Iwo Jima's airfields and radar warning contributed to B-29 losses on the route between the Marianas and Japan. Capturing the island would remove fighter and warning positions while providing emergency landing fields and bases for long-range escort. Seventy-two days of bombing nevertheless failed to destroy an underground defensive system that kept expanding. The same account establishes the island's operational value and the limits of pre-invasion bombardment against prepared fortifications.
Chapter · 2:55:24-3:01:47
Iwo Jima's airfields and the road to Japan
Flags of Our Fathers opens a discussion of why Iwo Jima mattered to B-29 operations and why bombardment alone could not defeat prepared defences.