The Japanese defending Iwo Jima on D-day displayed superb tactical discipline. As Lieutenant Colonel Justus M. ‘Jumpin’ Joe’ Chambers led his 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines, across the first terrace on the right flank of the landing beaches, he encountered interlocking bands of automatic-weapons fire unlike anything he had faced in Tulagi or Saipan. ‘You could’ve held up a cigarette and lit it on the stuff going by,’ he recalled. ‘I knew immediately we were in for one hell of a time.’
The Battle of Iwo Jima represented to the Americans the pinnacle of forcible entry from the sea. This particular amphibious assault was the ultimate ‘storm landing,’ the Japanese phrase describing the American propensity for concentrating overwhelming force at the point of attack. The huge striking force was more experienced, better armed and more powerfully supported than any other offensive campaign to date in the Pacific War. Vice Admiral Raymond A. Spruance’s Fifth Fleet enjoyed total domination of air and sea around the small, sulfuric island, and the 74,000 Marines in the landing force would muster a healthy 3-to-1 preponderance over the garrison. Seizing Iwo Jima would be tough, planners admitted, but the operation should be over in a week, maybe less.
