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This very small island, with surrounds
of two kilometers squared,
it cost 4 a thousand lives more than.
It is Tarawa,
typical of some combats
more concentrated of the war,
while the Americans pushed
the Japanese, of island in island,
throughout the Pacific.
The World in War
Pacific
February 1942 - July 1945
In February of 1942,
the Japanese bombers
they had attacked the Australian continent.
The attack immobilized the naval base
of Darwin, temporarily.
With the advance of the Japanese
through the New Guin�,
some Australians had thought
that it would be the beginning of the invasion,
but the Japanese Army and the Navy
they had been incapable to correspond.
Its plans of invasion
they had been side ranks.
The Japanese capsize that they had
progressed very for the interior.
In the terrible conditions
of the forest of the New Guin�,
the Australians, with the support
increasing of the Americans,
they had stopped the Japanese advance
in the vital base of Port Moresby.
Throughout Kokoda Trail,
the Allies had counterattacked.
The illnesses had been so terrible problems
as the Japanese bullets.
In the end of 1942, the threat
to Australia it had disappeared.
The scene was mounted
for the long and bitter fight,
to compel the Japanese
to withdraw for its native land.
Offensive the allied one was under
separate command of two rivals:
general Douglas MacArthur
in the Southwest of the Pacific;
e Admiral Chester Nimitz,
in the Central Pacific.
The American strategy age
to attack in two fronts an enemy
whose conquests enclosed
hundreds of kilometers
land squares and ocean.
MacArthur would have to go up
of the islands Salom�o and Nova Guin�,
until the Phillipino.
The forces under the command of Nimitz
they would go to jump of island in island.
The Marshall islands, the Marianas,
Iwo Jima, Okinawa.
They would start in the Gilberts,
in November of 1943,
in the island of Tarawa.
Each one of voc�s is better of what a Japanese.
Better physically, better psychologically.
It has better weapons, will have support better.
Therefore, it will win easily it
in one it fights individual.
They leave to repeat me what the General said:
"Risks will be had sliding
to make a prisoner,
then they do not make it.
"
The first objective of the armed of
Admiral Nimitz, atol of Tarawa,
a Japanese ortaleza became,
of which the airplanes took off,
being able to attack the fleet of U.
S.
A.
Tarawa had of being taken.
He was the first time that one
an attack was launched of the sea
against one atol defended e well
protected for a chorale reef.
None of the 5 a thousand Marines
of the initial attack it had idea
of as it was strong
the defense of Tarawa.
They thought that they would point
the weapons and would demoliriam everything.
That it would not have alive soul in the island.
I remember it saying in them:
"This goes to be the invasion
more easy than already we made.
"
It said:"We only go
to need two men.
One with a metal ring and another one
with a black picture.
"One to go off
e one to take note.
It exactly goes to be easy.
"
I turned myself toward the Major
to my side in the deck and it said:
"Some of our men
me they do not seem very well today.
"
e it said:"You are not thinking that
the bombings are ours? "
Then I repaired that we were
being bombed
e that really had
some Japanese in Tarawa.
All were confident of that
we would go to banish the Japanese.
The Marines would not have
problems with them,
if we obtained
to put the feet in the beach.
We have to remember to us that the island
extension m had only 800
e when we place 20 a thousand men
in an island thus, it is a multitude.
It had Japanese to the front of
lines, for backwards, for all the side.
They had said them that we would obtain
to take the island in little time
e became evident,
hours after disembarking,
that it would not be thus.
The trenches had been
closed for the bombings.
In the following morning, about 20 m of me,
vi a Japanese digging.
They were taking off the sand stops
to see some thing of the side of it are.
The battle was stopped during three days,
with the Japanese defending itself
withdrawing until the tip of the island.
The Japanese commander
he had affirmed that Tarawa
it would not obtain to be taken
nor in 100 years.
They imagine what is,
about 6 a thousand deceased,
in an island of that size
e considering that it is
to a degree of the Equator,
the heat that if feels there
they can I smell imagine it,
to the end of one or two days,
of all that meat apodrecendo.
Adocicado was one smells,
nauseabundo and adocicado,
e I do not have knowledge of,
in the World War II,
to have had another place with
so great concentration of deaths.
When everything finished, of 3 a thousand
Japanese only 17 if had relieved.
The Americans had had more
of a thousand died and 2 a thousand wounded.
The public opinion in the States
Joined she was shocked,
that they had occurred
as many losses human beings
in so short period of fight.
After de Tarawa,
the American forces of invasion
they had followed for the Marianas Islands
of Saipan, Tinian and Guam.
The naval force that it protected
the landings
the west of Saipan was placed.
Coming of Okinawa, in June of 1944,
it was the Fleet of Japanese Intervention,
looking to the naval success that
still its favor turned the war.
Suddenly, for the radar,
the Americans capsize that they had
been sighted for the Japanese.
All the American huntings
available they had been ranks in air
to collate wave after wave
of Japanese airplanes.
Many Japanese were inexperienced,
without war experience.
Its airplanes had weak shield.
For the American aviators
to reach its adversaries,
it was so easy as to whiten turkeys.
After the first confrontation, only one
American airplane did not return.
Rearmed and replenished,
the Americans were ready
for the next step to the Japanese.
It had more two attacks
devastadores to face
However, the Americans had
about 900 airplanes in the aircraft carriers,
two times more than what the Japanese.
The attack to the Marianas
it lasted only eight hours.
In one only day, the aerial power naval Japanese
virtually it was destroyed.
The initial squadron of 430 airplanes
it was reduced about 100.
The American losses
they were relatively low.
The pilots were more
important of what the machines.
In the end of the day, the Americans
they had looser the aerial battle,
but they had still to locate
the Japanese armed
now in withdrawal.
In the following day, the Americans
they had continued to the search of the enemy.
Only to the end of the afternoon its airplanes
they had sighted the Fleet of Intervention,
more than the 200 miles,
in the limit of the reach
of the American bombers.
But the order was given:to attack.
To the dusk, the main target
of the American attack,
the fleet of Japanese aircraft carriers,
she was sufficiently damaged.
A sunk aircraft carrier
e more two damaged.
This great naval battle,
where none of the squadrons
it went off against the other,
it finished with the Japanese
reduced the 35 airplanes,
in withdrawal it stops
its bases in Japan.
The American airplanes
they faced the problem now
of the return to the aircraft carriers.
The decision to attack
it could mean
to be without fuel
in the return trip.
The first ones to come back
they had been the huntings,
that they had protected
the Force of Intervention.
Aterrisar to the dusk
already it was difficult.
But later the airplanes would have
to find its aircraft carriers,
in the dark night as it breu.
Some had not obtained.
It was probably the night
darker than vi in my life.
E on the entire ocean.
I find that we would be
flying about 7 a thousand feet,
the best altitude
to save fuel,
e was dark as the devil
e did not hear nothing, only we ourselves,
the shouts.
would not only say shouts,
but mere communications:
"I go to have to aterrisar in the sea,
I am without fuel.
"
E heard constantly,
until all the fighter aircrafts
that they had aguentado the attack,
they fell in the water.
E then, I find that the fence
of 100 miles of the Force,
the pilots cried out:
"Daqui.
"
I do not remember the indicative,
"I go to fall, I am without fuel.
"
Later silence became,
until being to the reach of the Force.
Then we only saw what
it happens to the Force of Intervention
what it would be the process of
recovery.
We had not seen.
The ships sailed,
with the extinguished lights,
a normal procedure, stops
not to be detected of air.
But the Admiral wise person who
he would be difficult to aterrisar,
with fuel lack and without
time to look the ships.
The decision was taken and was
given order to the aircraft carriers,
so that they lit the lights.
In the following day, the Force of
Intervention saved the great majority
of the crews of the airplanes, that had
been forced to aterrisar in the sea.
With the victory of the Battle
of the Sea of the Phillipino,
the landing in the Marianas
it could continue,
without the interference
of the Japanese Navy.
To the cost of died 3 a thousand
Americans, Saipan surrendered.
Tinian was not so well defended.
Guam was aguentou during three weeks.
Advancing for ocidente,
coming of the Marianas,
an American amphibious force
it was placed by Nimitz
under the command of MacArthur,
to the measure that the two fronts
rivals started to join themselves.
The objective one was the archipelago of Palau.
This had of being taken
before the invasion of the Phillipino.
In one of the islands, Pelelieu,
one more time the Americans
they face great resistance,
of an impressive force
of 10 a thousand Japanese troops.
Instead of collating
the Americans in beaches,
the Japanese had retreating stop
a grotto labyrinth and tunnels.
The Americans had had
to fight, handspan the handspan,
against an enemy
determined to fight until a death.
In the bloody battle for Pelelieu,
they had been died or wounded.
It took months until all
Japanese were removed of there.
It did not have easy victories,
in these islands of the Pacific.
Some of the Marines died,
they could only have been identified
for the fingerprints.
In 20 of October of 1944,
MacArthur fulfilled its promise:
it came back to the Phillipino.
The landing occurred
practically without opposition,
with the Japanese collected in
its main points of defense,
but the invasion unchained one
of the more complex greaters and
naval battles of history.
The Battle of the Gulf of Leyte
it would last four days.
Four Japanese forces
they had converged to the Phillipino,
comings of Born�u, Formosa and Japan.
The Americans had two
fleets, Seventh and Third.
The objective of Japanese the age
to destroy the ships American,
in the Gulf of Leyte.
After a series of disordered confrontations,
the hundreds of kilometers of distance,
the Japanese Imperial Navy
it suffered heavy decreases.
It had left of being
an effective naval force.
In land, a torrential rain
it delayed the onslaught of MacArthur,
against a Japanese army
of about 400 a thousand men.
In February of 1945, three months
after the landing in Leyte,
the Americans surrounded
the capital of the Phillipino, Manila.
For the first time, in the war of the Pacific,
the Americans fought
to enter in a great city.
The battle was stopped of street in street,
of house in house.
Many civilians had lost the life.
Some executed
for the Japanese in withdrawal.
As the moment of triumph of MacArthur.
Its return to the capital of the Phillipino.
Done Americans prisoners
during the Japanese invasion
they had been freed,
after three years of captivity.
With the taking of the Phillipino,
the supplying routes
of necessary materials
to the Japanese industry they would be cut.
The Japanese command wise person,
when losing the Phillipino,
that it had lost the war.
After the release, the revenge.
The adjustment of accounts against
Phillipino accused with contribution
during the years of the Japanese occupation,
it arrived finally at the end.
February of 1945.
Iwo Jima, 13 km2 of volcanic rock,
but the 600 miles of the coast of Japan,
it was the target of the following passage,
through the Central Pacific.
Of Iwo Jima the American bombers
they could attack Japanese cities,
easily.
Of the dominant heights
of the Suribachi Mount,
the Japanese practically see
everything what it is moved in Iwo Jima.
E of new, the main forces
Japaneses were in the interior,
moved away from beaches.
During the 76 days
previous to the landing,
the Americans had bombed
Iwo Jima, of the sea and air.
The desolation, the dryness of the place,
it was, in fact, a nightmare.
It was seemed than vi with the hell.
If the hell if resembles something,
it must be the Iwo Jima.
At the moment where we enter
in those motor boats we feel fear.
E we feel fear until arriving at the beach.
We take conscience of that
we went to enter killing
e we were instructed in the direction
to kill or to be dead.
We or the Japanese were.
Or some or others.
E when being collated
with this situation,
when it is a young,
I had only 19 years,
he is confused.
We are trained in the Marines
to receive orders and to obey,
but also we are human beings
e we have only 19 or 20 years.
In that height, most
it had 18, 19 or 20 years.
The people have the idea of that
the Marines is super-men,
but I find that did not have a Marine,
in that motor boat of landing
that it did not feel fear,
including the officers.
In the Marines, always me
they had taught to hate them,
to detestar them and that they were animal.
We were the men,
they were the animals.
But also in it was said that they to them
they would die for the Emperor.
They had not taught in them to die
for our President.
E to fight or to face
an individual that wants to die,
that it is not imported to die,
it is a difficult conflict in ours
head.
We wanted to live.
We wanted to kill it and we wanted to survive.
We had to lower the head,
it had many projectiles
passing over us
e alone we thought that somebody went making right in them
e we were far for swimming
with all that equipment.
E where we went sheltering in them
when we arrived there?
It was a devil of a place to be.
We arrive at the island, we saw the ash
e that does not have life that way.
That age.
If it has hell, was that.
We arrive at the beach.
It had a small declivity
e all had been joined there,
because the bombings were strong,
everything what it arrived at the beach
he was reached immediately.
It was a young at that time.
It had 18 years.
In the first one it had 16 years.
There they were located to ours
it waits and systematically they went shooting
against all the men
throughout the arrival line.
A person did not obtain to prevent that.
The carnage was enormous.
We were imprisoned in a teia e
it did not have way to leave there.
We did not obtain to leave the beach.
E to arrive at the beach,
it was a depressing scene.
We were lowered,
when we started to see
our men, of ours
proper team, died that way.
Between the side-sea and a hill species,
it had an enormous amount
of spread bodies.
We advance about.
possibly, 300 meters.
As much how much the Japanese
they had decided that we would advance.
It did not have skill to leave the island.
At least, in this first night.
It was congested excessively.
Nothing it would obtain to leave
of that island, in the first night.
Opening trenches in the hillsides
of the Suribachi Mount,
the Japanese commander
he concentrated its artillery.
The preliminary bombing had failed,
in the attempt to destroy
the redoubts of the Japanese.
They only could be taken, one of each time
e for the men in the land.
It would take much more time
to control Iwo Jima,
of what the five foreseen days
for the American command.
The vegetation had
missing person completely.
We woke up of morning
e we looked at for that extension
of land of nobody,
that it bubbled and it boiled with
the vapors that left the land.
In the truth, we had to use
the cardboard of the boxes of ration,
to put in the shelters,
not to burn the tail.
If the hell exists,
I crossed it at that time.
Valley the penalty not to worry me
if I go to stop in the hell in the future.
Already it stows there.
One of the youngsters came to speak with me,
he was a man with family.
I knew not even it,
it stows with it in this day and only said to it:
"We have a mortar,
we are well, does not have problem.
"
Before the end of the day, it and half
of my squad they were died.
Worse it was becoming in them insensitive
to corpses, the swelled bodies,
but this did not happen, when
if it dealt with our friends.
I find that it was what happened
of more terrible in Iwo Jima.
If all remembered the tragedy
at great length, they would go crazy.
They would not be capable to exceed that.
We think whenever we went to escape.
We were scared,
but we continue thinking that we went to escape.
She was one of the biggest confusions
the one that never attended.
I do not know who age the commander,
but it must have had the mission
riskier of that already I heard to speak.
It can have been confused, at the time,
but the support organization
to the attacking troops,
it was the test of what it became
inevitable the victory
of America on Japan,
since Pearl Harbor:
its crusher to be able industrial.
But a thing seemed
to give alento to the men.
To obtain a wound would take that them
it stops far from that one cursed place.
For the interior,
Iwo Jima became
another battle of consuming.
Day after day, the Americans
they advance little by little
on the Japanese,
that they prefer�am to die to surrender.
Its heads still
they waited that the Americans
they could discourage
with the decreases and the war.
My God! In Iwo he was
one fights body the body.
We did not know who was in the hole
with us, most of the time.
We entered in grottos,
we lose most of
our staff in these situations.
We entered in grottos e
we fought with who was there.
One of us only left there.
I find that nobody noticed
that they were in
so deep underground.
They were so well defended.
After three days of combat
in the Suribachi Mount,
the flag esvoa�ava in the top.
One of the youngsters started to cry out:
"There it is the flag"
E of any point of that island
we saw the top of the Suribachi
e the hoisted flag.
E all people started to cry out,
because we calculate that the island was insurance.
It was far from being insurance.
We still had a long one
way to cover,
but it was good for seeing the flag up there.
They had always said them
to make prisoners,
but we had some
bad experiences in Saipan.
Some prisoners as soon as
if they saw behind the lines,
we played garnet and
we lost more men.
We had resistance
in making prisoners,
since these even fought
the death, as us.
Much few had left voluntarily.
They made when it, came
normally one the front,
with the hands in air, and it came behind,
with a garnet.
One of the youngsters of Virginia Occidental person,
it was leant in a rock wall
with the helmet underneath of the legs
position that we adopted frequent,
when an enemy ran
over the wall,
with a small load
explosive moored to the belly.
A piece of the inferior part of the trunk,
it twirled in air and it fell on the knees
back e the completely naked one,
in front of its face.
It looked at for that and said:
"My God, I was reached
e I was so badly thus? "
E that alliviated the tension of the previous night.
Many had been absolutely ap�ticos,
during about one hour,
we are lying with convulsions.
Of the 21 a thousand Japanese military
that it had in Iwo Jima,
at the beginning of the attack,
but 200 had survived.
It stows in the island a total of 6 days
e me had seemed 6 a thousand years.
The aerodromes of Iwo Jima
they were operational,
exactly before the island being taken,
thanks to the Battalions
of engineering American.
They had had a paper
important, not only here,
as in all the war of the Pacific.
It had fond the moment
to invade the internal circle
of the defense of Japan.
The 350 miles of the continent
it was last the great barrier,
between the Allies and the invasion
planned of Imperial Japan:
the Japanese island of Okinawa.
In 1 of April of 1945,
the Americans had attacked.
The young suicidal pilots
of Japan, the Kamikaze,
they had been joined as a swarm
for the defense of Okinawa.
Many had flied its missions
fatal, in obsolete airplanes.
As many things happened
e so quickly,
that it was a little as
to be in one ringue of boxe,
when it has been reached in the chin,
in the face, the body, for all the side.
We were apanhando of them
for as many different angles.
In one it has attacked normal, always has
possibility to earn or to lose.
With normal bombs and bullets,
we found that we had some possibility.
But the war does not have
this porting side,
when fight against bombs human beings.
More than 2 a thousand kamikaze
they had found the death,
but they had destroyed 30 ships
of war American
e 200 had damaged more.
We praid to obtain to survive,
any that was the type of explosion.
Our life passed in ours
front very quickly,
because we did not know if,
inside of seconds or minutes,
we would lose our life.
The American decreases had been
as much, that the certain height,
it seemed that the invasion the Okinawa,
it had to be interrupted brusquely.
The shooters did not obtain to stop,
therefore they were in full fight,
man against bomb-human being,
already having exactly abated the airplane,
they have difficulty in stopping.
A man was in the rank
of the cannon of 40 mm
e already had fought
a great number of airplanes,
but also we had been
reached in the area of it.
Suddenly, without nobody to perceive reason,
it cried out:"Today it is heat,"
it jumped for it are and was
the last time we saw that it.
If it had been on board,
perhaps it had survived.
Clearly that never more
we obtain to find the body.
A strange bit was a reaction.
It aguentou the time that obtained,
until falling down and it was the end of its fight.
But I believe that all the men
they have a rupture point.
E kamikaze, would say I,
they had tested this point of rupture,
more than what any another form of combat.
The initial landing in
Okinawa did not have opposition,
but when advancing, the Americans
they had been come across with an army
Japanese of 100 a thousand men,
congregated in a central area
deeply strenghtened.
The steep hillsides and
narrow ravinas of Okinawa,
they had formed a natural ortaleza
for the Japanese defenders.
Exceeding number
Americans, 2 for 1,
they had made to pay them with blood
each Japanese centimeter of ground.
With Japan you give to surrender,
no Japanese soldier
he wanted to fight until the o end.
The civilians of Okinawa
they had suffered terrible losses.
e many thousands had been wounded.
As soon as they discovered
that we did not go to make
what they had always heard,
they understood that we were
but other human beings,
e possibly felt the same that we,
that we were not there for wanting.
They had said them that we had to make that.
To many Americans,
in the end of its enormous one
advance for the Pacific,
it seemed now that the animals,
fanatic without face, the desirous ones
to die for its emperor,
they were human beings as.
They also showed affection
for its proper people.
We never think.
We found
that they did not give value to the life,
but it is not truth.
They showed much goodness
it stops with its wounded
e loaded until them to the coasts.
The wounded were taken by two or three,
although proper they
also they were weak.
After all, we were people as.