Battle over Iwo Jima continues<\/p>\n
On Feb. 19, 1945 the United States finally brought World War
\nII to Japan itself as, after a massive prior bombardment, Marines
\nlanded on the island of Iwo Jima, which lay between U.S.-held
\nSaipan and Guam to the south, and Tokyo to the north. Jakarta
\nPost Asia correspondent Harvey Stockwin visits the island as the
\nAmericans get ready to remember the famous battle which the
\nJapanese prefer to forget.<\/p>\n
IWO JIMA, Japan (JP): Fifty years after U.S. Marines stormed
\nashore here, finally carrying the Pacific War to the Japanese
\nhome islands, Iwo Jima is a dormant fortress which continues to
\ndivide the U.S. from its ally, Japan.<\/p>\n
Iwo Jima (Sulphur island) is much as the Marines found it on
\nFeb. 19, 1945. The famous John Wayne movie later had the Marines
\nfighting on the The Sands of Iwo Jima but there is no sand on
\nIwo. The island is an inactive volcano, and the steeply inclined
\nbeaches are composed of a soft black ash which was one more
\nimpediment as the Americans tried to form a beachhead on Feb. 19,
\n1945.<\/p>\n
The Japanese did not immediately try to push the Marines back
\ninto the sea.<\/p>\n
By February 1945, the Japanese knew that winning the war was no
\nlonger possible, so their main strategy was to take as many
\nAmericans with them as they themselves died.<\/p>\n
By February 1945, the Americans had hundreds of deadly B-29
\nbombers stationed on Guam, Saipan, and Tinian islands which lie
\nsome 900 miles south south east Iwo. Then, Iwo's airfields lay
\nthree-fifths of the way on the B-29's route to Tokyo.<\/p>\n
The Marines hoped to take Iwo Jima in four or five days.
\nInstead, a murderous battle was fought from Feb. 19 until March
\n26. The Americans took control but the Japanese succeeded in
\ntheir aim, too, as 6,821 Americans and nearly 21,000 Japanese
\ngave their lives in the battle. 25,851 Americans were wounded
\nwhile only 1,083 Japanese surrendered or were captured.<\/p>\n
Iwo was returned to Japanese sovereignty in 1968. Today, while
\nIwo is nominally under the control of the Tokyo municipal
\ngovernment, it is in fact run by the Self Defense Forces. All
\nlocal inhabitants were removed from Iwo in July 1944 and never
\nreturned.<\/p>\n
Four hundred Japanese military run the air base. The last
\nAmericans on the island, Coast Guardmen manning a navigational
\nstation, left recently when their equipment was automated.<\/p>\n
Fifty years on, as sixty Japanese and foreign journalists
\ndescend on Iwo in advance of the fiftieth anniversary
\ncommemorations of the famous battle, the Japanese military
\nreception is as unfriendly as it was hostile fifty years ago.<\/p>\n
The Japanese base commander does not welcome the visitors and
\nnone of his subordinates put in an appearance either, not even to
\ngreet their fellow-countrymen.<\/p>\n
A small company of U.S. Marines have arrived on the island
\nfrom Okinawa to prepare for the commemoration and they look after
\nthe visiting media. They carefully stress, in response to press
\nqueries, that the Japanese military have been very helpful. The
\nfact remains that the Japanese and American soldiers still live
\nseparate lives on the tiny island.<\/p>\n
There are none of the signs of solidarity that alliances --
\nsuch as that which exists between the U.S. and Japan -- are
\nsupposed to exude. Japanese as well as American veterans will be
\ncoming to the main remembrance on the island on March 14th, but
\nthe Americans alone are hard at work cutting back the vegetation
\nand generally tidying up around the many memorials that dot the
\nisland battlefield.<\/p>\n
Whether this is because the Japanese have declined to help, or
\nbecause the Americans want to do it their own way, is never made
\nclear.<\/p>\n
For the most part, the island's numerous monuments, most of
\nwhich are Japanese, are well looked after. The most famous monument
\ncommemorates the moment on Feb. 25 when a handful of Marines hoisted
\nthe Stars and Stripes on the top of Mount Suribachi, a steep 500-
\nfoot hill which contains the crater of the dormant volcano.<\/p>\n
That moment was caught forever by an AP cameraman in what
\nbecame for Americans the most famous and inspiring picture of
\nWorld War II. Today Marines are hard at work polishing the
\ninscription. It hasn't been touched for a long time. On the one
\nhand, the Japanese garrison doesn't look after it. On the other
\nthe Americans don't come regularly from Okinawa to maintain it.<\/p>\n
The lack of allied solidarity on Iwo Jima has evidently been
\nreduplicated diplomatically between Tokyo and Washington. Numerous
\nstories have appeared recently in the Japanese press indicating
\nJapanese unhappiness with any American celebration of their victory
\non Iwo Jima.<\/p>\n
Since the two nations commemorated the 40th anniversary in
\n1985 without any backbiting, and since the Americans have not
\nbeen so crass as to stress Iwo Jima as their \"victory\", it
\nappears that Japanese bureaucrats are manufacturing an incident
\nfor their domestic audience.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless on Feb. 14 the Japanese Foreign Ministry officials
\nsaid that it had been \"decided to officially support\" the 50th
\nanniversary ceremonies on Iwo Jima since \"the U.S. side confirmed
\nits intention to look at the events as a joint service to mourn
\nthose who died (on Iwo Jima) instead of a commemoration of the
\nU.S. victory over Japan\".<\/p>\n
As the Japanese officials protested so loudly to their own
\npeople about the U.S. victory, they heavily underlined, once
\nagain, how far Japan is from properly coming to terms with its
\nown defeat.<\/p>\n
Back on Iwo Jima, for a moment it seemed that some progress was
\nbeing made after all. A young Japanese correspondent looked into
\na Japanese TV camera wielded by Japanese cameramen, and firmly
\ntold her viewers that \"While most Japanese have never heard of
\nthe battle that took place here, most Americans hold this to be
\nan unforgettable and sacred battleground\".<\/p>\n
It seemed like the sort of comment Japanese viewers ought to
\nhear. But the Japanese were all working for an American television
\nnetwork.<\/p>",
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