Iwo Jima showed just how far human suffering could go when no one was willing to surrender. It became one of the most haunting battles in human history, not just because of how many lives were lost, but because of the way that happened. On an island of just 8 square miles for 36 days, over 1,000 people died each day, and many of them in ways too disturbing to speak of for years.
But the end of the battle didn’t mean the end of horror, as strange things continued to happen on the island for years afterward. This is the part of history that was intentionally left out, the other side of the medal of what was supposed to be a victory. Before we get into why fighting on this island was so horrifying, let’s quickly set the stage so you have a better picture of what was about to happen.
Iwo Jima was strategically important because of its location. It’s at almost exactly halfway between the Mariana Islands and Tokyo, right along the flight path of B-29 bombers attacking the Japanese mainland. For the Japanese, it was a forward early warning station and a fighter base. For the Americans, it was a serious problem.
They wanted it gone, and they wanted to secure it as a base for emergency bomber landings and fighter escorts. In October 1944, Operation Detachment began. The plan was to invade Iwo Jima, and to do that, the United States assembled the largest Marine force ever committed to a single battle. Around 70,000 men were brought together, supported by dozens of warships and aircraft.
For 74 days before the Marines even hit the beach, American planes and ships dropped thousands of tons of explosives on the island. The final naval bombardment was supposed to last 10 days, but it was cut short after only three, because from a distance the island looked like it had been completely flattened. To American commanders, it seemed like the island had been pounded into submission, and there was probably nothing significant left alive on it.
Well, they were about to find out just how wrong and naive that assumption really was. Waiting on the island was the Japanese 109th Division under the command of Lieutenant General Kuribayashi. For months, his men had been turning Iwo Jima into a fortress, carefully preparing for what they knew would be their final stand.
They understood the island’s importance, and they knew exactly what the Americans were going to do to try and take it. Kuribayashi had a detailed plan, but there was no plan for retreat, no plan for victory, and no plan for survival. He knew there was no way to evacuate the island since it was surrounded by the Allied fleet, and there was no way to get reinforcements or supplies.
The defenders were there to fight and to die, so they were going to make it count. Learning from previous battles and studying American amphibious tactics, Kuribayashi reshaped the defense to be as deadly and as difficult to destroy as possible. About 22,000 Japanese soldiers worked day and night preparing defensive positions, but not in the usual way.
The island was made of volcanic rock, which made it easy to dig by hand. Instead of waiting on the beaches where American artillery and naval gunfire would wipe them out, the Japanese decided to disappear underground. They built a hidden maze beneath the island, caves, reinforced bunkers, pillboxes, and hardened firing positions all connected by tunnels.
On just 8 square miles of land, over 11 miles of tunnels were dug out linking hundreds of hidden strong points beneath the black volcanic surface. And this time, there were no desperate banzai charges. Every Japanese soldier was ordered to kill at least 10 Americans before being allowed to die. That meant setting up ambushes, withdrawing and reappearing, and using disturbingly creative tactics meant to take as many American lives as possible, and all of it was already in place, quietly waiting.
So, when the American bombardment began, the Japanese simply went deep underground. That heavy, weeks-long bombardment ended up causing surprisingly few Japanese casualties. And now, with hundreds of landing craft approaching the island, the stage was set for what would become a true meat grinder of a battle.
It was February 19th, 1945. At exactly 8:59 in the morning, wave after wave of Marine assault troops began storming ashore on Iwo Jima’s beaches under the cover of naval gunfire. As they hit the sand, they were surprised by how light the resistance was. Only a few sporadic gunshots rang out, and for the first hour, there was a strange and ominous calm.
Thousands of Marines gathered on the beaches along with their tanks and heavy equipment, but it felt too quiet. Something was clearly wrong, and many of the men started to sense it. Kuribayashi had ordered his troops to hold their fire until the beaches were absolutely packed with Marines and vehicles.
And just as those first waves struggled through the soft volcanic ash that clogged up their landing craft and slowed every step, the Japanese sprung their trap. Dozens of pre-sighted and camouflaged artillery batteries opened fire. Shells that had been buried in the ash were remotely detonated. Machine guns laid down overlapping fields of fire, and every available Japanese rifle opened up on the densely packed beach.
There was no cover, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. The Marines tried to dig in, but the volcanic sand offered almost no protection. They were sitting ducks in a deadly crossfire, and they were getting absolutely decimated. These were the first hours of the battle, and already the casualties were in the thousands.
Marines were being cut down as they desperately tried to move inland toward their objectives. By the end of the day, around 30,000 Marines had made it ashore, but it came at a horrific cost. In the days that followed, US Marines pushed inland and set their sights on capturing Mount Suribachi in the south. They surrounded the base of the volcanic cone and began a methodical assault uphill, straight over a maze of hidden caves and pillboxes.
What they found was a battlefield like nothing anyone had ever seen. The Japanese were everywhere, attacking from all directions at point-blank range and from positions that were supposedly already cleared. Marines quickly realized just how massive the underground network of pillboxes, bunkers, and tunnels really was. Everything was connected.
They would clear out a position and move forward, only for Japanese troops to reappear behind them from that same spot and open fire. It was chaos. There were no clear frontlines. Bayonet charges and hand-to-hand fighting broke out constantly, and the worst part was, this was still just the beginning.
The most brutal phase of the battle was still to come. And here one weapon would become the symbol of just how close and brutal the fighting really was, the flamethrower. We actually have a separate video talking all about this weapon, but it’s important to mention it here as well. Flamethrowers were credited as the weapon that ultimately brought victory on Iwo Jima, but they were also known as both the best and the worst weapon Marines had.
Their operators rarely survived long. In fact, 92% of them were killed on Iwo Jima. Flamethrowers had only about 20 yd of effective range and just 7 seconds of actual firing time before running out of fuel. The weapon weighed 70 lb when fully loaded, so good luck storming uphill with that on your back.
And if the enemy caught you alive, that was probably a worse fate than dying. One operator reached a cave entrance and prepared to fire, but his flamethrower misfired. Two Japanese soldiers saw their chance, rushed out, grabbed him, and dragged him back inside. For 2 days, his fellow Marines could hear his screams echoing from that cave.
They couldn’t reach him or even end his suffering. Still, flamethrowers were the only reliable way to destroy the pillboxes connected by tunnels, and the Japanese knew it. So, every time a flamethrower appeared, the entire front would light up and try to take that man down. Eventually, the Zippo Shermans arrived, modified tanks fitted with massive flamethrowers that had greater range, more fuel, and much better survivability.
To the Japanese, these tanks were the worst nightmare imaginable. Their effects were horrifying. And if you’re curious, there are still videos online showing them in action. Though frankly, I wouldn’t recommend watching them. On the fourth day of battle, a patrol of Marines broke through to the summit of Mount Suribachi and raised a small American flag on a piece of pipe to signal its capture.
A few hours later, a second, larger flag was raised and photographed. Marine Corps photographer Bill Genaust, who filmed and photographed that second flag raising, was later killed while clearing a cave. The cave entrance was collapsed with TNT, and his body was never recovered. But, the fall of Mount Suribachi, while a major objective, was not even close to the end of the horrific fighting that lay ahead.
Only about 1/3 of the island was now secured, and the Marines still did not realize just how extensive the underground Japanese positions really were. The enemy still held a dense network of defensive zones across the wider northern part of the island, including several fortified high grounds that had to be captured by hand.
Progress became slow and punishing. The Marines were paying for every inch of ground in blood. Whenever they took a hill or ridge, often with dozens of casualties, Japanese soldiers would suddenly emerge from behind or from the flanks, and open fire again from ground that was supposed to be cleared. Relentless naval gunfire and air strikes were called in constantly, but flamethrowers and grenades remained the only weapons that could actually clear out the tunnels and pillboxes effectively.
Meanwhile, inside those tunnels, the Japanese were enduring truly horrific conditions. The volcanic rock trapped heat and filled the air with sulfur. Many tunnel sections had collapsed from the bombardment, or their entrances had been sealed. So, the defenders were often trapped in total darkness, sometimes for days without water, food, fresh air, or even a way out.
Speaking of grenades, there was one moment that defined the kind of courage this battle demanded. Navy Corpsman John H. Willis saved wounded Marines by picking up and throwing back eight Japanese grenades. He grabbed a ninth one to throw it, too, but it exploded in his hand, killing him instantly. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, and he was just one of many.
On Iwo Jima, that kind of bravery was a daily occurrence. In just 36 days of fighting, 27 Medals of Honor were earned. 14 of them were awarded posthumously. That is more than a quarter of all the Medals of Honor earned by Marines during the entire Second World War, all from this single battle. As the Marines eventually managed to cut the island in half and push the remaining Japanese defenders back, the fighting still did not stop.
The Japanese were now almost completely out of water, but they kept fighting fanatically. Small groups would slip through American lines at night trying to scavenge weapons and canteens or just to terrorize the exhausted Marines who could never truly feel safe. Some Japanese soldiers wore American uniforms to sneak closer.
Others shouted medic or corpsman in English trying to lure out American medics or trick them into revealing their positions. Medics were a prime target and around 60% of them became casualties. Many Japanese soldiers had been heavily indoctrinated with the belief that Americans would do horrific things to them, even going as far as eating them.
So, surrender was not just a violation of Bushido, it was also something they believed would lead to torture or death. Even when wounded or dying, they tried to kill. A wounded Japanese soldier grabbed a scalpel and stabbed the surgeon who was treating him. He was shot on the spot. Others booby trapped themselves.
They would strap grenades to their bodies using rubber bands soaked in gasoline with the pins already pulled. After some time, the gasoline would eat through the rubber releasing the grenade spoon and triggering an explosion. Some fake surrendered just to get close enough to throw a grenade. Because of this, Marines eventually stopped taking prisoners.
It became a nightmare in every possible way. The danger was constant and it came from places you could not even imagine. And yes, there were brutal acts committed on both sides against captured soldiers. Many of those we cannot even talk about here on YouTube, but you can probably imagine what that means. By March 16th, organized resistance had largely ceased and the island was officially declared secured by US command.
However, there were still hundreds of Japanese soldiers underground and they still weren’t quitting. General Kuribayashi himself had withdrawn into a northern cave. On the night of March 25th, in one final act of defiance, around 300 remaining Japanese troops who could still fight were led in a surprise attack by a senior officer. Some accounts claim this might have even been Kuribayashi himself.
They burst out of the tunnels in a sudden banzai attack behind American lines. They struck an airfield supply depot and overran part of a field hospital, killing everyone in their path, including the wounded. By dawn, the rampage was finally brought to an end. After this, the Battle of Iwo Jima was officially over.
After 36 days of non-stop fighting with around 30,000 people dead and another 20,000 wounded, it was finally over. Or was it? Just wait for a second. Take a moment to truly grasp those numbers. About 1,000 people, both Japanese and American, died every single day. And that happened on a tiny island, not across some vast front stretching for hundreds of kilometers.
So many horrors were packed into such a small space and short period of time that no account or documentary could ever fully capture what it felt like. Even after the island was declared secured, Marines spent weeks clearing bunkers and caves with flamethrowers and demolition charges because holdouts were still sniping and booby-trapping the area.
Around 3,000 Japanese soldiers were found hiding in the tunnel systems in the weeks that followed. Most of them refused to surrender and were either killed by Marines or simply never emerged from those caves. But listen to this. Two Japanese soldiers managed to survive and evade capture by hiding in the island’s jungle and caves for four more years after the war had ended.
They were finally caught in January 1949 after they learned that the war had long been over. For weeks after the island was declared secure, muffled gunshots and explosions could still be heard from inside the caves, and you can probably imagine what those sounds meant. Many were too afraid to come out or simply too wounded, too weak, or too far gone to surrender.
Perhaps the darkest part of all of this is what came next. Most of those tunnel systems and cave networks were sealed after the battle, but at the time they were sealed, there were still people alive inside. Now, just take this in. Only a few thousand Japanese were officially buried. As of today, 12,000 Japanese soldiers are still listed as missing.
So are 218 Americans. They are somewhere beneath the ground of Iwo Jima, and all we can do is imagine what their final moments might have looked like. The Americans captured the island, repaired the airstrips, and used it for the exact reason they had fought so hard to take it. And yet, the war would soon end in that infamous way we all know.
What makes everything you just heard even worse is the fact that it might have been completely avoidable. Some believe the Americans could have simply surrounded the island and waited it out, forcing the Japanese to surrender or die inside their fortress. Some veterans later questioned why the atomic bomb was never used on Iwo Jima instead of on Japanese cities, since the island had no civilian population.
There were a lot of hard questions after the battle. Questions about whether the cost was justified. In post-war analysis, Iwo Jima was considered helpful to the bombing campaign, but not absolutely necessary, and certainly not for the price that was paid. On the Japanese side, it was even worse. Out of more than 20,000 men, only 216 surrendered and survived.
The darker truth is that the vast majority of them are still there, buried in the same tunnels they dug before the battle began. Today, Iwo Jima is a Japanese military base with restricted access, and even now, almost 80 years later, it still bears the scars of one of the most horrific battles in modern history.
