Iwo Jima renamed

[Thorlifter]

I didn't know if you guys saw this.....

Japan gives Iwo Jima pre-war name - CNN.com

[syscom3]

They can rename it but it will forever be known to the world as "Iwo Jima".

[ToughOmbre]

Originally Posted by Thorlifter

I didn't know if you guys saw this.....

Japan gives Iwo Jima pre-war name - CNN.com

I don't care what they call that sulphur island. One thing will never change...

"Uncommon Valor was a Common Virtue."

More US Marines earned the Medal of Honor (27) on Iwo Jima than in any other battle in US History.

In 36 days of fighting there were 25,851 US casualties (1 in 3 were killed or wounded).

Of these, 6,825 American boys were killed.

[trackend]

It happens all the time for me Bombay is still Bombay and Ceylon, Ceylon, Thailand etc etc.

[Gnomey]

Originally Posted by syscom3

They can rename it but it will forever be known to the world as "Iwo Jima".

Exactly.

[evangilder]

Whatever they want to call it, will not change anything. That 7.5 square mile chunk of volcanic rock and coral will forever be embedded in history.

[Cota1992]

I went church in Wyoming with a USMC vet who saw the flag go up. He was about the toughest man I had ever known and still ranching alone in his late 80s.
They can change thier maps but it will always be Iwo Jima to me.

Art

[ToughOmbre]

U.S. Team on Iwo Jima to Search for Remains of Flag Raising Photographer

Friday , June 22, 2007

AP

TOKYO —
A U.S. search team on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima is zeroing in on a cave where a Marine combat photographer who filmed the famous flag-raising 62 years ago is believed to have been killed in battle nine days later, officials told The Associated Press Friday.

The seven-member search team is looking for the remains Sgt. William H. Genaust, who was killed in action after filming the flag-raising atop Iwo Jima's Mount Suribachi, and other U.S. troops killed in the battle — one of the fiercest and most symbolic of World War II.

The team is the first from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting office, which is headquartered on Hickam Air Force Base on Hawaii, to conduct a search on Iwo Jima since 1948, when most of the American remains were recovered. The island was occupied by the United States after Japan's 1945 surrender, and returned to Japanese jurisdiction in 1968.

"The team is finding caves that have been cleaned out, and some that have collapsed," JPAC spokesman Lt. Col. Mark Brown told The Associated Press.

Brown said the team is looking for as many American remains as it can find, including those of Genaust.

He said 88,000 U.S. service members are missing from World War II, including about 250 from the Iwo Jima campaign.

Brown said the search is a preliminary one, and that if a high probability of recovering remains is determined, a full recovery team will be sent in.

"Our motto is `until they are home,"' Brown said. "`No man left behind' is a promise made to every individual who raises his hand."

Genaust, a combat photographer with the 28th Marines, used a movie camera to film the raising of the flag atop Iwo Jima's Mount Suribachi on Feb. 23, 1945. He stood just feet away from AP photographer Joe Rosenthal, whose iconic photograph of the moment won a Pulitzer Prize and came to symbolize the Pacific War and the struggle of the U.S. forces to capture the tiny island, a turning point in the war with Japan.

Genaust didn't live to see the end of the battle.

Johnnie Webb, a civilian official with JPAC, said Genaust died nine days later when he was hit by machine-gun fire as he was assisting fellow Marines secure a cave.

Iwo Jima was officially taken on March 26, 1945 after 31-day battle that pitted some 100,000 U.S. troops against 21,200 Japanese. All told, 6,821 Americans were killed and nearly 22,000 injured — the highest percentage of casualties in any Pacific battle.

Only 1,033 Japanese survived.

Brown said some 250 U.S. troops are still missing from the Iwo Jima campaign. Many were lost at sea, meaning the chances of recovering their remains are slim. But many also were killed in caves or buried by explosions, and Brown said they are optimistic that the current search for Genaust and other servicemen will prove useful.

"We are looking at several caves," he said. "`We are looking for a number of service members, including Genaust. We have maps dating back to World War II and even GPS locations. So far, everything seems to be where it should be."

Accounts of Genaust's death vary, but he was believed to have been killed in or near a cave on "Hill 362A."

On March 4, 1945, Marines were securing the cave, and are believed to have asked Genaust to use his movie camera light to illuminate their way. He volunteered to shine the light in the cave himself, and when he did he was killed by enemy fire. The cave was secured after a gunfight, and its entrance sealed.

Genaust was 38 when he died.

"We decided that the only way to determine if his remains were there was to work on the ground," Webb said. "We believe his remains may be in there, along with the remains of the Japanese."

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Its Iwo Jima to me...

[Emac44]

Me to. Its known as Iwo Jima to me as well. And no name change will make it any different. Can imagine natives from that island want a name change and that is fair enough. But forever more it will be known as Iwo Jima and to our US Allies who lost so many men on Iwo Jima. Their names LIVETH FOR EVERMORE and changing the Islands name means nothing

[syscom3]

I dont think any civilian lives on the island anymore.

Its a Japanese military base. In fact, its used extensively for US and Japanese military pilots to practice night landings.

[Emac44]

I don't know Sys but to me and you and others its known as Iwo Jima. And that is what history has recorded its name as

[Lucky13]

It'll always be Iwo Jima to me as well. I don't think that historians will call anything else either other than "Iwo Jima (now Iwo To)" when they'll write about the battles taking place there. Somehow a small part of me, I'm sure that I'm wrong here, thinks that they just change the name to, maybe not forget but to tone it down a bit.... No name or anything will ever change it's place in history or make its grounds any less bloody.

What will it be next, change the name on Okinawa and Peleliu which was supposed to, as they said take a couple of days to take, but ended up taking over a month of heavy fighting and over 20.000 casualties on both sides.

[Eco-81]

I will borrow a quote from Shakespeare - "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet". In this case, calling Iwo Jima by any other name does not change what it trully is and what it represents to so many. As long as we remember, it wll be Iwo Jima forever.

[Heinz]

It was Iwo Jima to the souls who died therefore it always will be