Iwo Jima was the only battle by the U.S. Marine Corps in which the overall American casualties (killed and wounded) exceeded those of the Japanese,
although Japanese combat deaths were thrice those of the Americans
throughout the battle. Of the 22,000 Japanese soldiers on Iwo Jima at
the beginning of the battle, only 216 were taken prisoner, some of whom
were captured because they had been knocked unconscious or otherwise
disabled.
The majority of the remainder were killed in action, although it has
been estimated that as many as 3000 continued to resist within the
various cave systems for many days afterwards, eventually succumbing to
their injuries or surrendering weeks later.
Despite the bloody fighting and severe casualties on both sides, the
Japanese defeat was assured from the start. American overwhelming
superiority in arms and numbers as well as complete control of air power
— coupled with the impossibility of Japanese retreat or reinforcement —
permitted no plausible circumstance in which the Americans could have
lost the battle.
The battle was immortalized by Joe Rosenthal's photograph of the raising of the U.S. flag on top of the 166 m (545 ft) Mount Suribachi by five U.S. Marines and one U.S. Navy battlefield Hospital Corpsman.
The photograph records the second flag-raising on the mountain, both of
which took place on the fifth day of the 35-day battle. Rosenthal's
photograph promptly became an indelible icon — of that battle, of that
war in the Pacific, and of the Marine Corps itself — and has been widely
reproduced.
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