Battle over Iwo Jima continues

Battle over Iwo Jima continues

On Feb. 19, 1945 the United States finally brought World War
II to Japan itself as, after a massive prior bombardment, Marines
landed on the island of Iwo Jima, which lay between U.S.-held
Saipan and Guam to the south, and Tokyo to the north. Jakarta
Post Asia correspondent Harvey Stockwin visits the island as the
Americans get ready to remember the famous battle which the
Japanese prefer to forget.

IWO JIMA, Japan (JP): Fifty years after U.S. Marines stormed
ashore here, finally carrying the Pacific War to the Japanese
home islands, Iwo Jima is a dormant fortress which continues to
divide the U.S. from its ally, Japan.

Iwo Jima (Sulphur island) is much as the Marines found it on
Feb. 19, 1945. The famous John Wayne movie later had the Marines
fighting on the The Sands of Iwo Jima but there is no sand on
Iwo. The island is an inactive volcano, and the steeply inclined
beaches are composed of a soft black ash which was one more
impediment as the Americans tried to form a beachhead on Feb. 19,
1945.

The Japanese did not immediately try to push the Marines back
into the sea.

By February 1945, the Japanese knew that winning the war was no
longer possible, so their main strategy was to take as many
Americans with them as they themselves died.

By February 1945, the Americans had hundreds of deadly B-29
bombers stationed on Guam, Saipan, and Tinian islands which lie
some 900 miles south south east Iwo. Then, Iwo's airfields lay
three-fifths of the way on the B-29's route to Tokyo.

The Marines hoped to take Iwo Jima in four or five days.
Instead, a murderous battle was fought from Feb. 19 until March
26. The Americans took control but the Japanese succeeded in
their aim, too, as 6,821 Americans and nearly 21,000 Japanese
gave their lives in the battle. 25,851 Americans were wounded
while only 1,083 Japanese surrendered or were captured.

Iwo was returned to Japanese sovereignty in 1968. Today, while
Iwo is nominally under the control of the Tokyo municipal
government, it is in fact run by the Self Defense Forces. All
local inhabitants were removed from Iwo in July 1944 and never
returned.

Four hundred Japanese military run the air base. The last
Americans on the island, Coast Guardmen manning a navigational
station, left recently when their equipment was automated.

Fifty years on, as sixty Japanese and foreign journalists
descend on Iwo in advance of the fiftieth anniversary
commemorations of the famous battle, the Japanese military
reception is as unfriendly as it was hostile fifty years ago.

The Japanese base commander does not welcome the visitors and
none of his subordinates put in an appearance either, not even to
greet their fellow-countrymen.

A small company of U.S. Marines have arrived on the island
from Okinawa to prepare for the commemoration and they look after
the visiting media. They carefully stress, in response to press
queries, that the Japanese military have been very helpful. The
fact remains that the Japanese and American soldiers still live
separate lives on the tiny island.

There are none of the signs of solidarity that alliances --
such as that which exists between the U.S. and Japan -- are
supposed to exude. Japanese as well as American veterans will be
coming to the main remembrance on the island on March 14th, but
the Americans alone are hard at work cutting back the vegetation
and generally tidying up around the many memorials that dot the
island battlefield.

Whether this is because the Japanese have declined to help, or
because the Americans want to do it their own way, is never made
clear.

For the most part, the island's numerous monuments, most of
which are Japanese, are well looked after. The most famous monument
commemorates the moment on Feb. 25 when a handful of Marines hoisted
the Stars and Stripes on the top of Mount Suribachi, a steep 500-
foot hill which contains the crater of the dormant volcano.

That moment was caught forever by an AP cameraman in what
became for Americans the most famous and inspiring picture of
World War II. Today Marines are hard at work polishing the
inscription. It hasn't been touched for a long time. On the one
hand, the Japanese garrison doesn't look after it. On the other
the Americans don't come regularly from Okinawa to maintain it.

The lack of allied solidarity on Iwo Jima has evidently been
reduplicated diplomatically between Tokyo and Washington. Numerous
stories have appeared recently in the Japanese press indicating
Japanese unhappiness with any American celebration of their victory
on Iwo Jima.

Since the two nations commemorated the 40th anniversary in
1985 without any backbiting, and since the Americans have not
been so crass as to stress Iwo Jima as their "victory", it
appears that Japanese bureaucrats are manufacturing an incident
for their domestic audience.

Nevertheless on Feb. 14 the Japanese Foreign Ministry officials
said that it had been "decided to officially support" the 50th
anniversary ceremonies on Iwo Jima since "the U.S. side confirmed
its intention to look at the events as a joint service to mourn
those who died (on Iwo Jima) instead of a commemoration of the
U.S. victory over Japan".

As the Japanese officials protested so loudly to their own
people about the U.S. victory, they heavily underlined, once
again, how far Japan is from properly coming to terms with its
own defeat.

Back on Iwo Jima, for a moment it seemed that some progress was
being made after all. A young Japanese correspondent looked into
a Japanese TV camera wielded by Japanese cameramen, and firmly
told her viewers that "While most Japanese have never heard of
the battle that took place here, most Americans hold this to be
an unforgettable and sacred battleground".

It seemed like the sort of comment Japanese viewers ought to
hear. But the Japanese were all working for an American television
network.