NUMBER_TOKEN troops just NUMBER_TOKEN tanks NUMBER_TOKEN artillery pieces NUMBER_TOKEN naval guns NUMBER_TOKEN anti-tank guns NUMBER_TOKEN small anti-air guns they actually had runways as well and aircraft but they were destroyed during the bombing and the casualties and losses as we said were horrendous japanese first almost everyone died up to NUMBER_TOKEN and a half thousand claimed dead and missing NUMBER_TOKEN taken prisoner and a few thousand in hiding at the end that carried on or eventually gave up unfortunately it was the doctrine of the time for the japanese to fight to the death and so one of the many reasons why this was so costly casualties on the u.s side NUMBER_TOKEN NUMBER_TOKEN casualties to take this tiny little island as well as NUMBER_TOKEN sailors or above one escort carrier was sunk on fleet carrier severely damaged NUMBER_TOKEN tanks destroyed and NUMBER_TOKEN aircraft destroyed so we have to ask the question why did the americans have so many losses more than the japanese when they had absolute air superiority for weeks before the invasion this was carpet bombed the whole island of carpet bombs suribachi was carpet bombed during the invasion complete air superiority the main reason why the americans had such losses was due to the genius of the main general taramichi kuribayashi he was assigned to the island to prepare the defense his defense was very controversial amongst his own ranks he opted instead of a stand-up fight more like we saw in d-day normandy over in europe he set a trap he predicted where the americans landed and we can see they landed from here green up to blue one on the southern beachfront he then waited for the us marines to fully populate the beach before even firing a japanese shot he had stationed along the rear of the beach along here just a few pill boxes with machine guns in them that wasn't ever expecting to keep the us bay for long it was just there to keep the marines on the beach while the trap was set the trap was once the beach had completely been filled with americans they would open fire with their combined artillery hidden on the north eastern front of the volcanic mount suribachi here as well as here here here and partially here on the island all of the guns were sighted and timed to hit along the beach they all fired at once including the pillboxes everything opened up on the beach and the beach became an absolute blood bath thousands of americans were wiped out so it was very sad but very clever planning from the japanese so you have to say at this point well why can't americans do something about this well they tried like i said they carpet bomb the island one of the things i thought about looking at today would be sending in a b-NUMBER_TOKEN arc-like mission to grid square remove this island they did it with their b-NUMBER_TOKENs b-NUMBER_TOKENs and it didn't work why didn't it work again due to uh kuribayashi's tactics he had his japanese dig into the mountains and into the ground they're all underground as well as at the guns in mount suribayachi and other areas were actually placed on retractable rails so that they could poke out of the mountain shoot and be brought back in by the infantry and then blast shutters closed so that the guns couldn't be spotted or if they could the artillery of the day couldn't
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