Closing In: Marines in the Seizure of Iwo Jima. Joseph H. Alexander

in 1914. He spent several years as a junior officer posted to the Japanese Embassies in America and Canada. With the advent of war in Asia, Kuribayashi commanded a cavalry regiment in combat in Manchuria and a brigade in northern China. Later, he served as chief of staff of the Twenty-third Army during the capture of Hong Kong. Favored by the Emperor, he returned from China to command the Imperial Guards Division in Tokyo. After the fall of Saipan in June 1944, he was assigned to command the defensive fortress of Iwo Jima.

      Kuribayashi was a realist. He saw Iwo Jima’s crude airstrips as a net liability to the Empire, at best providing nuisance raids against the B-29s, certain to draw the attention of American strategic planners. Iwo Jima’s airfields in American hands would pose an enormous threat to Japan. Kuribayashi saw only two options: either blow up the entire island, which proved infeasible, or defend it to the death. To do the latter effectively he adapted a radical defensive policy, foregoing the water’s-edge linear tactics and suicidal Banzai attacks of previous island battles. This stirred controversy at the highest levels—Imperial Headquarters even asked the Nazis for advice on repelling American invasions—as well as among Kuribayashi’s own officers. Kuribayashi made some compromises with the semi-independent naval forces on the island, but sacked 18 senior army officers, including his own chief of staff. Those who remained would implement their commander’s policy to the letter.

      Doomed without naval or air support, Kuribayashi nevertheless proved to be a resolute and resourceful field commander. His only tactical error was to authorize the sector commander to engage the U.S. task force covering underwater demolitions team operations on D-2. This became a gift to the attackers, for it revealed to American gunners the previously masked batteries which otherwise would have slaughtered the assault waves on D-day.

      Japanese accounts indicate Kuribayashi committed hara-kari, the Japanese ritual suicide, in his cave near Kitano Point on 23 March 1945, the 33d day of the battle. “Of all our adversaries in the Pacific,” said General Holland M. Smith, USMC, “Kuribayashi was the most redoubtable.” Said another Marine, “Let’s hope the Japs don’t have any more like him.”