Return of a Battlefield

With neither beauty nor bounty to its credit, the volcanic island of Iwo Jima entered history with one of those grisly distinctions reserved for small bits of strategic land in wartime. In a 36-day battle that ranked as one of the bloodiest and bitterest of the Pacific war, 6,821 Americans and all but 212 of the 22,000 Japanese defenders died there in 1945. Midway through their fight, on Mount Suribachi, the straining Marines raised the U.S. flag in a scene captured for posterity in a famous photograph. Their feat was commemorated on a bronze tablet laid atop Suribachi, with the U.S. flag flying above it. Now the flag has been lowered as a concession to Japanese sensibilities, and in its place a copper flag has been raised. When a treaty is signed this week or next, the U.S. will officially return to the Japanese the Bonin and Volcano Islands, of which Iwo Jima is one, and two other Pacific islands.

Most of the 7,000 Japanese colonists on the Bonins, which supplied Japan with fish and many of its winter vegetables, were evacuated during the war, when the large Bonins were turned into a part of Japan's island defense system. After the U.S. took them over, it made them and the Ryukyu chain (including Okinawa) bases for air and naval installations. While Okinawa has since become the major U.S. military base in the Western Pacific, the Bonin area installations are now only three small stations and a complement of only 75 men. Last November, as an omiyage (gift) to Japan's visiting Premier Eisaku Sato, President Johnson agreed to give back the islands to Japan.

Japan has long-range plans to redevelop most of the islands to their prewar farming and fishing levels. Iwo Jima, for one, will take a lot of patient cultivation. After 23 years, it still remains a desolate battlefield, where hulks of landing craft and shell casings jut from the black volcanic sand. Farther inland, in tunnels and caves, lie the bones of thousands of Japanese soldiers, which the Japanese hope to send home. And hidden like deadly thorns among the island's thick green vines, an arsenal of mines and shells still awaits the invader's incautious footsteps. The Japanese, who planted them, estimate that it will take up to ten years just to defuse the island.

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