Iwo Jima: “To the Shores of Iwo Jima” 1945 Office of War Information, World War II
Posted on November 11, 2014 by Andrew Midkiff
Thank you veterans.
Published on Nov 8, 2014 by Jeff Quitney
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AO1VEFLi26A&list=UUM-kjdrQge9AACfB3MSRyrgmore at
http://quickfound.net/links/military_…
“An Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary, this 20 minute Technicolor production unfolds with graphic energy the nearly month long battle for Iwo Jima, a volcanic island lying 700 miles southeast of Japan, in which 20000 Japanese and nearly 7000 American fighting men were killed, a struggle eternalized by Joe Rosenthal’s photograph of five Marines and a Navy corpsman raising a giant U.S. flag atop 550 foot high Mt. Suribachi…”
Reupload of a previously uploaded film, in one piece instead of multiple parts.
Public domain film slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and mild video noise reduction applied.
The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_o…
The Battle of Iwo Jima (19 February — 26 March 1945), or Operation Detachment, was a major battle in which the United States fought for and captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Empire of Japan. The U.S. invasion, charged with the mission of capturing the three airfields on Iwo Jima, resulted in some of the fiercest fighting in the Pacific Campaign of World War II.
The Imperial Japanese Army positions on the island were heavily fortified, with a vast network of bunkers, hidden artillery, and 18 km (11 mi) of underground tunnels. The Americans were covered by extensive naval and air support, capable of delivering an enormous amount of firepower onto the Japanese positions. The battle was the first American attack on the Japanese Home Islands, and the Imperial soldiers defended their positions tenaciously. Iwo Jima was also the only U.S. Marine battle where the American overall casualties exceeded the Japanese, although Japanese combat deaths numbered 3 times that of Americans. Of the 22,000 Japanese soldiers present at the beginning of the battle, only 216 were taken prisoner. The rest were killed or missing and assumed dead. Despite heavy fighting and casualties on both sides, Japanese defeat was assured from the start. The Americans possessed an overwhelming superiority in arms and numbers; this, coupled with the impossibility of Japanese retreat or reinforcement, ensured that there was no plausible scenario in which the U.S. could have lost the battle.
The battle was immortalized by Joe Rosenthal’s photograph of the raising of the U.S. flag on top of the 166 m (545 ft) Mount Suribachi by five Marines and one Navy Corpsman…
Starting on 15 June 1944, the U.S. began strikes against Iwo Jima that would become the longest and most intense conflict in the Pacific theater. These would be a combination of naval assaults and bombings that would go on for almost one year. Major General Harry Schmidt requested a ten day shelling of the island before the land invasion, but was given only three, which were impaired by the weather conditions. Each heavy ship was given an area to fire on which combined with all the ships covered the entire island. A ship would fire for approximately six hours before stopping for a certain amount of time…
Although the island was declared secure at 18:00 on 16 March 25 days after the landings, the 5th Marine Division still faced Kuribayashi’s stronghold in a gorge 640 m (700 yd) long at the northwestern end of the island…
A weapon heavily used in the Pacific was the United States M2A1 flamethrower…
Of the 22,060 Japanese soldiers entrenched on the island, 21,844 died either from fighting or by ritual suicide. Only 216 were captured during the battle. According to the official Navy Department Library website, “The 36-day (Iwo Jima) assault resulted in more than 26,000 American casualties, including 6,800 dead.” To put that into context, the 82-day Battle for Okinawa lasted from early April until mid-June 1945 and U.S. (5 Army and 2 Marine Corps Divisions) casualties were over 62,000 of whom over 12,000 were killed or missing ; while the Battle of the Bulge lasted 40 days (16 December 44 — 25 January 45) with almost 90,000 U.S. casualties; 19,000 killed, 47,500 wounded, and 23,000 captured or missing.
Iwo Jima was also the only U.S. Marine battle where the American casualties exceeded the Japanese, although Japanese combat deaths numbered three times as many American deaths… USS Bismarck Sea had also been lost, as the last U.S. aircraft carrier sunk in World War II…
After Iwo Jima, it was estimated there were no more than 300 Japanese left alive in the island’s warren of caves and tunnels. In fact, there were close to 3,000…
http://www.fromthetrenchesworldreport.com/iwo-jima-to-the-shores-of-iwo-jima-1945-office-of-war-information-world-war-ii/111190
