World War 2: The Battle Of Iwo Jima

Battle of Iwo Jima World War II was an inevitable war brought on by the unprovoked attack from Germany on Poland and anger fueled over World War I. Of all the battles in World War II, only one has not been justified. The battle of Iwo Jima, a Japanese island, occurred because of a rivalry between the Navy and the Army over who could get there first; this led to one of the bloodiest battles in Naval history and the eventual US victory of World War II. Battle of Leyte was intended to be the last battle for the tired and battle tested military soldiers; but, in an abrupt change of plans the Marines decided to enact Operation Scavenger, the US Bomber raid, on Iwo Jima that paved the way for Operation Detachment, the land raid. The military goal:
James Vedder was a combat surgeon in the 27th regiment, 5th division of the Marines with only twenty months of experience; unlike the others he was not battle tested (#3). On February 19, 1945 as he was prepping for battle, his commanding officer told him the military expecting two days of offensive fighting; the 3rd day reserved for last clean sweep of remaining enemy soldiers. Eighty thousand combat marines went to battle that day, Dr. Vedder included. Vedder went through “33 days of horror,” trying his best to set shattered jaws, sew up mangled faces and close split skulls; he tried to fix missing limbs, close wounds that would never heal, watch soldiers die violent deaths and try to sanitize as best he could on hostile battle grounds. “Attempted to exercise compassion in hell,” would later be quoted from Dr. Vedder as he reflected on his first battle in the Marines (#3). Even through all this horror Vedder was able to come home and write a book, Combat Surgeon : On Iwo Jima With The 27th Marines By James S. Vedder, about his experiences in the
The second part of the plan was Operation Detachment, the largest marine operation to date, was to send in land forces including thirty thousand marines and naval support to take over the bases ( #2). The Navy’s plan for the island was to prove a strategic bombing to create an independent post war air service. The Marines ended up paying the most in both money and soldiers, but had no say in the operations. The combat that resulted from Operation Scavenger and Detachment was the most brutal, tragic, and costly battle of the war. The Marines also used “Superfortresses” to firebomb surrounding cities, gut large part of Japanese cities, kill thousands of civilians on the mainland, and prove irrelevance of the Battle of Iwo Jima, aka Sulfur Island. After the seizure of the island only seven Japanese attacks were successfully launched and none of them required use of the island (#3). Following this battle plan on March 3rd the US owned three airfields, by the 26th the Japanese were wiped out completely. At the end of the war about six thousand Americans died and seventeen thousand wounded compared to the roughly two thousand Japanese KIA (#1). Even through all this the military goal was never