Kirjahaku

The American 'island-hopping' campaign in the Pacific during the Second World War was a crucial factor in the eventual defeat of Japan in 1945. The assault and capture of these islands meant US bombers and their fighter escorts could now reach mainland Japan, disrupting and eventually crippling its war economy. The battles on Tarawa, the Marshall Islands, the Marianas group, Peleliu, Iwo Jima and Okinawa were all characterised by savage fighting and heavy casulaties on both sides. Japanese garrisons often fought to the death and kamikaze air attacks posed a grave threat to the opposing US forces. Employing archive colour and black and white photographs, maps and first-hand accounts, the author relates these pivotal battles to the wider struggle against the Japanese in the Pacific.

Iwo Jima was the United States Marine Corps' toughest ever battle and a turning point in the Pacific War. In February 1945, three Marine Divisions stormed the island's shores in what was supposed to be a ten-day battle, but they had reckoned without General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, the enemy commander.

An detailed examination of this bloody Pacific battle, featuring maps, artwork and archive photography.The island of Betio in the Tarawa Atoll was defended by the elite troops of the Special Naval Landing Force, whose commander, Admiral Shibasaki, boasted that "the Americans could not take Tarawa with a million men in a hundred years". In a pioneering amphibious invasion, the Marines of the 2nd Division set out to prove him wrong, overcoming serious planning errors to fight a 76-hour battle of unprecedented savagery. The cost would be more than 3000 Marine casualties at the hands of a garrison of some 3700. This richly illustrated volume examines the battle in depth and the lessons learned, which would dispel forever any illusions that Americans had about the fighting quality of the Japanese.

A definitive account of the battle of Iwo Jima, from its origins to its hard-fought conclusion.One of the decisive battles of the Second World War in the Pacific, Iwo Jima was described by Lieutenant-General Holland Smith, Commander Fleet Marine Forces Pacific, as 'The most savage and most costly battle in the history of the Marine Corps' - a titanic struggle that eclipsed all that had gone before.Situated halfway along the B-29 Superfortress route to the Japanese mainland, the island was of major strategic importance to the US Air Force, but also to the Japanese, 20,000 of whom were deeply entrenched in the island.