The Marines' Fiercest Fighting of World War II

The Marines' Fiercest Fighting of World War II. US Marine Corps War Memorial, George Washington Memorial Parkway. 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 then the nation, can never forget the sacrifices it took to secure the island., Iwo Jima Mattered to Pilots and Air Crews , For 14 months, B-29 bombers pounded and burned the largest cities in Japan. But many B-29s did not make it back safely to base. Every damaged bomber that crashed into the Pacific could take 11 Americans to a watery grave, and cost taxpayers the equivalent of $8.5 million today., USA , 70,000 fought , 7,000 died , 19,000 wounded, Japan , 21,000 fought , 20,800 died , 200 captured.