Iwo Jima
Iōjima or Iōtō (both writings 硫黄島 in Japanese: the island of suffers), more known for historical reasons under the irregular transcription Iwo Jima , is a ic island Volcan Japan ease belonging to the islands of Ogasawara, located at approximately 1.046 km in the south of Tokyo (24,46° NR, 141,18° E). It has a surface of approximately 21 km ² and is surprisingly punt and not very broken. Its culminating point is the Mont Suribachi, a deadened volcano which culminates to 166 m of altitude. Only emerged part of a Caldeira sub-oceanic good vaster, this relief is the single obvious trace of a last activity.
The island was the theater of the Bataille of Iwo Jima during the Second world war, from February 19th to March 16th 1945, following what the island was occupied by the the United States until in 1968 before being returned to Japan. It concerns since Préfecture Tōkyō. The battle was certainly bloodiest of the Guerre of the Pacific for the Americans. Indeed, the island was traversed of a vast underground grid and abounded in traps. The Japanese fought almost until the last (1 083 survivors out of 22.000).
Pre-war period, Iwo Jima knew linked activities with the mines of Soufre and the refining of sugar, but it does not have any permanent civil inhabitant and its access is conditioned to obtaining a special permission. In general, the former islanders, as well as the veterans of war, do not reach Iwo Jima that at the time of the commemorations of the battle of 1945.
According to the Institute of geographical studies of Japan, the Suribachi volcano could know a new explosion soon.
Ceremony of the memory
The February 19th 1985, with the 40e anniversary of the Normandy landing of the American forces on the island, the war veterans of the two formerly enemy armies gathered for a meeting of honor to a few meters of the place where the US Navy touched the island. At the time them ceremonies of remembering, a plate of Granite was revealed, where is registered the following message:
At the day of the fortieth birthday of the battle of Iwo Jima, the American and Japanese veterans again met on the same sand extents, this time in peace and in the friendship. We remember our comrades, alive or died, who fought here with honor and bravery, and request together so that our sacrifices in this place are always pointed out and are never repeated.
The quotation is registered on the two faces of the plate, the text in English dealing with the broad one and that in Japanese looking at the interior of the grounds where the imperial troops defended their position. Thereafter, the nippo-American commemorations of the 50e and 60e birthdays proceeded on the level of this same monument, respectively in March 1995 and 2005.
Military bases
The Japanese forces of maritime self-defense hold a air and sea Base on the island of Iwo Jima. The landing strip makes 2.650 meters of length and 60 meters broad. The Japanese Navy is in load of the material support, of the control of the air traffic, the supply, and the help at sea. The American Navy uses also the base for operations such as drives of night to the landings on Porte-avions.
In spite of the Japanese policy which prohibits the presence of atomic armaments on the Japanese ground, Iwo Jima seems to have sheltered American nuclear warheads, according to Robert S. Norris, William Mr. Arkin and William Burr writing in The Bulletin off Atomic Scientists . One does not know if the site is currently used for this purpose, because of the secrecy surrounding the establishment of the American nuclear bases.
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