Editing Battle of Iwo Jima (section)

==Strategic importance==
{{more citations needed|section|date=June 2021}}
[[File:Lieutenant Wade discusses overall importance of target at pre-invasion briefing HD-SN-99-02874.jpg|thumb|Lieutenant Wade discusses the overall importance of the target at a pre-invasion briefing.]]
[[File:American supplies being landed at Iwo Jima.JPEG|thumb|American supplies being landed at Iwo Jima]]
In hindsight, given the number of casualties, the necessity and long-term significance of the island's capture to the outcome of the war became a contentious issue and remains disputed.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/WW2Timeline/LUTZ/iwo.html |title=The Battle of Iwo Jima |publisher=History Department at the University of San Diego |access-date=10 March 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090720132646/https://history.sandiego.edu/gen/WW2Timeline/LUTZ/iwo.html |archive-date=20 July 2009}}</ref> The Marines, who conducted the landings themselves and took the vast majority of the casualties, had not been consulted in the planning of the operation.{{sfn|Burrell|2004}} As early as April 1945, retired Chief of Naval Operations [[William V. Pratt]] stated in ''[[Newsweek]]'' magazine that 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&nbsp;... [one] wonders if the same sort of airbase could not have been reached by acquiring other strategic localities at lower cost."<ref name= Newsweek_Pratt_19450402>{{cite news |first=William V. |last=Pratt |author-link=William Veazie Pratt |title=What Makes Iwo Jima Worth the Price |work=Newsweek |date=2 April 1945 |page=36}}</ref>

The lessons learned on Iwo Jima served as guidelines for the Battle of Okinawa in April 1945, and influenced American planning for an invasion of the Japanese Home Islands. For example, on Okinawa, "because of the casualties taken at Iwo Jima on the first day, it was decided to make the preparatory bombardment the heaviest yet delivered on to a Pacific island".{{sfn|Keegan|1990|p=566}} Additionally, in the planning for a potential invasion of Japan itself, it was taken into account that around a third of the troops committed to Iwo Jima, and later again at Okinawa, had been killed or wounded.{{sfn|Keegan|1990|p=575}}

The justification behind Iwo Jima's strategic importance to the United States' war effort revolves around the island's role as a landing and refueling site for long-range fighter escorts. These escorts ultimately proved both impractical and unnecessary, and only ten such missions were flown from Iwo Jima.<ref>{{cite news |author=Assistant Chief of Air Staff |title=Iwo, B-29 Haven and Fighter Springboard |work=Impact |date=September–October 1945 |pages=69–71}}</ref> By the time Iwo Jima had been captured, the bombing campaign against Japan had switched from daylight precision bombing to nighttime incendiary attacks, so fighter escorts were of limited utility.<ref name="navytimes19feb20">[https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2020/02/20/what-if-the-navy-and-marine-corps-had-bypassed-iwo-jima/ What if the Navy and Marine Corps had bypassed Iwo Jima?] {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220113132317/https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2020/02/20/what-if-the-navy-and-marine-corps-had-bypassed-iwo-jima/ |date=13 January 2022 }}. ''[[Navy Times]]''. 19 February 2020.</ref>

Japanese fighter aircraft based on Iwo Jima occasionally attacked U.S. Army Air Force bombers, which were vulnerable en route to Japan because they were heavily laden with bombs and fuel. However, the impact of Iwo Jima-based Japanese interceptors on the American bombing effort was marginal; in the three months before the invasion, only 11 B-29s had been lost to Japanese aircraft flying out of the Bonin Islands.{{sfn|Cate|Olson|1983a|pp=581–582}} The Superfortresses largely found it unnecessary to make any major detour around the island.{{sfn|Cate|Olson|1983b|p=559}} Capturing the island neutralized Japanese air attacks on the Marianas, but these attacks were too small to ever seriously threaten American military assets based on Saipan and Tinian.<ref name="navytimes19feb20"/>
[[File:24th marines wwii iwo jima.jpg|thumb|Marines from the 24th Marine Regiment during the Battle of Iwo Jima]]

The Japanese garrison on Iwo Jima possessed [[radar]]{{sfn|Newcomb|1982|pp=50–51}} and was thus able to notify air defenses on the Home Islands of incoming B-29 Superfortresses flying from the [[Mariana Islands|Marianas]]. However, the capture of Iwo Jima did not affect the Japanese early-warning radar system, which continued to receive information on incoming B-29s from the island of [[Rota (island)|Rota]] (which was never invaded).<ref name=Rota>Joint War Planning Committee 306/1, "Plan for the Seizure of Rota Island," 25 January 1945.</ref>

As early as 4 March 1945, while fighting was still taking place, the B-29 ''Dinah Might'' of the USAAF [[9th Bomb Group]] reported it was low on fuel near the island and requested an emergency landing. Despite enemy fire, the airplane landed on the Allied-controlled section of the island (South Field) without incident and was serviced, refueled and departed.

In all, 2,251 B-29 landings on Iwo Jima were recorded during the war.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.506thfightergroup.org/iwotojapan.asp |title=Iwo To Japan |publisher=506th Fighter Group |access-date=10 March 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100208225826/http://www.506thfightergroup.org/iwotojapan.asp |archive-date=8 February 2010}}</ref> Author J. Robert Moskin records that 1,191 fighter escorts and 3,081 strike sorties were flown from Iwo Jima against Japan.{{sfn|Moskin|1992|p=373}} A more recent Air Force study found the contribution of VII Fighter Command, based on Iwo Jima, to be superfluous. Another rationale for capturing the island was to provide a base for shorter-range [[B-24 Liberator]] bombers against Japan, but no significant B-24 bombing campaign ever materialized.<ref name="navytimes19feb20"/>

Some downed B-29 crewmen were saved by air-sea rescue aircraft and vessels operating from the island, but Iwo Jima was just one of many islands that could have been used for such a purpose. As for the importance of the island as a landing and refueling site for bombers, Marine Captain Robert Burrell, then a history instructor at the [[United States Naval Academy]], suggested that only a small proportion of the 2,251 landings were for genuine emergencies, with the vast majority possibly being for minor technical checkups, training, or refueling. According to Burrell,

{{blockquote|text=This justification became prominent only after the Marines seized the island and incurred high casualties. The tragic cost of Operation Detachment pressured veterans, journalists, and commanders to fixate on the most visible rationalization for the battle. The sight of the enormous, costly, and technologically sophisticated B-29 landing on the island's small airfield most clearly linked Iwo Jima to the strategic bombing campaign. As the myths about the flag raisings on Mount Suribachi reached legendary proportions, so did the emergency landing theory in order to justify the need to raise that flag.{{sfn|Burrell|2004}}}}

The "emergency landing" thesis counts every B-29 landing on Iwo Jima as an emergency and asserts that capturing the island saved the lives of the nearly 25,000 crewmen of all 2,251 planes (2,148 B-29 crewmen were killed in combat during the entire war in all theaters). However, of the nearly 2,000 B-29s which landed from May–July 1945, more than 80% were for routine refueling. Several hundred landings were made for training purposes, and most of the remainder were for relatively minor engine maintenance. During June 1945, which saw the largest number of landings, none of the more than 800 B-29s that landed on the island did so because of combat damage. Of the aircraft that would have been lost without being able to land, air-sea rescue figures indicate that 50% of crewmen who ditched at sea survived, so even if Iwo Jima had not been taken the estimate of the supposedly potential 25,000 dead crewmen from airplanes crashing into the ocean should be dwindled down to 12,500.<ref name="navytimes19feb20"/>

According to Robert S. Burrell, author of ''The Ghosts of Iwo Jima'', the very losses formed the basis for a "reverence for the Marine Corps" that not only embodied the "American national spirit" but ensured the "institutional survival" of the Marine Corps.<ref name="tamu">{{cite web |date=2006 |url=http://www.tamupress.com/product/Ghosts-of-Iwo-Jima,3173.aspx |title=The Ghosts of Iwo Jima |publisher=[[Texas A&M University Press]] |access-date=14 July 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140101092631/http://www.tamupress.com/product/Ghosts-of-Iwo-Jima,3173.aspx |archive-date=1 January 2014 |url-status=dead}}</ref>