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The American struggle to capture the Pacific Island of Iwo Jima from the Japanese in 1945 proved to be the bloodiest fight in Marine Corps history. Yet, ironically, the justifications for seizing the island have undergone little critical analysis. A detailed look into the planning for Iwo Jima demonstrates that the service rivalry resulting from the competing agendas of the Navy, Army and Army Air Forces in the Pacific negatively influenced the decision to initiate Operation Detachment. The Marine Corps, which paid the heaviest price, remained completely excluded from the decision making process. When fighter escort operations from Iwo Jima, the original reason given for seizing the island, failed to produce the anticipated results, the military sought additional reasons to justify the costly battle. Historians, unfortunately, have perpetuated these illusions.
ON 4 March 1945, fourteen costly days after Marines invaded Iwo Jima, a B-29 Superfortress ran short on fuel and asked permission to land on the island's ill-prepared airfield.1 One Marine combat correspondent explained what went through his mind as the B-29 landed:
Like a giant bird, it set down on Motoyama Airfield Number One. The B-29 landed on hallowed ground, volcanic ash surfaced with hard clay which recently had soaked in the blood of American Marines. . . . These Leathernecks from your and my hometowns made it possible for the B-29 to land here. Now, those lads are buried in the shadow of Mount Suribachi, where Old Glory flies from the crest, proclaiming to all that American Marines conquered the Japs who held the formidable volcano fortress.2
In the first days of the battle, men argued over whether the island would have any "lasting military significance," but the appearance of the B-29 quelled all that.3 The euphoria of this initial event had an immediate impact on the high commands of the Army Air Forces, Navy, and Marine Corps. The media also quickly publicized the succession of B-29 landings, helping to create the myths that followed. The struggle for the island had achieved heroic proportions after the famous photograph of Marines raising the second flag on Mount Suribachi; consequently, romanticism drove the effort to justify the costs of the battle.
Almost every book, journal, and website that addresses the battle justifies the...