Introduction
D-Day
This exhibit and museum were created during an introductory seminar on the Asia-Pacific War, taught at Wake Forest University during the spring semester 2002.
The material and opinions are those of their respective authors and do not represent the views of the University or the Department of History.
"It is difficult to imagine any battlefield
more closely resembling the Biblical vision of Hell than the 8 square
miles of volcanic ash, pummice and sand that
even tanks, let alone Marines, could not easily move across -- reeking
of sulphur and brimstone, swept by bombs, bullets and shellfire, and soaked
in
the blood of more than 26,000 dead. Truly the Prince of Darkness must
have felt right at home."
American soldiers
landing on the beaches of Iwo Jima on D-Day
American soldiers had landed and stormed many beaches in the Pacific theater of WWII, but Iwo Jima was different for the very reasons mentioned in the quote above. The geography of the island consisted of a large volcanic cone, called Mt. Suribachi, at the southwest end and many hills and valleys from the middle of the island to the northern end. The island's name means "Sulphur Island" in Japanese and is well-deserved. It has thousands of sulphur deposits and has an extremely bad odor. Overall, the island is desolate, smelly, ugly, black, and during the attack, extremely loud and smoky. Not a paradise at all...
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On D-Day the soldiers stormed the beaches of Iwo Jima amid heavy gunfire from all over the jungle surrounding the beaches. The Japanese guns were extremely well hidden and the American soldiers were never out of range of their fire. To complicate things, the sand on Iwo Jima is a mixture of volcanic ash and crushed up volcanic rock. This sand was very soft and the soldiers' feet would just sink right in making the landing actually a "wading" through the sand. They were sitting ducks for the deadly Japanese fire coming from every direction.
The loose, volcanic
sands of Iwo Jima on D-Day
The landings were designed to take the entire southeast beach and divide the Japanese defenses between the airfields on the north and Mt. Suribachi on the southwest. The map below shows these landing tactics:
This exhibit was researched and designed by Brad Smith.