Iwo Jima
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48 free Iwo Jima trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
Iwo Jima was a volcanic island eight square miles across, and for five weeks in early 1945 it was the bloodiest place in the Pacific. Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi abandoned the usual beach defence and dug 18 kilometres of tunnels, then let the Marines land before opening fire. The result was the only major Pacific battle in which American casualties outnumbered Japanese, and a photograph of six men raising a flag that became the most reproduced image of the war. These 48 questions cover the whole campaign: Operation Detachment and the three-day bombardment row, the black ash beaches, the Navajo code talkers, the 28th Marines cutting the island in two, both flag-raisings on Suribachi and who was really in Joe Rosenthal's picture, the Meatgrinder, the silent final charge, the kamikaze that sank USS Bismarck Sea and the B-29 landings used to justify it all afterwards. Easy questions cover the dates, the mountain and the photograph; the expert tier asks about the Nanpo Bunker, the 147th Infantry's mopping-up, the first emergency landing and the island that kept Japan's radar warning alive. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation. Play it solo or print it for a history night.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which island did American forces invade days after securing Iwo Jima?
Okinawa
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.
Q 02What was the codename of the American invasion of Iwo Jima?
Operation Detachment
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.
Q 03Which Hollywood star played Sergeant Stryker in the 1949 war film Sands of Iwo Jima?
John Wayne
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.
Q 04Which Associated Press photographer took the famous flag-raising picture on Iwo Jima?
Joe Rosenthal
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.
Q 05The Japanese name Iwo Jima translates into English as what?
Sulfur Island
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.
Q 06Who directed two 2006 films about Iwo Jima, one told from each side of the battle?
Clint Eastwood
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.
Q 07Of roughly 21,000 Japanese defenders on Iwo Jima, how many were taken prisoner during the battle itself?
216
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.
Q 08How did America's killed and wounded on Iwo Jima compare with the Japanese garrison's?
Americans suffered more casualties
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.
Q 09How did Iwo Jima's defenders greet the first Marines ashore?
Held their fire
Held their fire: Kuribayashi waited about an hour, until men and vehicles were packed together, then opened fire with everything at once.
Q 10How did Iwo Jima's Japanese garrison get most of its drinking water?
Catching rain
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.
Q 11Before Iwo Jima, the Marines asked for ten days of what and got three?
Naval bombardment
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.
Q 12Which Fifth Fleet admiral commanded the Iwo Jima invasion from his flagship, USS Indianapolis?
Raymond Spruance
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.
Q 13Which Marine general, nicknamed 'Howlin' Mad', commanded the Expeditionary Troops at Iwo Jima?
Holland Smith
Q 21On what improvised pole did Marines hoist the Stars and Stripes on Iwo Jima's summit?
A Japanese water pipe
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.
Q 22Which false claim dogged the famous Iwo Jima flag-raising photograph for decades?
It was staged
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.
Q 23Which Navy Secretary, watching Iwo Jima's flag go up, said it meant a Marine Corps for another 500 years?
James Forrestal
Holland Smith shocked reporters on the eve of the landing by forecasting 15,000 casualties, and the real figure turned out far higher.
Q 14Code talkers from which Native American nation sent over 800 error-free messages in Iwo Jima's first two days?
Navajo
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.
Q 15What loose material on Iwo Jima's beaches stopped Marines digging foxholes or finding their footing?
Volcanic ash
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.
Q 16Which Guadalcanal Medal of Honor hero left a home-front war-bond tour and was killed on Iwo Jima's first day?
John Basilone
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.
Q 17Though it lies hundreds of miles out in the Pacific, Iwo Jima is governed as part of which Japanese city?
Tokyo
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.
Q 18What traditional Japanese tactic did Kuribayashi forbid on Iwo Jima as a futile waste of men?
Banzai charges
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.
Q 19The eight flamethrower-equipped Sherman tanks on Iwo Jima were nicknamed after what?
Cigarette lighters
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.
Q 20The famous Iwo Jima photograph shows which of that day's flag-raisings on the summit?
The second
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.
James Forrestal had insisted on going ashore that morning, and his boat touched the beach just after the flag went up.
Q 24The Iwo Jima flag photograph won which award within months of being taken?
Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize in hand, the picture went on to front that year's war bond drive, which raised more than $26 billion.
Q 25Admiral Nimitz's tribute on the Marine Corps War Memorial says that on Iwo Jima 'uncommon valor was a common' what?
Virtue
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.
Q 26What happened to three of the six men in Iwo Jima's flag photograph before the fighting ended?
Killed
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.
Q 27Which man in the Iwo Jima flag photograph, a Pima from Arizona, toured America selling war bonds in 1945?
Ira Hayes
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.
Q 28Which man, whose son wrote Flags of Our Fathers, was ruled out of Iwo Jima's flag photograph in 2016?
John Bradley
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.
Q 29What kind of attack sank the escort carrier USS Bismarck Sea off Iwo Jima two days after the landings?
Kamikaze aircraft
Kamikaze aircraft came in the only such raid of the battle, sinking Bismarck Sea and knocking the big carrier Saratoga out of the war.
Q 30Which American fighter began flying from Iwo Jima in April 1945 to escort bombers all the way to Japan?
Mustang
Mustang squadrons flew in on 6 March, with the battle still raging, and spent their first weeks flying close air support for the Marines.