Last updated: March 14, 2024
Place
Information Panel: The Marines' Fiercest Fighting Of World War II
Photo: NPS / Claire Hassler
Quick Facts
Amenities
2 listed
Audio Description, Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits
Imagine bombing a small, treeless island non-stop for 72 days. Then came the US Navy's biggest ever pre-landing shelling- three more days' hammering by the battleships and heavy cruisers. How could anyone be left alive on those nine square miles of scorched and churned-up rock?
Yet tens of thousands of Japanese troops were still underground, deeply dug in. Exposed Marines had to pay in blood for every inch of black sand. Veterans say this fight was unrelenting, ferocious, savage, shocking. There were few places to take cover. Death flew at them from all directions.
This one battle cost more American lives than our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Twenty-two Marines were awarded Medals of Honor; thirteen were posthumous. But that landing strip on Iwo Jima saved the lives of thousands of airmen who were then attacking Japan.
From March to the end of the war, the Marines' valor enabled more than 2,400 shot-up B-29s to make safe landings on Iwo Jima. The Marine Corps- and the nation- can never forget the sacrifices it took to secure the island.
Yet tens of thousands of Japanese troops were still underground, deeply dug in. Exposed Marines had to pay in blood for every inch of black sand. Veterans say this fight was unrelenting, ferocious, savage, shocking. There were few places to take cover. Death flew at them from all directions.
This one battle cost more American lives than our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Twenty-two Marines were awarded Medals of Honor; thirteen were posthumous. But that landing strip on Iwo Jima saved the lives of thousands of airmen who were then attacking Japan.
From March to the end of the war, the Marines' valor enabled more than 2,400 shot-up B-29s to make safe landings on Iwo Jima. The Marine Corps- and the nation- can never forget the sacrifices it took to secure the island.