...that spring --there was difficulty with him, that he had the idea that everything in connection with the situation
was his. And what was ours was his, too.
And I had made up my mind that that wouldn't take place if I could help it--
...Iwo Jima is a small island about eight
square miles, but it was defended by the
Japanese to such a point that it took about
4,000 of our youngsters in order to take it.
It was a very, very serious affair. And
everybody in Washington and everywhere else
was worried about what the result would
be when we tried to take the main islands of Japan.
Okinawa, here in the Ryukyu Group, took 12,000 men.
Iwo Jima, a much smaller island, had taken 4,000.
This island took 8,000 men to capture.
What would be the cost of conquering the Japanese home islands foot by foot,
if these two small islands had cost so many lives of our men?
I was told by some of the experts that it would take 500,000 men to take the main islands of Japan.
Some of those estimates were much higher than that--
