February 19, 1945: the day on which, on a seemingly impregnable flyspeck Pacific island some 75,000 United Marines began there thirty-sex day assaults against Japanese forces defending to the last man the front door to their homeland IWO Jima chronicles that deadly combat - a battle the likes of which mankind will probably never witness again. It is the story of America's part in the holocaust of that invasion - why the battle was fought, how it was fought, the drama and conflict among the top brass of U.S. armed forces, the battle's real role and importance in the ultimate conquest of Japan.
IWO JIMA is a brutal book, filled with the horror, the heroism, the patriotism of war. On this tiny strip of volcanic ash and stone, in one of the most terrible of all battles since the Civil War, 25,852 American's became causalities. 6,821 were killed in action. Of Japan's estimated 21,000 troops, just over a thousand were taken prisoner - the rest died in hand-to-hand fighting, by incineration or hara-kiri.
In the entire course of the five years of World War II, both in Europe and the Pacific, only 353 Congressional Medals of Honor, the nation's highest award for heroism, were given. In just a little more than a month, twenty-seven of these went to the men of Iwo Jima.