Iwo Jima in Context - The Island Hopping Campaign - With Ian W. Toll 

Read his trilogy. Excellent work

Much appreciated!

Short and Kimmel were scapegoats. Navy and Us Army never told them attack was coming. Roosevelt knew attack was coming. Yamato based attack on Italy fleet and mock attack on Panama Canal from the 1930's.

Couldn’t have said it better myself sir. In fact, just to pour salt into the historical wound, they immediately gave the son of a bitch the Congressional Medal of Honor ostensively for his “courageous” leadership and performance in the defense of the Philippine Islands. Putting a finer point to the fact, it was MacArthur alone who personally initiated the request that he be awarded the MOH. It seems nobody at the time had the stones to say no to the absolutely ridiculous award recommendation, including Army Chief of Staff General George Marshall, who unexplainably gave his final endorsement to the MacArthur’s request for the medal. In my opinion, no single military administrative act has ever occurred to more smear the dignity and meaning of an award for combat courage as was that of handing that megalomaniac a Medal of Honor at his own request. Especially just on the heels of the monumental disaster that was the initial defensive response and lack of counter air attack to the Japanese invasion of Philippines.

Also quit the Philippines battlefield to Australia, leaving his troop to demise. During the Korean War he was in charge of UN troops in the Tokyo highrise while his troops were either in cold weather and dying of trench foot, while he also pleaded with Truman in having 50 nuclear bombs to nuke Manchuria-North Korean area to prevent China in crossing the border, took about 10 years for someone had the balls to remove Macarthur from the military. During WWII he also wanted the fortress Rabaul with only like 3-4 divisions and he pleaded the Navy for naval support by 3-4 carriers, attacking Rabaul before Guadalcanal invasion was suicidal.

He only left the Philippines after being ordered to by Roosevelt.@@ramal5708

Ha! thanks for pointing that out, I've corrected it

Well, it will keep you off the streets as we say in England

@@WW2TV Judging by my avatar that must be Bash Street or close

Good points, as usual, there's only so much we can cover in one show

Actually, this is incorrect and that is WWII wartime propaganda that was never corrected officially later because of the attempts by the USN/USMC to justify those catastrophic losses at Iwo Jima and also the refusal by the USN/USMC biased historians to ever accept and admit that Nimitz made some bad mistakes (he made a lot of them in WWII like Iwo Jima, Peleliu, the Guadalcanal naval battles disasters until Halsey took over, and appointing a sadly no-talent pro-Navy guy named General Buckner (Army) to be in charge of land operations at Okinawa [Buckner had ZERO combat experience and ZERO battle/theater command experience...Nimitz chose Buckner only because Buckner liked Nimitz instead of MacArthur and Buckner made some mean comments about MacArthur!]). I only say this out of my overall love for the USMC/USN while being a MacArthur fan and also to point out that if MacArthur had been in command of Iwo Jima and had been this ill-advised and if he had lost this many troops at Iwo Jima the USMC/USN-biased WWII historians would be rightfully criticizing MacArthur and whine about what a waste it was. Let me give you what retired Chief of Naval Operations Admiral William V. Pratt said in 1945: "...considering the expenditure of manpower to acquire a small, God-forsaken island, useless to the Army as a staging base and useless to the Navy as a fleet base ... [one] wonders if the same sort of airbase could not have been reached by acquiring other strategic localities at lower cost." There were WATER TANKS/CISTERNS on Iwo Jima that the Navy and USMC knew about before the battle but for some reason continued with the almost suicidal invasion despite knowing Iwo Jima would have been taken within a month and a half easily if they had just kept bombing the island daily and destroying those cisterns. The Japanese would have died of dehydration within a few weeks without the loss of 7,000 U.S. troops. Now imagine if MacArthur was in charge of the Battle of Iwo Jima with this type of information being divulged later on and the rightful anger there would be. For some reason Nimitz, like always, has escaped any blame or criticism.

@@nogoodnameleft Not the USMC. The USMC had almost no say in where they went to fight and what they took with them to do the fighting. That was all USN. The only thing the USMC had a say in was the tactics used on the islands where the USN took them. The USMC was not a "senior service" at that time.

Thank you very much

Individual aspects of definitely. Check our playlists

Yep, all good points - thanks

Well, that was the thinking at the time and the popular sentiment of today. However, there has been more recent research that postulates a different conclusion - that Iwo may have not been worth the cost.

All false statements made after the battle to justify the huge causalitys since been proven that none of these reasons were true. Japan had early warning stations all along the way from Saipan/ the fighter escort never materialized and was rarely used and most of the B29 landings on iwo after the battle were non emergency & training flights. Total B29 crew losses for the war were under 3000 souls no way does that increase to over 25000 in the short 5 months after the island was secured

causalities is the word describing the relatipnships between cause and effect. I think you may want to use casualties, wounded or killed. Words using the same letters but in a different sequence do nor always have the same meaning.

@@johnspurrell1200 Thanks captain grammar. Was actually hoping you had something to add to the discussion

The whole trilogy is available in kindle format on Amazon.

@@JS-fe8sx - I still don't see Kindle versions available on UK Amazon.

Incorrect. If you take a few minutes to check military history literature from the U.S. Army the dividing line (longitude) between Nimitz and MacArthur for SWPA and Pacific Ocean Area theaters was 159⁰ east longitude. If you check on a map that is the middle of Santa Isabel Island. New Georgia and everything west of Santa Isabel Island were part of SWPA. MacArthur strategically directed these operations and Halsey reported to MacArthur for New Georgia and Bougainville. Sadly the SWPA is never talked about because MacArthur didn't use USMC ground forces in New Guinea and the Philippines liberation. Marines are still angry at MacArthur after 75 years for snubbing them so they and the USN pretend that New Guinea and Philippines liberation never happened.

@@nogoodnameleft I guess that the Navy was not particularly enamored by having to compete with McArthur for everything. I'm also convinced that the "I will return" promise was a mistake nonpariel. The magnitude of human losses could clearly have been mitigated had McArthur not been such an egomaniac. How he managed to hold onto his command has always been a mystery to me. The Army deserved better. He should have court martialed. Instead, he had the CMH pinned to his tunic.

@@dancolley4208 You are the typical liar and fanboy apologist of the most overrated commander in WWII, Chester Nimitz, aka the meatgrinder who foolishly wasted American lives at Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Peleliu, Okinawa, Tarawa, etc. Nimitz was the one who really screwed up at Guadalcanal. Look up the 7,100 Americans he killed there in 6 months compared with about 4,000 Americans killed in New Guinea under MacArthur's command in THREE YEARS! Mac's Operation Cartwheel was ingenius and overrated Nimitz had nothing to do with it. Look up all of the sunken U.S. ships under Nimitz' theater at Guadalcanal including 3 large aircraft carriers. PATHETIC! Also, last time I checked the U.S. Navy failed much worse than the U.S. Army in 1941-42 Philippines and the Dutch East Indies. You don't want me talking about how the Navy received intel in Nov 1942 of an imminent attack on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines, but they DID NOT send that information to MacArthur, right? The U.S. Army in the Philippines only learned about Pearl Harbor through the media on radio because the Navy were so egotistical and selfish. Also, you do not want me talking about the NAVY'S failure with regards to the Mark 14 and Mark 15 torpedoes, right? All 24 of the best modern submarines were in Manila and how many Japanese ships did the Navy sink? ZERO!!! MacArthur performed much better in Philippines 1941-42 than the worthless U.S. Navy and also better than the British and Dutch and French who surrendered immediately in Asia rather than fight hard like MacArthur did in Bataan. The only reason the 1944-45 Philippines campaign is not talked about by Hollywood or in textbooks is because MacArthur rightfully banned the USMC ground forces except about 1,000 artillerymen for 6 weeks in Leyte from participating in the liberation of the U.S. territory of the Philippines. The Army, not the USMC, did the heavy lifting in the Pacific Theater and shame on the Navy/USMC cultists for always attacking the Army. MacArthur refused to ever wear his MoH or discuss about it in interviews, btw. He said he only accepted the MoH if it meant that it is actually honoring all the brave men and women who fought bravely at Bataan and Corregidor. There are no photos of MacArthur ever wearing the MoH. For all of his other honors like SEVEN SILVER STARS and THREE DISTINGUISHED SERVICE CROSSES he always wore them or happily showed them off to the media. One more thing, Nimitz and George Marshall and Ike were REMFs!!! They never served a single second in combat unlike the brave MacArthur did in WWI and WWII.

What link? I'm afraid I simply don't have the time to include links to the display materials guests use on shows - sorry. But there are plenty of good maps of the Pacific campaign online

Sorry. We’ll done.

Grandslam not operational at that time the Battle stared. Lancaster not got the range to get there and back while carrying the weapon.

ETO is European Theatre of Operations, PTO is Pacific Theatre of Operations

What were Japanese defenses like in Formosa?

Halsey was in charge of that one, not Spruance. They alternated back and forth at that time as Fleet command.

Plus, many of the ships there were 7th fleet, not under Halseys 3rd Fleet command. I agree, Halsey was suckered by the Japanese and he fell for it.

That's a firm opinion there. I'm no fan of Douglas, but to have mounted all the later campaigns without him would have been difficult I think

Agree but intelligence was likely just a lot harder to acquire in the Pacific..i.e.aerial photos of Iwo were available but how would one place intelligence operatives on the island as one might in Axis territory. Also there was no European resistance underground analog for the Pacific. If either of these was possible the number of enemy and methods and degrees of fortifications would have been much better understood. Just a thought..

@@oilsmokejones3452 I think one interesting aspect that most people wouldn't even think about is the amount of American or American Allies who naturally speak and understand Japanese as opposed to those who speak and understand German or italian. If you just look up the immigrant makeup of the United States the Asian community is much smaller than the German or european community. So that alone is going to affect intelligence gathering. It's one thing to break a code but if you've only got 25 guys that have a really good understanding of Japanese then that's going to work a lot worse than say all of those German speakers at bletchley Park in England. I know this isn't at all the full answer but it's just something that occurred to me as I was starting to write this.

@@bookaufman9643 Good point, and an intel operative would have to appear Japanese and infiltrate prior to being assigned to combat location, even train with the troops as members on a island location would be sure to ID him as not one of them..very hard to get precise local intel..

Breaking the code did not mean you read it like a book. You could read bits and pieces and the Japanese would change codes from time to time meaning you spent time breaking that.

I'm sure the Chiefs considered multiple options

@WW2TV No Shxt Sherlock, I'm asking WHY?? seems Like a option to Come Down from Alaska after Staging Up forces...

@D Staff Well aren't you loveable? Counter-factuals about what Forces should and could have done is always interesting but we can only draw conclusions abouit what actually played out rather than what didn't

@WW2TV I'm Genuinely Curious to Why United States Didn't Utilize Alaska as a Staging Grounds For Direct Assualt into Japan. Hindsight 20/20 Nimitz Should have Build Up Hawii n Midway Defensively. Then STAGED A Sizeable Force Out of Alaska Even as a DIVERSIONARY force. Forcing the Japanese to SPLIT thier Forces Even Thinner Across the Pacific for MacArthur To Bring His Forces Up From Australia... Then Used the Bulk of the Navy As HARRASING force To Japan Counter Offensive Tatics against MacArthurs Push... IDK 🤷‍♂️ yes I'm a Lovable Guy Who says Whats on my Mind. THANKS for the Content You Deliver Though...

Now I'm genuinely curious about why you are capitiziling words that don't need to be lol. But thanks for watching the channel

Some guests, like Ian specifically request a chst. With other guests I barely say a word. Its all about what the guest prefers

Okay, but what some guests specifically request is a chzt

An exaggeration I think