At 81, Japanese vet makes rare return to Iwo Jima

By JOSEPH COLEMAN

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TeruSensei at 08:32 PM JST - 23rd September

The real human cost of all war comes out in stories like this.

We can read numbers and stats out of books, but it doesn't become personal and HUMAN until we can see things like this.

It just makes me terribly sad.
Nippon5 at 08:41 PM JST - 23rd September

Seems many have their own version of the war, could it be each country teaches a different version.

Iwo Jima was a horrid battle that was used to slow down the approach of the allies, it wasnt to stop them. Most of the battles in Japan by the allied forces came in the form of air not land.....

I have met others from this battle a few years ago when I was part of the 50th Anv. .... their stories make a grown man cry.

As a soldier you do your duty thinking your side is in the right, it may not be in the right but you have to believe it is. I hope this man has found peace with his demons and I hope all who who serve in war can face their demons too..

Its not right to belittle a mans service because you dont like the reason his country went to war..
DenshaDeGO at 09:11 PM JST - 23rd September

What a fascinating read. The end was especially touching.
cwhite at 09:25 PM JST - 23rd September

With the weapons of today the battle field is very different. While there won't be battles of this kind anymore the outcome is always the same. Smart bombs and remote technology will make killing just that much easier. Perhaps it is better to have less powerful weapons to leave a few alive so they can tell the story rather than have a square mile obliterated.
larguero at 10:03 PM JST - 23rd September

A story worth telling, told in a very human way and an excellent stress of the main issues at play. A superb article by Joseph Coleman.
OssanULTRA at 03:08 AM JST - 24th September

Maybe this guy was a victim, however in the purest sense he had free >will, but the real lessons of WW 2 have not been learnt by Japan (insincere war apologies whose real regret is that they lost and war >criminals whose only real crime was that they led Japan to its >destruction) and this piece of emotion hardly helps.

Dogdog

I disagree with you. We have been trying continuously to get Japan to re-arm since the Korean War without success. Japan has resisted altering that article 9 in their constitution. It looks to me like they've clearly learned the lesson of WWII, that war itself is wrong. Unfortunately, my country hasn't learnt that at all, the result of being the only major participant in WWII that never knew what it was like to have it's cities bombed. Also unfortunate is that world is full of people and nations which haven't learned the lessons of war, forcing us to continue on our path. What you describe about insincere apologies or regretting losing the war describes a small minority of ultra right wing nationalists, which are treated by Japanese society as the fringe nutbags that they are. This was a touching well written article and I can only thank all those who fought in wars, on any side, for having done their part to keep the rest of us who follow from having to live through the same.
rjd_jr at 08:38 AM JST - 24th September

I think someone here needs to go tell the Marine Corps that Iwo Jima and the Pacific campaign were "overrated." While 6800 or so Americans died on Iwo Jima, it was spread out over 37 days. D-Day by comparison, Americans suffered anywhere from 1400 to 2500 killed in action depending on what sources you look at. A much higher kill ratio. People can debate the relative strategic importance of capturing Iwo Jima, but it's importance to the Marines and the U.S. military is of much higher than strategic.
Dogdog at 09:09 AM JST - 24th September

D-Day by comparison, Americans suffered anywhere from 1400 to 2500 killed in action depending on what sources you look at. A much higher kill ratio

D Day was a momemt in a battle, it is not a comparison, a bit like the US marines landing on the beaches of Iwo Jima. In the Battle Of Normandy the allies suffered 220,000 casualties with 40,000 dead.

My point wasn't to belitle this man, or any other man's experience of war. My point was to say that I'm rather fed up with the Pacific War PR machine which seems, after sharing the myth of its importance in the 1939-45 war, to be giving diverging messages on each side of the Pacific.
Nippon5 at 03:04 PM JST - 24th September

DogDog said My point wasn't to belitle this man, or any other man's experience of war. My point was to say that I'm rather fed up with the Pacific War PR machine which seems, after sharing the myth of its importance in the 1939-45 war, to be giving diverging messages on each side of the Pacific.

PR machine??? Considering that the war between America and Japan was mostly based on air and sea battles it would be hard to compare it to a massive linland invasion/war. But if you figure out that in 1939-1945 most if not all supplies around the world came via ship, it starts to make a ton of sense why this part of the war was very important. I would suggest you do a tad bit of research into the war, maybe learn how the allied forces got to Normandy, if the allies didnt control the sea then D-Day would of been a Didnt day...
OssanULTRA at 12:15 AM JST - 25th September

rjdjr

The Marines had 862 casualties at the September 1847 Battle of Chapultepec and 35 casualties in the First Barbary War of 1801. I really don't think telling the Marine Corp that Iwo Jima and the Pacific Campaign were "over-rated" is going to fly very far.
Dogdog at 12:51 AM JST - 25th September

Actually, I apologize for my last post. It seems that I'm the one who has difficulty with comprehending rjd jr posts.
The_Marion at 03:47 AM JST - 25th September

)n the 20th day of Septemebr, I was 88years old and I guess there isn't too many of us left that landed first wave on Iwo Jima at 0900 hours on the 19th day of Febuary in 1945. I started on Guadalcanal then Vela LaVella and Bougainville and these were all " a walk in the park" but Iwo Jima was pure Hell and while I did return to Iwo in in 1985, I will always feel when I met my first Okinawan, I fell in love with everyone on the island and I married a Ryukyuan and today I am an old man, but I am stillhappily married to the greatest race of people on this earth. What happend on Iwo may never be told as movies will never capture what really happened. Read the book Iwo Jima by Wetenhall and Marling as they truly captured "the feeling" of what happened on Green Beach....

Okinawa is not Japanese.
OssanULTRA at 07:14 AM JST - 25th September

Thanks Marion. Your input is appreciated. And we'll let it skip that this is about Iwo Jima, not Okinawa.
The_Marion at 12:29 AM JST - 26th September

OssanULTRA: Quoting you; "this is about Iwo Jima, not Okinawa." I have spent the better part of my life, knowing that Okinawa and Iwo Jima were what may be called "Twin Sisters." We fought the better pasrt of WWII as a Naval Carrier war, largely using both naval and army aircraft and thus logicallt Iwo Jima and Okinawa became "fixed" carriers as we were reluctant to make the actual battle to be waged by Marines going ashore against Japan proper - However we had to take both Okinawa and Iwo Jima and frankly this was no easy task. We won both islands after horrendous loosses on both sides, but when the islands were won, they were immediately turned in fixed aircraft carrier and the lossees we caused to Japan numbering into the millions. Iwo Jima had only a few Chritian families living there before the war, but Okinawa have almost a million inhabitants who were largely Chinese oriented and they had been annexed by Japan in 1879 - and this was only 66 years previous to them having been the Kingdon of the Ryukyus. I ask you that are interested to look up the Cairo Accords of 1943. Know that we gave back Iwo Jima shortly after the end of WWII. Japan established a Self Defense Airforce Group and otherwise the island has returned to a lonely brush covered island.
tigermoth at 04:48 AM JST - 30th September

Xeno23 - I don't think it could be more eloquently or beautifully put than that - thank you. And of course your comments were disregarded in the ceaseless and pointless arguments to follow.

Besides, it was the gallant Few in the Battle of Britain that won the Second World War for all of us (combined with Hiter's tactical stupidity of course).