BiA Arma 3 Campaign - The Battle of Iwo Jima

published on: 06/02/2026

Author: W. Jarvis

Historical background of the Battle of Iwo Jima

In February of 1945, the United States Marine Corps launched Operation Detachment, otherwise known as the Battle of Iwo Jima. The five week long campaign, lasting until March 16, 1945, proved to be one of the bloodiest battles of the War in the Pacific.

By the start of 1944, after years of fighting throughout the Pacific, the Japanese Empire had lost the strategic initiative following a string of defeats at the hands of American and Commonwealth forces through 1942/43. It was this strategic picture that led the Japanese General Staff to establish an inner defensive line spanning from the Volcano Islands, the largest being Iwo Jima, to the Marianas, Carolines and the Palau Islands. With Allied forces capturing the Marshall Islands in early 1944, several infantry Battalions were diverted to Iwo Jima to bolster the garrison to around 5,000 men, the island itself being vital to the defence of the home islands due to it serving as an early warning station that radioed contact reports to Japanese air defences in advance of American bombing raids against mainland Japan.

As for the defensive preparations on the island of Iwo Jima, Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi was assigned to command the defence of the island in June 1944. Due to the Imperial Japanese Navy losing much of its dominance in the Central Pacific and the staggering aircraft losses suffered through 1944, General Kuribayashi had concluded that any American landings on the island were unlikely to be interdicted by Japanese naval or air power, instead, he spent the next months preparing a strategy to inflict massive casualties on any landing forces in the hope this may dissuade the Allies from attempting landings on the Japanese home islands.

General Kuribayashi took inspiration from the Japanese tactics employed by Colonel Kunio Nakagawa at the Battle of Peleliu in late 1944, devising a defensive strategy that broke from the IJAs traditional island-defense tactics. Taking into account the terrible casualties suffered by Japanese garrisons that had heavily contested American landings on the beaches, which rendered them vulnerable to Allied naval and air bombardment, Kuribayashi instead opted to establish a defence in depth as opposed to attempting to contest the landings directly and issued strict orders to not attempt near suicidal banzai charges against American forces. This strategy would allow Japanese forces to engage the American landing force at its most vulnerable state, just as it was unloading and organising its force following an uncontested landing. By early 1945, Kuribayashi’s force of around 21,000 men had constructed formidable defensive positions throughout the island (defences were centred on the north east side of the island with a garrison placed on Mount Suribachi), with concrete pillboxes, heavy machine gun nests, mortar positions and dug in tanks to be used as artillery, much of these positions were connected by underground tunnels to allow for troops and supplies to be transferred without interference from American aircraft or naval bombardment.

For the Allied war effort, the island of Iwo Jima was a natural continuation of its ‘island hopping’ strategy which focused on making small strategic gains throughout the Central Pacific in order to gradually weaken the Japanese Empire. Iwo Jima was significant to Allied planners for several reasons, most importantly, it was known to serve as an early warning station against American air raids and hosted several airfields that allowed Japanese aircraft to harass American forces in the Marianas. Furthermore, with Iwo Jima under Allied control, the island could be established as an emergency airfield for the US Army Air Corps, as well as provide a base for long-range fighter escorts. By early 1945, Admiral Chester Nimitz had established a Joint Expeditionary Force to execute what had now been named Operation Detachment, consisting of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Marine divisions supported by an armada of US Navy warships. American intelligence had reported that the island was defended by only 13,000 troops and the beach was excellent for naval landings, so the American land commander, Major General Harry Schmidt, was expecting to gain total control of the island in no more than four days, he had, however, requested a naval bombardment for 10 consecutive days preceding his forces landing likely in response to how Japanese forces had previously contested islands directly from the beach. Due to timing constrictions ahead of the invasion of Okinawa, Schmidt’s force would be granted a mere three days of naval bombardment prior to landings taking place.

Around 09:00 on the 19th of February, 1945, Marines began to land on their assigned beaches in intervals. The operation had gone awry almost as soon as the Marines had hit the beaches however with the discovery that the supposedly favourable landing sites were actually covered with volcanic ash that made it difficult for vehicles to traverse, quickly causing the landing beaches to become congested with troops and equipment over the next hour. It was at this point that the Japanese garrison under Kuribayashi was ordered to reveal their concealed positions and open fire with machine guns, rockets and artillery, quickly causing heavy casualties among the landing force. With the Amtrac’s unable to advance up the beach until men of the Naval Construction Battalions had been able to bulldoze roads off of the beach, progress was very slow, not helped by the beach becoming overcrowded as subsequent waves made their landings. Despite the incredibly heavy casualties suffered by the Marines, they had managed to secure the southern tip of Airfield No. 1 as well as make a breakthrough across the island at its narrowest width, thereby isolating the Japanese forces dug in on Mount Suribachi by the end of the day.

Over the following days the advances of the Marines could be measured in yards, but after fierce fighting they were able to capture Mount Suribachi on the 23rd, raising the flag of the United States on its peak, effectively ending Japanese resistance on the eastern side of Iwo Jima. With the capture of the Motoyama 1 airfield on the 24th, the Motoyama 2 airfield on the 27th and unfinished Motoyama 3 airfield on the 28th, intense fighting was still taking place around at the ‘Amphitheater’, ‘Turkey Knob’, and Hill 382 to the east, during which Japanese forces were able to inflict heavy casualties from their concealed, well fortified positions. On the northern end of the island, troops of the 5th Marine Division seized Hills 362A and 362B with considerable difficulty by the 3rd of March.

With the Marines gradually advancing in all sectors, on the 8th of March IJN Captain Samaji Inouye led a banzai attack, contrary to the orders of General Kuribayashi, against the 3rd Marine Division in hopes of driving them back, however, his attack proved futile, with the Japanese suffering heavy casualties, providing an opening that the Marines exploited to clear the ‘Amphitheater’ and ‘Turkey Knob’ of its defenders. Despite some areas of resistance remaining on the northwest coast and at ‘Cushman’s Pocket’ Iwo Jima would be declared as secure on the 16th, however, it would not actually be secured in its entirety until the 26th, following the last major engagement of the battle whereby several hundred Japanese troops penetrated behind American lines and attacked the Motoyama 1 before being gunned down themselves, it is believed that Kuribayashi himself died in this attack, however his body was never found.

The Battle of Iwo Jima had lasted for five bloody weeks before the island was declared as secured by the Marines, the struggle to capture the island would enshrine itself as a key moment in the history of the Corps, that effectively secured a future for the Marines as a fighting force. The US landing forces had suffered a staggering 6,821 dead and 19,217 wounded throughout the battle, making it one of the deadliest battles in the history of the United States Marine Corps. Iwo Jima’s garrison would be virtually annihilated with only a few hundred Japanese soldiers surrendering to American forces; the garrison commander, Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, was also killed in the fighting. Due to the human cost of the battle, it is often described as a pyrrhic victory for the Allies, that has drawn criticism from both military figures of the time and historians for the fact that a principal reason for Operation Detachment, to provide an airfield for bomber escorts, was not particularly impactful to the war effort, as only 10 escort missions ever occurred. On the other hand, the primary postwar justification was Iwo Jima’s ability to provide bombing aircraft with an airfield for emergency landings, however, the majority of the 2,251 B-29 landings that took place on Iwo Jima were not strictly emergencies, debate continues as the whether the island could have been bypassed by the Allies, potentially saving thousands of lives. In any case, despite the cost, the lessons learnt at Iwo Jima would go on to serve as guidelines for American forces in the Battle of Okinawa and later the planned invasion of the Japanese home islands.