From Ian Toll’s absorbing Twilight of the Gods, War in the Western Pacific, 1944–1945:
Every square yard of Iwo Jima had been photographed by U.S. planes and submarines, producing thousands of high-resolution images from every possible angle. The photos revealed that the Japanese had vacated their exposed barracks and bivouac areas and moved underground. Daily reconnaissance overflights confirmed that virtually no buildings or tentage remained on the island, and scarcely any troops could be seen from the air. Captain Thomas Fields of the 26th Marines put it succinctly: “The Japanese weren’t on Iwo Jima. They were in Iwo Jima.”
On the eve of the invasion, Iwo Jima was well prepared to receive the enemy. [Mount] Suribachi and the Motoyama Plateau had been converted into natural fortresses. Implanted in the rocks were a variety of weapons, from big coastal defense guns in sunken casements, to mortars, light artillery, antitank guns, and machine guns. Mortar tubes and rocket launchers were concealed under steel or concrete covers that could be retracted and closed quickly. The best marksmen in the garrison were armed with sniper rifles and positioned in cave entrances with the best sightlines onto the beaches and airfields. Baskets of hand grenades were stashed near bunker entrances. The lanes leading up from the beaches to the terraces and airfields were sown with anti-personnel mines, and the roads and flats were riddled with heavy antivehicular mines that could destroy or disable tanks, bulldozers, and trucks. Food was stockpiled to feed the garrison for two months.
Although General Kuribayashi had encountered stubborn resistance in his ranks, he had finally imposed his will on the garrison, and indoctrinated all of his subordinate commanders into his plan. There would be no massed counterattacks over open ground. Banzai charges were strictly forbidden. The Japanese would blanket the landing beaches with artillery and mortar fire when the attackers were most vulnerable, but they would not stage an all-out fight to hold the airfields.
General Kuribayashi did not hold out hope that his men could win the battle for Iwo Jima. They were to fight a delaying action, to inflict maximum casualties on the Americans, and (eventually) to die to the last man.
Damn. Former UT head football coach Jack Chevigny died on the first day of the landings. Jack Lummus, an Ellis County guy and former Baylor and New York Giants football star, died there a few weeks later, shortly after he stepped on a land mine. His dying words: “"Well, doc, the New York Giants lost a mighty good end today."
