On February 19, 1945, the United States and Japan engaged in a fierce battle over Iwo Jima in the western Pacific, known as the Battle of Iwo Jima. The campaign lasted more than a month and did not end until March 26.
In this battle, 6821 American officers and soldiers were killed, while the Japanese defenders were almost completely annihilated, 1083 were captured, 22703 were killed, and the Battle of Iwo Jima was also one of the most tragic island seizures in the Pacific Theater. The capture of Iwo Jima basically cleared the obstacle for the US military to attack the Japanese mainland, laying the foundation for the future US military to nuclear Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
(This most famous photo in the history of the U.S. military is taken from the Battle of Iwo Jima, it should be noted that this photo is posed)
Iwo Jima is located in the Ogasawara Islands, about 1,000 kilometers south of Japan, which is now the southernmost territory of Japan and the only "overseas territory" in Japan.
The Ogasawara Islands were first formed by volcanic eruptions, and although they are far from the East Asian continent, pacific islanders have discovered the island as early as prehistoric times.
The Ogasawara Archipelago consists of more than 30 small islands, of which the famous islands are Ogasawara Island, Chichijima Island, Mother Island and Iwo Jima. The archipelago is 104 square kilometres, and although it is not large, its coverage is unusually vast, with the easternmost and westernmost islands of the archipelago separated by more than 2,500 kilometres.
(Location of Ogasawara Islands)
In 1543, the Spanish navigator Vilaropos became the first person to have a written discovery of the Ogasawara Islands, and fifty years later, a Japanese named Ogasawara Sada discovered other islands of the Ogasawara Archipelago, such as Pachijima and Mother Island, and named the archipelago "Ogasawara Island" by his own surname.
In 1670, Seven people, including NagaoEmon of Kishu Domain, were caught in a storm on a boat trip and drifted to the islands of Mother Island and Hachijo Island in the Ogasawara Islands, where they informed the Edo shogunate of their experience after returning to Edo.
In 1675, the Edo shogunate officially incorporated the Ogasawara Islands into The Japanese Territory and set up a monument to demarcate the island boundaries, but due to the small size of most of the islands and the lack of the necessary conditions for production, the islands were not inhabited for a long time.
In modern times, as Western countries have successively invaded the western Pacific, the United States and Britain have claimed that they were the first to discover the Ogasawara Islands and claim sovereignty, and in 1830 the Americans tried to take the Ogasawara Islands, but they were not recognized by Britain and France.
By 1876, the United States and Britain had recognized Japan's sovereignty over the Ogasawara Islands, and four years later the Japanese Meiji government began to emigrate to the islands, tightening control over the islands.
During World War II, the Ogasawara Islands, as an important strategic anchor in the southern waters of Japan, were fiercely contested by the U.S. and Japanese militaries. Eventually the islands were seized by U.S. forces, after which they forcibly removed all the Japanese fishermen from the island.
By the way, during the battle for the Ogasawara Islands, the fighter jet piloted by former US President George H.W. Bush was shot down by the Japanese army here, and Bush himself almost died here.
In 1968, the United States returned sovereignty over the Ogasawara Islands to Japan, and now the islands are under the jurisdiction of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, which is currently the southernmost and easternmost point of Japan's territory.
(Scenery of the Ogasawara Islands, where fishing and tourism are currently the main sources of economics)
In fact, before World War II, the Northern Mariana Islands, which were further south than the Ogasawara Islands, were also Japanese territory. The Northern Mariana Islands were taken from Germany by Japan after World War I and occupied by the United States during World War II.
After the war, the Northern Mariana Islands were not returned to Japan, but were incorporated into the United States and became a non-consolidated territory of the United States. Saipan, a popular tourist destination for the Chinese people today, belongs to the Northern Mariana Islands, and the bombers that nuclearly leveled Japan in the late Second World War also took off from Tianning Island in the Mariana Islands.