ISBN 1-58544-483-9
xvii + 262

Acknowledgments; Preface; photos; maps; tables; Notes; Bibliography; Index

   Someone, according to Tennyson had blundered, and Robert Burrell says the same about another battle and another costly mistake. Furthermore, Burrell unflinchingly indicts some of the most senior officers of the US armed forces for incompetence and/or indifference, and he demonstrates how a bloody error was papered over with false justifications after the fact, how a senseless waste of Marines was twisted into a public relations charade, and—some readers might further infer—how echoes of the same machinations resonate in the 21st Century, making it possible to transform ghastly tragedy into patriotic virtue for political gain.
   The Preface puts it succinctly:

   Losses on Iwo Jima sprang to the forefront of American concerns in the spring of 1945, nearly four years into the bloody war. As the battle raged, casualty figures made the front page on a daily basis in nearly every major newspaper in the country. The body count obsessed the public as the toll quickly rose to extreme levels in a short period of time. Iwo Jima became the bloodiest battle in Marine Corps history. Moreover, it was one of the most costly American battles fought in World War II. Nearly a third of all Marines who died in World War II lost their lives on Iwo Jima.
   . . . .
   History has forgotten that not all the veterans or even the planners of the Pacific war agreed on the necessity of the battle. For example, during an interview concerning naval operations on Saipan, retired Adm. Charles Adair, a Navy captain in 1945 and a senior amphibious operations planner in the Pacific's Seventh Fleet, went off on an interesting tangent concerning Iwo Jima. At the end of his reflections, Adair said, "I don't think Iwo Jima should have been taken, because of the cost to take it. And I don't think the value was there. I don't think it was needed, and if every plane that landed on Iwo Jima, that had to critically, were added up, and the pilots were added up, I'll bet they wouldn't anywhere near total 25,000." The trouble with current tales of Iwo Jima is that criticism like Adair's has ceased altogether, and over the years the legends of the battle have become America's reality.
   The significance of Iwo Jima can be best explained through its two divergent histories, one tragic and the other triumphant, neither of which has been sufficiently addressed. On the one hand, most scholarship has accepted the U.S. military's explanation for the necessity of the terrible battle with little critical analysis. Not a single study has chronicled the multiple events leading up to the decision to seize Iwo Jima. The majority have started from the untested premise that the island was vital to U.S. war aims. Consequently, historians have not dealt with outstanding questions concerning why the United States attacked the island, nor have they evaluated to any great degree its value for subsequent operations. On the other hand, although iconography and myths of Iwo Jima have over-glamorized the battle, the veneration of Iwo Jima actually had much greater positive impact on the Marine Corps in the postwar era than has been previously suggested. In reality, American perception of Iwo Jima helped save the Marines from extinction and continues to influence both the Corps and the nation today. Essentially, both of Iwo Jima's contrasting stories have yet to be fully told. This study undertakes that task.

   With that in mind, the book looks at the following aspects of the battle:

• Planning and original reason for seizing the island
• Course of the battle
• Justifications after the fact
• Public perceptions and manipulations

   To begin with, Burrell describes the course of the war in the Pacific leading up to the landing on Iwo Jima. In one of his key points, the author repeatedly shows how the lack of an overall commander in the Pacific caused wasted effort, wasted time, and wasted casualties. Given uncoordinated and incompatible strategies proposed by the Army and Navy in the war against Japan—not to mention rivalry and posturing already underway for funding in greatly reduced post-war budgets—overall planning for future operations and decisions about who would command those operations reached an impasse.
   Faced with deadlock, the Navy decided in September 1944 to take the initiative by insisting on USN control of invasions of Okinawa and Iwo Jima. The US Army Air Forces wanted the latter island to use as an airbase for fighters to escort B-29 bombers flying from the Marianas against targets in the Japanese home islands. Although planners had already discredited the Bonin Islands as a viable objective (partly because American fighters didn't have sufficient range to fly escort missions from Iwo to Tokyo), the combination of support by Admiral King's Navy and General Arnold's USAAF, along with an endorsement from Admiral Leahy, essentially forced General Marshall and the Army to go along with the proposal. On 2 October the recommendation was approved.

   Five days later, on 7 October 1944, Nimitz issued a directive to the Pacific Fleet to seize Iwo Jima. The plan made clear that an attack in the Bonin Islands directly supported Army Air Forces' operations in the Marianas. It stated only one reason for the necessity of Operation Detachment: "long range bombers should be provided with fighter support at the earliest practicable time" and Iwo Jima "is admirably situated as a fighter base for supporting long range bombers." Notably, King and Nimitz emphasized the need to seize Iwo Jima for the sole purpose of providing fighter escort. Yet later, when the huge death toll had been counted and when fighter operations proved infeasible, both men would use entirely different reasons to justify the operation.
   In late October, when the Navy finally attained up-to-date photoreconnaissance of the island, the photos stunned their audience. The Japanese had been busy constructing elaborate defensive positions since June. The extent of the fortifications surprised both Nimitz and Spruance. At the time the two admirals proposed Iwo Jima to King, neither one believed the operation would be difficult. After viewing the photos, however, Marine Gen. Holland M. Smith told Spruance that the island would cost an enormous number of lives and that he could see no purpose in taking it. Smith's comments had a profound impact on Spruance, who later stated that "this left certain doubts in my head as to whether Iwo Jima would be worth what it cost us." In the words of his biographer, Spruance "began to doubt whether the costs of taking the island would be worth the gains, and the uncertainty troubled him throughout the three-month planning period from October through December."
   In hindsight, June photoreconnaissance should have been updated before the Joint Chiefs of Staff decided on Iwo Jima in October. It might also have been prudent to obtain the opinion of the Marine Corps before authorizing the operation. It appears that neither action was taken. Unfortunately, the time for debate was over. The Navy called on the Marine Corps to carry out the assigned mission, while its commanders had no input into the choice of objectives. The Joint Chiefs of Staff ignored doubts expressed by planners since 1943 regarding the necessity of capturing the island....

   In fact, earlier surveys had indicated the Bonin Islands offered little strategic value as a target for US invasion. Should such operations become necessary, however, the planners originally recommended neighboring Chichi Jima over the barren and inhospitable "Sulfur Island." During September and October, while the US Army, Navy, and Air Forces were engaged in high-level debate over their future course of action, the Japanese were also making plans and carrying out preparations in the Bonins. General Kuribayashi worked his troops without respite to strengthen defenses in the islands. Although the defenders initially believed Chichi Jima to be the likely American objective, "[b]y August 1944 Kuribayashi became convinced that the Americans would attempt to seize Iwo Jima rather than Chichi Jima...." Burrell gives no indication of how or why the Japanese general arrived at his conclusion two months before the Joint Chiefs of Staff made their decision, but Kuribayashi's emphasis on Iwo would cost the Marines dearly. Furthermore, Kuribayashi had learned much from reports about failure of Japanese defensive tactics against other American amphibious landings. Instead of lining up his troops in a thin ring around the perimeter of the island where they could be blasted by naval gunfire, the bulk of the defensive positions would be situated inland. In addition, Kuribayashi was adamant that no suicidal banzai charges would be conducted against Marine machine guns. Instead, the Americans would be forced to attack Japanese strongpoints with interlocking fields of fire in terrain perfectly suited for defense.
   Operation Detachment, designed to overcome a weaker defense, suffered other problems. Air attacks failed to appreciably weaken the Japanese positions or slow their continued improvement. A couple of tons of napalm were dropped on the island in February "...to no appreciable effect." Planners scheduled eight days of naval bombardment immediately prior to the landing. The Marines complained such softening up was insufficient and wanted at least ten days, but in fact the duration and weight of naval gunfire was further reduced. General MacArthur refused to release six battleships from the Philippines on time, the bombardment was reduced to three days to prevent delays to the landing on Okinawa, and ammunition allocated to warships for the Iwo operation was diverted to Okinawa. Furthermore, the Navy insisted on using twenty-three battleships and cruisers for a raid against Japan rather than assigning them to soften up the island.
   Despite vehement protests and written warnings from senior Marines, the operation lurched forward without sufficient resources. General Holland Smith, commanding Fleet Marine Force Pacific, warned General A.A. Vandergrift, Commandant of the Marine Corps, that planning was flawed, casualties would be extremely heavy, and the island was not worth the price.
   Nonetheless, Operation Detachment went ahead. While the 3rd Marine Division remained in reserve, the 4th and 5th Marine Divisions landed on 19 February 1945. Burrell devotes approximately thirty pages to the actual battle, concisely outlining the course of operations while emphasizing the relentless brutality and heavy casualties. He effectively quotes firsthand accounts from Marines who suffered through the bloodletting, leaving little to the imagination when it comes to blood, broken bodies, and death. The author also makes telling points about the self-sacrifice of both sides:

   While judging Japanese tactics like kamikaze and banzai charges as alien and suicidal, the Marines simultaneously adopted and applauded similar approaches of sacrifice in their own desperate conduct of battle. As in Japan, many of America's most idealistic youths carried out such practices. The actions of 5th Marine Division's Jacklyn Lucas, who had turned seventeen less than a week before the landing, typified this courage. While on patrol, Lucas's squad traversed a narrow ravine. The enemy threw a hand grenade into the rift, which landed in close proximity to a number of Marines. Recognizing the danger to his friends, Lucas threw his own body over the deadly explosive in order to protect them from harm. As Lucas awaited his death, a second Japanese hand grenade fell into the area. Lucas reached out, scooped up this other device, placed both hand grenades under himself, and absorbed the impact of the explosions. Amazingly Lucas survived the event. Most Marines who carried out such acts of selflessness, however, paid for it with their lives. Adding to the 5th Division's combat effectiveness, the Marines' feeling of esprit de corps was instrumental in the difficult offensive north into what eventually encompassed the steepest terrain on the Motoyama Plateau. The 5th Division encountered the remainder of Kuribayashi's resistance and, consequently, would be the last to leave the despair of Sulfur Island.

   Iwo Jima was not the only brutal, bloody battle of the Pacific war. It came at a time, however, when the American public seemed unwilling to stomach such heavy losses and there was some concern about the ability of the US to sustain further costly campaigns against Japan, a concern the Japanese high command exacerbated by its insistence on causing the maximum number of American losses no matter what the cost. In previous battles, the Americans could console themselves that they had always inflicted more casualties than they had incurred. On Iwo Jima, that was not the case. Partly in an effort to win the public relations campaign, partly through incomplete figures, and partly through inaccurate knowledge of Japanese strength, the American public was misled about the ratio of casualties. Burrell meticulously reconstructs the figures to show that measured from 19 February through 26 March, "[t]he ratio of American to Japanese casualties tragically surpassed that of any other amphibious operation, with three American casualties for every two Japanese." For the US Marines, Navy, and Army between those dates (with the USMC taking by far the largest number of losses), the figure amounted to 28,696. For a small island that was supposed to have been taken quickly and painlessly, American casualties were staggering, and brought a howl of pain and protest from newspapers and commentators all over the country.
   The cost was so high and the ratio of losses so unfavorable that, according to Burrell, the Joint Chiefs of Staff intentionally distorted the numbers when they presented them to President Truman because they were afraid the actual figures might cause him to rule against an even bloodier invasion of Japan. With the US public so concerned about heavy casualties, even the "sanitized version" produced an impact on Truman. "Quite simply, the extensive manpower losses on Iwo Jima in comparison to the size of the enemy force hindered approval of future, and inherently more vital, ground offensives."
   How did the military justify such sacrifices in Operation Detachment? In the original proposal, Iwo Jima was simply to have served as a base for fighters to escort B-29 bombing missions to Japan. In the event, that never worked out as planned, partly because of changes in B-29 tactics, such as General LeMay's introduction in March of low-altitude firebombing at night. Consequently, staffs scrambled for new reasons to explain why commanders had thrown away so many Marines to capture the island. Burrell identifies ten separate justifications—ranging from fighter escort to use of Iwo as an emergency landing field—offered by various sources. He then proceeds to demolish each specious argument in succession with an imposing array of facts.
   Of the ten reasons, the last one—emergency landing fields—is the one most commonly quoted and the one to which Burrell devotes most attention. He traces the origin of that justification back to September 1945 in the final issue of "Impact," the journal of the Army Air Forces. Burrell quotes an excerpt from the article as stating that "from 4 March, when the fist crippled B-29 landed there, to the end of the war, 2,251 Superforts landed on Iwo. A large number of these would have been lost if Iwo had not been available. Each of the B-29's carried 11 crewmen, a total of 24,761 men. It cost 4,800 dead, 15,800 wounded, and 400 missing to take the island...but...every man who served with the 20th Air Force...is eternally grateful."
   Burrell notes that some historians have questioned this theory, but it has nevertheless become the accepted rationale for the high cost of Operation Detachment, and most writers simply accept the USAAF's 1945 figures and quote them as gospel. Although Burrell had no way of mentioning it in his book, a new history by Cory Graff, Strike and Return: American Air Power and the Fight for Iwo Jima, published just a few weeks after The Ghosts of Iwo Jima, toes the line. Here's what Graff has to say in Strike and Return: "In the last six months of fighting, the tiny island in the middle of the Pacific became a safe haven for more than 2,400 needy B-29 bombers—an amazing number, considering that only 3,965 were built. If not for Iwo Jima, a significant portion of these aircraft would have been lost at sea. More importantly, many of the aircrews would have been lost—typically 11 airmen per bomber."
   This kind of sloppy bookkeeping and fatuous justification Robert Burrell does not abide. In this section of his book he insists over and over again that the numbers are simply wrong and the rationale doesn't make sense. For example, he notes that the USAAF figures for American casualties on Iwo (21,000) are far short of the actual mark (over 28,000). Likewise, the USAAF count of "2,251 Superforts landed on Iwo" is inflated to include all landings for any reason whatsoever, emergency or not. Furthermore, to calculate the math as though every crewman would have been lost in each downed B-29 is simply illogical. He further dismantles the "emergency landings" argument by examining the records of B-29 usage of the island and finding relatively few that qualify as such.

   Whatever the number of Superforts that actually landed for urgent reasons, many would have made it back to the Marianas without Iwo Jima. Common sense would say that some of the Superfort landings on Iwo Jima were dramatic emergency landings, and that the airfields on the island saved lives, but generalizing that every landing on Iwo Jima occurred for emergency purposes distorts statistics. Writers have greatly exaggerated the emergency landing theory for the purpose of justifying the heavy battle losses, and this has proven misleading in several ways. Not only was this justification for the battle erroneously constructed in hindsight, but the fixation with it has led nearly every history to overlook the actual reason for seizing the island—fighter escort....

   In sum, like all the other justifications, Burrell writes convincingly that the claim Iwo saved more servicemen than it cost is simply a myth invented and perpetuated to cover up the senseless command arrangements, faulty decision making, and flawed strategy in the Pacific that led to an unnecessary bloodbath in the Bonins.

   Some have presented U.S. Pacific strategy as systematic. In reality, it was disjointed. The decision by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to split responsibility and resources contributed to problems faced at Guadalcanal (1942), Tarawa (1943), and Peleliu (1944). The institutional self-interests of the Army, Navy, and Army Air Forces influenced their schemes of maneuver, including the planning for Operation Detachment.
   Once the planning for Iwo Jima began, service rivalry continued to adversely affect preparations. The United States did not properly focus its available military might against Iwo Jima. The Army refused to release the battleships and cruisers it borrowed for Luzon in time to participate. Despite the Army Air Forces' astonishingly massive air raids on Tokyo, it refused to allocate B-29s to soften up Iwo Jima. And the Navy prioritized resources for Okinawa over Operation Detachment, cutting preparatory naval bombardment from ten days to three. The scattering of forces made the battle more costly than it might have been, resulting in the bloodiest battle in Marine Corps history. The heavy losses incurred on Iwo Jima hindered important future ground operations. Scholars and military analysts can and should rationally question the decision to capture the island.
   Myths created about the necessity of taking the island, emphasis on the flag-raising on Mount Suribachi, and the emergency landing theory have distorted memory of the battle. Nimitz paid apt tribute to the Marines who fought the battle when he stated that "uncommon valor was a common virtue." Historians have emphasized the admiral's sentiment to the exclusion of analytic rigor. They have overlooked the strategic decisions that sent these warriors to make such horrific sacrifices. One can honor the Marines' bravery without conflating it with their commanders' wisdom. Perhaps the most appropriate tribute later generations can offer Iwo Jima's valiant dead is to ask why they had to die to secure fighter escorts that never really materialized.

   So ends the first part of the book. However, Burrell is not finished with examining Iwo Jima, and the second part of his book, "The Immortal Icon," digs into some other repercussions of the battle.
   Faced with huge losses, an uneasy public, and no real reason for spilling so much blood, a fortuitous event was seized upon to drape the body count in red, white, and blue and make it nearly impossible to question what had actually happened on the island. That event was Joe Rosenthal's photograph of the iconic flag raising on Mount Suribachi. Chapter Six leads readers through the original flag raising and then the second one where Rosenthal took his photo. Partly because, as Burrell makes clear, the surroundings and angle of the photo provided no context, divorcing it from the ugly reality of the island battle, the image furnished a perfect symbol of American determination and heroism. The three flag raisers who survived the campaign were ordered to participate in a grand tour of choreographed patriotism to whip up support for the seventh war bond drive, with Rosenthal's image as the central theme. In doing so, the battle itself became little more than a sanitized, mythical backdrop for glorifying the Marine Corps and paying for the war.
   In particular, Burrell tells the sad story of Ira Hayes, the Native American who tried to avoid the glare of publicity, was forced to participate in the war bond campaign, never recovered from the trauma he endured on Iwo, and drank himself to death at an early age.
   At the end of World War II, American policy makers found themselves embroiled in a dispute over the future of the armed forces, with the serious likelihood of a unitary command of the services and a much reduced—or even disbanded—USMC. Interestingly, the Marines utilized the legend of Iwo Jima—already firmly established in public perception by Rosenthal's photo and the war bond drive—as the lever by which they ensured survival of the Corps as an important element of the American military establishment.
   The final portions of the book go on to describe the making of the stirring and highly propagandistic "Sands of Iwo Jima" starring John Wayne and lavishly supported by the Marine Corps. Burrell also covers the creation of the Marine War Memorial, "The Outsider" film about Hayes, and the song "The Ballad of Ira Hayes" which was made popular by Johnny Cash. More importantly, the author looks at the "ghosts of Iwo Jima" in the national response to the destruction of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City in 2001 (including the "Heroes USA" postage stamp featuring a flag-raising by NYC rescue workers) and, more generally, the current public perception of Iwo Jima.
   Although he seems not always to approve of everything done in the name of the Marines of Iwo Jima after the fact, Burrell—himself a Marine—clearly holds dear the memory of the sacrifice of so many young Americans, and his closing paragraph is one of the strongest and most poignant of his book:

   Looking back sixty years later, the tragedies of the battle have dissipated, as if the "Ghosts of Iwo" have moved on. In 1947 the United States dug up the bodies of thousands of Marines and their corpsmen from the cemeteries on the island to return them stateside. In June 1968 the United States officially gave the island back to Japan. The U.S. flag came down to the tune of a lone bugler playing the "Stars and Stripes." Directly afterward, the Japanese flag went up to replace it. Geographical changes have accompanied the political changes. The island seized in 1945 is no longer the same. Due to volcanic activity and tidal forces, the shape of the island's southern shores has shifted, and Mount Suribachi is 24 feet higher. As well, the island no longer resembles the lunar landscape that it once did. First American then Japanese engineers flattened most of the terrain to build airfields and buildings. Those fields have now overgrow with grass, flowers, trees, and thick scrub. Most times of the year, the terrain appears green, pastoral, and peaceful, with the sights and sounds of deep blue waves crashing onto the beaches. The last vestiges of U.S. presence, a weather station manned by the U.S. Coast Guard, ended in 1993. Instead of the massive fortifications they once engineered, soldiers from the Japanese Self Defense Force maintain manicured lawns and a nine-hole golf course. Perhaps these changes are for the best. Few Americans remember the great destruction and tragedy of the epic contest that occurred there. Although the realities of battle have become a vague national memory, the idealism of the naval forces that seized that desolate island of hell sixty years ago live on in our society's spirit. Rosenthal's photograph pulled something out of Iwo Jima and drew it closer to our shores, much closer than that distant island thousands of miles away. The "Ghosts of Iwo" walk among us now just beneath our national consciousness, ready to carry the banner in triumph when called. Their actions may not be remembered, and their bodies may be broken, but the indomitable spirit they demonstrated decades ago remains stronger than ever. The specters finally came home, and through the flag-raising image, they will revisit our nation for eternity.

   Burrell succeeds admirably at separating myth from reality and demonstrating the facts about how Iwo Jima fit into US strategy and exactly what its value was—and wasn't—in relation to the battle's hideous cost and the wider war in the Pacific. In a year with at least six or eight new titles being published on various aspects of Iwo, Burrell's approach stands out as something entirely different. This is not a volume to be read for bloodless, patriotic tableaux with waving flags in the background. Instead, the book provides a strong, fresh, insightful account of the grim reality of Sulfur Island, its price, and its aftermath.
   Highly recommended.
   Available from online booksellers, local bookshops, or directly from Texas A&M University Press.
   Thanks to TAMU for providing this review copy.