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The Marines invaded Iwo Jima in February 1945, and it was only declared secured after more than a month of fighting. About 70,000 U.S. troops fought more than 20,000 Japanese — only 216 Japanese were captured as POWs and the rest are believed to have been either killed in action or to have taken their own lives.
The island was declared secure on March 16, 1945, but skirmishes continued. In about 36 days of battle, nearly 7,000 U.S. Marines were killed and 20,000 wounded.
It is to this day considered sacred ground to many Japanese. As a haunting reminder of the ferocity of the fighting, search teams continue to dig up more and more Japanese remains each year — it's estimated that 12,000 have yet to be found.
The United States returned the island to Japan in 1968. Wreckage of military equipment can still be seen dotting some of the beach areas, along with pill boxes and extensive mazes of caves.
Though the idea of developing the island for tourism has been mulled for decades, and possibly using its natural hot springs as an attraction, the island is virtually untouched other than the small airfield used by the Japanese.
Though a tiny volcanic crag, the island — now called Ioto or Iwoto on Japanese maps — was deemed strategically important because it was being used by the Japanese to launch air attacks on American bombers. After its capture, it was used by the U.S. as an emergency landing site for B-29s, which eventually made 2,900 emergency landings there that are estimated to have saved the lives of 24,000 airmen who would have otherwise had to crash at sea.
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