Why 74 Days of Bombing Couldn’t Touch Iwo Jima

For 74 days, American bombers hit one small island. Every single day. Then the battleships shelled it for three more. And when the Marines landed on February 19th, 1945, more than 20,000 Japanese defenders were still there – waiting, almost invisible. This is the story of how General Tadamichi Kuribayashi turned Iwo Jima into a fortress inside a volcano: about eleven miles of hand-dug tunnels, cut through hot rock in eight months. Why did weeks of bombing barely touch it, how did American engineers take it apart one hole at a time – and why did two men stay hidden in the caves until 1949? CHAPTERS 0:00 74 days of bombs 1:20 Why this island mattered 3:02 Clue one: the bombs 4:52 Clue two: the general 7:37 Clue three: the ground 12:27 The trap on the black sand 14:13 Engineers against engineers 15:28 Suribachi and the flag 16:33 The fight for the north 18:43 The men who never came out 20:16 The price 21:14 The battle inside the island Kuribayashi chose to make the battle long, knowing he could not win it. Was that the right decision, or the most tragic one? Tell me in the comments. FURTHER READING Joseph H. Alexander – Closing In: Marines in the Seizure of Iwo Jima (USMC History and Museums Division, 1994) Robert S. Burrell – The Ghosts of Iwo Jima (2006) Kumiko Kakehashi – So Sad to Fall in Battle: An Account of War Based on General Tadamichi Kuribayashi's Letters from Iwo Jima (2007) ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE & PHOTOS Archival footage: U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. National Archives (NARA), public domain. Color film of the flag raising: Sgt. Bill Genaust, USMC (NARA, public domain). Photos by the Archives Branch, USMC History Division / USMC Archives (CC BY 2.0): "Aerial View of Marine Corps Beachhead, Iwo Jima, 1945", "Captured Japanese Pillbox, Iwo Jima, February 1945", "Marines Resting in Captured Japanese Pillbox, Iwo Jima, 1945", "Marines Capturing Japanese Soldier, Iwo Jima, 1945", "Aerial View of Iwo Jima, 1945", via Wikimedia Commons Public domain photos: Tadamichi Kuribayashi (photographer unknown); U.S. Navy; National Museum of the U.S. Navy (127-GW-302-111353, 127-GW-304-112350, PR13-CN-1991-34-27) Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors MUSIC "Shadowlands 7 - Codex", "Oppressive Gloom", "Satiate - only strings", "Promises to Keep", "Drums of the Deep", "Lost Frontier", "Crossing the Chasm", "Americana", "Disquiet" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License (CC BY 4.0) SOUND EFFECTS freesound.org (CC0) and Mixkit #WW2 #IwoJima #MilitaryHistory