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--> ''Additional naval, air and ground support elements'' |units2=''Ground units'': 109th IJA Division *Headquarters Group *2nd Mixed Brigade *Third Battalion, 17th Mixed Regiment 26th Tank Regiment 145th Infantry Regiment Brigade Artillery Group ''Naval Units'': Imperial Navy *Naval Guard Force (mainly AA and Art.) ''Additional support units and Kamikaze'' |strength1=110,000 U.S. Marines, U.S. Navy corpsmen, USAAF personnel, and others 500+ ships |strength2=20,530-21,060 troops〔 438 artillery pieces 33 naval guns 69 anti-tank guns ~300 anti-aircraft guns〔B. L. Crumley, ("The Marine Corps: Three Centuries of Glory" ), Jan 19, 2013. The total breaks down as follows: 361 artillery pieces of 75 mm caliber or larger, 12 320 mm spigot mortars, 65 medium and light mortars, 33 naval guns, 94 anti-aircraft guns of 75 mm or larger, 200+ anti-aircraft guns of 20 mm or 25 mm, and 69 37 mm or 47 mm anti-tank guns.〕 |casualties1=6,821 killed 2 captured but recovered〔 19,217 wounded〔 1 escort carrier sunk 1 fleet carrier severely damaged 1 escort carrier lightly damaged |casualties2=17,845-18,375 dead and missing〔 216 taken prisoner〔 ~3,000 in hiding〔John Toland, ''The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936–1945'', page 669〕}} The Battle of Iwo Jima (19 February – 26 March 1945) was a major battle in which the U.S. Marines landed on and eventually captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II. The American invasion, designated ''Operation Detachment'', had the goal of capturing the entire island, including the three Japanese-controlled airfields (including the South Field and the Central Field), to provide a staging area for attacks on the Japanese main islands.〔 This five-week battle comprised some of the fiercest and bloodiest fighting of the War in the Pacific of World War II. After the heavy losses incurred in the battle, the strategic value of the island became controversial. It was useless to the U.S. Army as a staging base and useless to the U.S. Navy as a fleet base.〔 However, Navy Seabees rebuilt the landing strips, which were used as emergency landing strips for USAAF B-29s.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=John Clements Collection )〕 The Imperial Japanese Army positions on the island were heavily fortified, with a dense network of bunkers, hidden artillery positions, and of underground tunnels.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Letters from Iwo Jima )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Battle of Iwo Jima—Japanese Defense )〕 The Americans on the ground were supported by extensive naval artillery and complete air supremacy over Iwo Jima from the beginning of the battle by U.S. Navy and Marine Corps aviators.〔 〕 Japanese combat deaths numbered three times the number of American deaths, although uniquely in the Pacific War, American total casualties (dead and wounded) exceeded those of the Japanese. Of the 21,000 Japanese soldiers on Iwo Jima at the beginning of the battle, only 216 were taken prisoner, some of whom were captured because they had been knocked unconscious or otherwise disabled.〔Burrell 2006, p. 83. (Burrell talks ) about how many historians have overestimated the number Japanese defenders, with 20,000 and even 25,000 listed. Burrell puts the range between 18,060 and 18,600, with exactly 216 of these taken prisoner during the course of the battle. Another 867 prisoners were taken by the U.S. Army between April and June, after the Marines had left.〕 The majority of the remainder were killed in action, although it has been estimated that as many as 3,000 continued to resist within the various cave systems for many days afterwards, eventually succumbing to their injuries or surrendering weeks later.〔〔John Toland, ''Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire 1936–1945'', page 669〕 Despite the bloody fighting and severe casualties on both sides, the Japanese defeat was assured from the start. Overwhelming American superiority in arms and numbers as well as complete control of air power—coupled with the impossibility of Japanese retreat or reinforcement, along with sparse food and supplies—permitted no plausible circumstance in which the Americans could have lost the battle.〔Adrian R. Lewis, ''The American Culture of War: The History of U.S. Military Force from World War II to Operation Iraqi Freedom'', New York 2007, p. 59〕 The battle is remembered primarily by Joe Rosenthal's Associated Press photograph of the raising of the U.S. flag on top of the Mount Suribachi by five U.S. Marines and one U.S. Navy combat corpsman. The photograph (and a color film by Marine Staff Sgt. Bill Genaust) records the second flag-raising on the mountain, both of which took place on the fifth day of the 36-day battle. Rosenthal's photograph promptly became iconic—of that battle, of the Pacific War, and of the Marine Corps itself—and has been widely reproduced. ==Background== After the American capture of the Marshall Islands, and the devastating air attacks against the Japanese fortress island of Truk Atoll in the Carolines in January 1944, the Japanese military leaders reevaluated their situation. All indications pointed to an American drive toward the Mariana Islands and the Carolines. To counter such an offensive, the Imperial Japanese Army and the Imperial Japanese Navy (I.J.N.) established an inner line of defenses extending generally northward from the Carolines to the Marianas, and thence to Japan via the Volcano Islands, and westward from the Marianas via the Carolines and the Palau Islands to the Philippines. In March 1944, the Japanese 31st Army, commanded by General Hideyoshi Obata, was activated to garrison this inner line. (Note that a Japanese army was about the size of an American, British Army, or Canadian Army corps. The Japanese Army had many armies, but the U.S. Army only had ten at its peak, with the 4th Army, the 6th Army, the 8th Army, and the 10th Army being in the Pacific Theater. Also, the 10th Army only fought on Okinawa in the spring of 1945.) The commander of the Japanese garrison on Chichi Jima was placed nominally in command of Army and Navy units in the Volcano Islands.〔 After the American conquest of the Marianas, daily bomber raids from the Marianas hit the mainland as part of Operation ''Scavenger''. Iwo Jima served as an early warning station that radioed reports of incoming bombers back to mainland Japan. This allowed Japanese air defenses to prepare for the arrival of American bombers.〔 After the U.S. seized bases in the Marshalls in the battles of Kwajalein and Eniwetok in February 1944, Japanese Army and Navy reinforcements were sent to Iwo Jima: 500 men from the naval base at Yokosuka and 500 from Chichi Jima reached Iwo Jima during March and April 1944. At the same time, with reinforcements arriving from Chichi Jima and the home islands, the Army garrison on Iwo Jima reached a strength of more than 5,000 men.〔 The loss of the Marianas during the summer of 1944 greatly increased the importance of the Volcano Islands for the Japanese, who were aware that the loss of these islands would facilitate American air raids against the Home Islands, disrupting war manufacturing and severely damaging civilian morale.〔 Final Japanese plans for the defense of the Volcano Islands were overshadowed by the fact that the Imperial Japanese Navy had already lost almost all of its power, and it could not prevent American landings. Moreover, aircraft losses throughout 1944 had been so heavy that, even if war production were not affected by American air attacks, combined Japanese air strength was not expected to increase to 3,000 warplanes until March or April 1945. Even then, these planes could not be used from bases in the Home Islands against Iwo Jima because their range was not more than . Besides this, all available warplanes had to be hoarded to defend Taiwan and the Japanese Home Islands from any attack.〔 Adding to their woes, there was a serious shortage of properly trained and experienced pilots and other aircrew to man the warplanes Japan had—because such large numbers of pilots and crewmen had perished fighting over the Solomon Islands and during the Battle of the Philippine Sea in mid-1944. In a postwar study, Japanese staff officers described the strategy that was used in the defense of Iwo Jima in the following terms: At the end of the Battle of Leyte in the Philippines, the Allies were left with a two-month lull in their offensive operations before the planned invasion of Okinawa. Iwo Jima was strategically important: it provided an air base for Japanese fighter planes to intercept long-range B-29 Superfortress bombers, and it provided a haven for Japanese naval units in dire need of any support available. In addition, it was used by the Japanese to stage air attacks on the Mariana Islands from November 1944 through January 1945. The capture of Iwo Jima would eliminate these problems and provide a staging area for Operation Downfall - the eventual invasion of the Japanese Home Islands. The distance of B-29 raids could (hypothetically) be cut in half, and a base would be available for P-51 Mustang fighters to escort and protect the bombers.〔 Intelligence sources were confident that Iwo Jima would fall in one week. In light of the optimistic intelligence reports, the decision was made to invade Iwo Jima: this amphibious landing was given the code name Operation ''Detachment''.〔 They were unaware that the Japanese were preparing a complex and deep defense, radically departing from their usual strategy of a beach defense. So successful was the Japanese preparation that it was discovered after the battle that the hundreds of tons of Allied bombs and thousands of rounds of heavy naval gunfire left the Japanese defenders almost unscathed and ready to inflict losses on the U.S. Marines unprecedented up to that point in the Pacific War. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Battle of Iwo Jima」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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