Thread: Iwo Jima & D-Day cost too many lives

The people that were planning and executing the war had NO CLUE of the existance of nuclear weapons.

Iwo Jima was siezed to provide an airbase for direct B-29 raids on the home islands.

Operation Overlord was going to be a blood-bath one way or another, but it had to be done to re-establish a foothold in France.

Originally Posted by NRA-Chuck

Don't get me wrong, I'm Red, White, & Blue, but I believe there had to be some beter military plans. If I was a general, I would not sacrifice so many troops on Iwo Jima & Normandy beaches.

I know a bit about the ETO in WWII, less so about the PTO. My advice would be to see D-Day through a bigger lens than "bloody Omaha".

Utah Beach, the other U.S. beach, went pretty much as planned with extremely light casualties on D-Day.

-skipping Omaha for now-

The BritCan beaches, Gold, Juno, and Sword, went very well with respect to the immediate landings. The Brits didn't try to swim their DD tanks in from too far out and employed proper engineering and assault vehicles (Hobart's "Funnies").

The U.S. errors were tactical - risky weather (sinking the DD tanks) and long bombs and refusals to accept the Brit's offer of proper engineering assault vehicles - not conceptual. And the casualties incurred were far less than anticipated.

Overall Overlord has to be considered a tremendous success, and would be so even if casualties had been twice as high. A foothold in Hitler's "Fortress Europa" had to be carved out somewhere.

As far as the PTO, Iwo Jima had to be taken for the airfields mentioned. I don't see what a viable alternative would have been.

-dale

The only other alternative for the B-29 strikes was the airstrip in China we were working on, but i think that was completed several months after the strip at Iwo Jima was ready, so it would've meant a delay in the intiaition of the aerial bombing campaign of Japan.

OK, i looked into this issue a bit, and i can give you a more complete answer now, and correct the mistakes i already posted(lol).

The B-29 bases in the marianas/solomons could reach Japan, but disabled or damaged bombers would often not make it back to the bases in the solomons and were forced to ditch in the sea on the return leg, usually at the cost of many dead.

Iwo Jima was half again as far from Japan as the existing bases, so it allowed B-29s and other allied aircraft to divert to Iwo Jima in case of mechanical or battledamage issues.
From the time the airbase was opened at Iwo Jima, some 2000 US aircraft safely diverted there, aircraft that otherwise would've probably been lost(along with their pilots). Since the crew of a B-29 was ten men, and most of the diverted aircraft were B-29s, you're talking about more than 10,000 airmans lives saved.

Also, the USAAF stationed P-51D Mustangs on Iwo Jima, which allowed US B-29s to be escorted all the way to Tokyo and back.

Finally, the large airstrip at Iwo Jima meant that bypassing the Island would leave a large and functioning enemy airbase in the US rear....not a good thing at all.

So it's pretty obvious looking at those factors why Iwo Jima was such an important target.

Thanks for the responses. Yes, I agree that Iwo Jima was a valuable piece of dirt close to Japan to be used as an airstrip. Yes, I agree that D-Day ended up with the Allies coming ashore in Europe. I've just always thought, wasn't there a better plan? Iwo Jima seems like you could starve them out with a naval blockade. Slow, but could have saved lives. D-Day could have actually gone worse. If Germany would have released some Panzers at the moment of truth. When people celebrate those victories, something in me is rather sad. We left alot of young lives, for what?

Originally Posted by NRA-Chuck

Thanks for the responses. Yes, I agree that Iwo Jima was a valuable piece of dirt close to Japan to be used as an airstrip. Yes, I agree that D-Day ended up with the Allies coming ashore in Europe. I've just always thought, wasn't there a better plan? Iwo Jima seems like you could starve them out with a naval blockade. Slow, but could have saved lives. D-Day could have actually gone worse. If Germany would have released some Panzers at the moment of truth. When people celebrate those victories, something in me is rather sad. We left alot of young lives, for what?

Well, you're asking a good question - knowing what they knew, were better plans possible? I suggest the answer is No.

Blockading the Home Islands would have meant millions of dead Japanese from starvation - they were NOT going to surrender anytime soon. Blockading Iwo Jima? No. Never would have surrendered, and you prosecute a war as fast as you can to keep the enemy down and running.

And as far as "for what"? We stopped and helped stop two Evil Empires. Pretty good on the resume if you ask me.

-dale

The estimates i've seen for the death toll had the US instituted a full naval blockade on Japan in an effort to starve them out range from 5,000,000 all the way up to 15,000,000 dead.

There is also the matter of the 3,000 to 30,000(depending on source) Kamakaze aircraft the Japanese had husbanded for their final defense.

At the marianas alone 27 US warships were sunk by Kamakaze attacks.

Originally Posted by M21Sniper

The estimates i've seen for the death toll had the US instituted a full naval blockade on Japan in an effort to starve them out range from 5,000,000 all the way up to 15,000,000 dead.

There is also the matter of the 3,000 to 30,000(depending on source) Kamakaze aircraft the Japanese had husbanded for their final defense.

At the marianas alone 27 US warships were sunk by Kamakaze attacks.

Yeah. And we have morons now that cry and whine about the two piddly nukes we used on Japan as they try to re-write history. Imagine the squealing now if we had chosen to starve the Japanese into submission over a 5 year period. "But Truman could have ended the war for good in August '45 by dropping two small atomic bombs and only killing a few tens of thousands of people! He's a vile war criminal for prolonging the suffering of the poor Japanese people!"

Fecking idiots.

-dale

Originally Posted by dalem

And as far as "for what"? We stopped and helped stop two Evil Empires. Pretty good on the resume if you ask me.

-dale

Three Evil Empires. The USSR would have expanded to the Atlantic and China would have become a puppet state (say what you want about Mao but he was no puppet).