At the end of the year, Imperial ships suddenly appeared in the sea. In a few weeks, 20,000 Japanese soldiers arrived on the island and built two airfields, while the inhabitants of the island maintained their activity. General Tadamichi Kuribayashi faced two challenges: The establishment of the logistics complex in Iwo Jima and the subsequent resistance to the American aggression.

At that time, the Americans had their eyes on that little spot in the Pacific Ocean. The U.S. Navy had just conquered the Mariana Islands, but that wasn’t enough to get to Japan. They wanted to attack the enemy with the B-29 bombers but these planes had an autonomy of only 3,000 km and had to travel 5,000 km to and from Japan from the archipelago they had just acquired. They took the map and found there the ideal solution, the ideal point where they needed to make a stop: Assisted by Iwo Jima.

It is not clear whether the Japanese learned of American intentions through espionage. Pure intuition would probably encourage them to support Iwo Jima. And it was not an easy task to deal with the American army of 100,000 soldiers with 20,000 men. That’s why they had to eliminate secondary concerns. One morning the soldiers appeared in the four villages of Iwo Jima. All the inhabitants were awakened and rushed, without explanation, into the two ships and taken to other islands. There they would have to start their new life from scratch.

From there, Iwo Jima’s story is better known. The conflict began on February 16, 1945. 6,821 American soldiers and more than 18,000 Japanese were killed. The lost island, which no one remembered, became a gigantic cemetery that would become known all over the world. And recently Clint Eastwood has made no one, two films about the Iwo Jima conflict.