THE IMPORTANCE OF THE ISLAND, THEN AND NOW BY CRAIG COLLINS
B
y the summer of 1944, the war in the Pacific was clearly being won by the United States and its allies, who, emboldened by the decimation of Japanese naval and air forces at the Battle of Midway two years earlier, had driven Japanese forces
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from most of their island strongholds. Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet (CINCPAC) Adm. Chester W. Nimitz had led the Allied Pacific Ocean Areas command in wresting the island of Guadalcanal from the Japanese and driving up through the
Solomon Islands to Bougainville. Joint Army and Marine Corps amphibious assaults had routed the Japanese from the Gilbert and Marshall Islands chains. Gen. Douglas A. MacArthur, Supreme Allied Commander of the Southwest Pacific Area, was on the
U.S. NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND PHOTO
WHY IWO JIMA?
