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Originally Posted by 03USMC I'ts hard to compare any Pacific Campaign to another, The differences in terrian etc.. Iwo Jima was not like Guadalcanal. Peliliu was not like Luzon, Tarawa was not like Okiniawa. |
Very true.
The lava sand on the beach and on Iwo Jima was so slippery they often could not dig foxholes. It would instantly fill back into the hole. My father was in a weapons company. Their halftracks just dropped into the sand to their frames. When the Japanese artillery opened up much of the equipment was destroyed where it got stuck in the beach sand, creating a snarled up mess.
Also, it wasn't just rock. I'm looking at photographs dad brought home. They fortified 1000s of positions with steel reinforced concrete. in one photo he's sitting on the barrel of a costal gun, and the shattered bunker has thick diameter rebar all over the place. Tons of it. Many of those bunkers were unharmed by the shelling and bombing that was done before the landing. Some bunkers had concrete walls up to 10' thick.
The had plenty of time to survey their fortress and beef it up to the max. The Marines captured Korean slaves who had been part of the construction teams.