japanese water pipe found on the summit served as the staff, and ships offshore sounded their sirens and whistles when the flag rose on it.

Which false claim dogged the famous Iwo Jima flag-raising photograph for decades?

It was staged, critics said, after a mix-up: asked days later whether he had posed his picture, the photographer said sure, thinking of a group shot he took afterwards.

Which Navy Secretary, watching Iwo Jima's flag go up, said it meant a Marine Corps for another 500 years?

James Forrestal had insisted on going ashore that morning, and his boat touched the beach just after the flag went up.

The Iwo Jima flag photograph won which award within months of being taken?

Pulitzer Prize in hand, the picture went on to front that year's war bond drive, which raised more than $26 billion.

Admiral Nimitz's tribute on the Marine Corps War Memorial says that on Iwo Jima 'uncommon valor was a common' what?

Virtue ends the line, which Nimitz issued while the fighting still raged; it is now chiseled in granite at the base of Felix de Weldon's bronze of the flag-raising.

What happened to three of the six men in Iwo Jima's flag photograph before the fighting ended?

Three had been killed in the drive north: two fell on the same day six days after the picture, and a third died days before the battle ended.

Which man in the Iwo Jima flag photograph, a Pima from Arizona, toured America selling war bonds in 1945?

Ira Hayes lasted two weeks on the tour before he was ordered back to his company in Hawaii, leaving the other two to finish it without him.

Which man, whose son wrote Flags of Our Fathers, was ruled out of Iwo Jima's flag photograph in 2016?

John Bradley's place went to Harold Schultz, a Los Angeles mail sorter who died in 1995 without ever saying publicly that he was in the picture.

What kind of attack sank the escort carrier USS Bismarck Sea off Iwo Jima two days after the landings?

Kamikaze aircraft came in the only such raid of the battle, sinking Bismarck Sea and knocking the big carrier Saratoga out of the war.

Which American fighter began flying from Iwo Jima in April 1945 to escort bombers all the way to Japan?

Mustang squadrons flew in on 6 March, with the battle still raging, and spent their first weeks flying close air support for the Marines.

What did Marines on Iwo Jima call the complex of Hill 382, Turkey Knob and the Amphitheater?

The Meatgrinder took the 4th Marine Division two weeks to clear, and by the end the division rated itself at under half its fighting strength.

On Iwo Jima, General Erskine surprised the defenders of Hill 362C with which unusual tactic?

A night attack with no barrage caught the defenders asleep, but daylight showed the Marines had taken the wrong hill, 250 yards short, and they fought all day to reach the right one.

The final Japanese attack on Iwo Jima, before dawn on 26 March 1945, was carried out how?

In silence, some 300 men spent the night creeping into position, then fell on Army fighter pilots asleep in their tents beside the airfield.

Roughly how long did Iwo Jima's last two holdouts hide before surrendering?

Four years: two navy machine-gunners lived in a cave, stealing supplies from the American garrison, until they surrendered in January 1949.

What became of General Kuribayashi, the Japanese commander on Iwo Jima, when the island fell?

His body was never identified, though the Marines combed his last caves for it; he may have died in the final attack or by his own hand, and nobody knows which.

Baron Takeichi Nishi, who died commanding a tank regiment on Iwo Jima, had won Olympic gold in 1932 in which sport?

Show jumping: he won at the Los Angeles Games on his horse Uranus and became a friend of Hollywood stars, and the horse died a week after he did.

By what nickname were the Navy builders who repaired Iwo Jima's airfields mid-battle known?

Seabees came ashore with the first day's assault to bulldoze roads off the beach under fire, and had the captured runways taking aircraft within two weeks.

Which Iwo Jima flamethrower man was the Second World War's last living Medal of Honor recipient until 2022?

Hershel Williams fought for four hours on the day the flag went up, going back again and again for a fresh flamethrower, and knocked out one pillbox after another.

Which American bomber made over 2,000 landings on Iwo Jima?

B-29 Superfortress crews made 2,251 landings there, though historians have since argued that most were for fuel or training and not true emergencies.

The heavy bombers that Iwo Jima was captured to support flew against Japan from which island group?

The Marianas put Japan within bomber range, but Iwo Jima sat halfway along the route, and aircraft based there had been raiding the American airfields.

What did American planners believe Iwo Jima's radar station was doing?

Warning of raids was the charge, up to two hours ahead by one Marine account; the Navy's historians now call that assumption wrong.

Jack Lucas, 17, became the war's youngest Medal of Honor recipient on Iwo Jima for doing what?

Smothering two grenades, only one of which went off, he lived: Lucas had forged his mother's signature to enlist at 14 and reached the island as a stowaway.

The Marine Corps War Memorial, which shows the Iwo Jima flag raising, stands beside which burial ground?

Arlington National Cemetery lies beside the memorial, whose entire $850,000 cost was donated, much of it by serving Marines, with no public money spent.

Seen from the air, the outline of Iwo Jima reminded American officers of what?

A pork chop, with Suribachi at the narrow tip: on the first day Marines drove across the half-mile neck and cut the mountain off from the rest of the island.

Which war correspondent wrote that the dead on Iwo Jima 'all died with the greatest possible violence'?

Robert Sherrod had already covered the landings at Tarawa and Saipan, and he wrote that nowhere in the Pacific war had he seen bodies so badly mangled.

Why were there no civilian casualties in the battle for Iwo Jima?

All civilians had been evacuated to the Japanese mainland months earlier, about a thousand villagers who farmed sugar cane and fished, leaving an island that was nothing but a fortress.

Kuribayashi's defence in depth on Iwo Jima copied tactics Japanese troops had used months earlier in which battle?

Peleliu, five months earlier, was written off by many Americans as a one-off, while Kuribayashi studied it as the way every island would now be fought.

Roughly how long did the battle for Iwo Jima last?

Five weeks, 36 days in all, against forecasts before the landing that were counted in days.