Japan has officially announced that they will be changing the name of the island of Iwo Jima to Iwo To. New maps reflecting the new name will be published and distributed.
Several reasons were given for the change, among them the fact that Iwo To is the original name for the island, and it came to be known as Iwo Jima by way of an accepted mistake by some Japanese naval officers in World War II who incorrectly referred to the island as Iwo Jima. Another (probably more accurate) reason for the change is offered as a response to the recent attention that the island has gained in response to the two Clint Eastwood movies “Flags of our Fathers” and “Letters from Iwo Jima”.
It is no secret to anyone that the Japanese culture is deeply saturated with profound feelings surrounding honor and “saving face”. To a typical Japanese person, Iwo Jima might represent failure in the form of a lost battle; over 22,000 Imperial Japanese Marines lost their lives there in a failed attempt to prevent the island from falling into the hands of the allied forces in World War II. The Americans needed the island and it’s airfield as a safe landing zone for planes that may have been damaged during bombing raids on Japan itself. The battle for Iwo Jima was one of the bloodiest in the history of the world, and it resulted not only in an important victory for the allies, but also in an iconic photograph (which appears along with this blog) that reinvigorated the American people when they most needed it during the difficult times of dealing with the war.
Iwo Jima was held be the Americans as a spoil of war for some 23 years until President Lyndon B. Johnson authorized it’s conditional return to Japan in 1968. Among the conditions were that U. S. Navy pilots could continue to use the airfield for training, and that an annual memorial to the fallen Americans could be held there in perpetuity.
Your humble narrator is among many Americans who think that returning Iwo Jima to Japan was a mistake. My father having fought and served there during World War II, I had the opportunity to return there with him during the 60th anniversary of the battle in 2005. During that visit we couldn’t help but notice how so many important landmarks have been razed by the Japanese, sometimes replaced with shrines to the Japanese Marines who fought and died on the spot, but without acknowledgment of the Americans who did the same. One such example was a well-known landmark called (by the Americans) “Turkey Knob”. It was a unique natural pillar of rock that looked something like a turkey’s head and neck. It was near where some of the heaviest fighting occurred. It no longer exists as a landmark at all, and veterans who return to the spot with their families are disappointed to have lost that icon. This is only one of several examples that could be cited of the Japanese “erasing” evidence of defeat from the island.
Every year when the Americans return to the island for the annual memorial services, the Japanese air force evacuates their 400 airmen stationed there. The official Japanese contingent who come to join the commemoration are not entirely welcoming to the Americans. You don’t get the feeling of hospitality that you have heard about in other aspects of the Japanese culture. They clearly consider Iwo Jima to be an emblem of failure; and not something that they would commemorate if they were not obligated by treaty to do so. Changing the name of the island is just the most recent manifestation of this.
Japan is not alone in this sort of action; a few years back the re-unified German government destroyed Hitler’s bunker in Berlin. Nazism is a more or less taboo topic in Germany, but isn’t that bunker an historic landmark worthy of preservation? Even holocaust survivors and others have embraced such sites when teaching us all to “never forget” the horrors associated with World War II.
Would it not be better for the Japanese to treat Iwo Jima the way American’s treat Pearl Harbor? The U.S.S. Arizona is not a memorial to Japan’s battle victory or to American unpreparedness, but rather a monument to brave men and women who fought and died for their countries. We don’t treat Pearl Harbor with shame. And the Japanese don’t need to treat Iwo Jima with shame either.
The Japanese emerged strong and prosperous from World War II, albeit with some help from Americans and others, but nonetheless with a recognition of the wrongfulness of the warlords that led them into conflict and the betterment that they realized for having come out of it the war as well as they did. They would have had much more to be ashamed of had the Axis powers of which Japan was a part had won World War II.
I hope that the “new” name of Iwo To will never come into common use. I hope that Iwo Jima will stand as symbol to those who fought there and as a testament to the righteousness of cause of the Americans and other allied powers who, in concert with post-war Japan, have created a more honorable and democratic world as the result of that battle and that war.
Several reasons were given for the change, among them the fact that Iwo To is the original name for the island, and it came to be known as Iwo Jima by way of an accepted mistake by some Japanese naval officers in World War II who incorrectly referred to the island as Iwo Jima. Another (probably more accurate) reason for the change is offered as a response to the recent attention that the island has gained in response to the two Clint Eastwood movies “Flags of our Fathers” and “Letters from Iwo Jima”.
It is no secret to anyone that the Japanese culture is deeply saturated with profound feelings surrounding honor and “saving face”. To a typical Japanese person, Iwo Jima might represent failure in the form of a lost battle; over 22,000 Imperial Japanese Marines lost their lives there in a failed attempt to prevent the island from falling into the hands of the allied forces in World War II. The Americans needed the island and it’s airfield as a safe landing zone for planes that may have been damaged during bombing raids on Japan itself. The battle for Iwo Jima was one of the bloodiest in the history of the world, and it resulted not only in an important victory for the allies, but also in an iconic photograph (which appears along with this blog) that reinvigorated the American people when they most needed it during the difficult times of dealing with the war.
Iwo Jima was held be the Americans as a spoil of war for some 23 years until President Lyndon B. Johnson authorized it’s conditional return to Japan in 1968. Among the conditions were that U. S. Navy pilots could continue to use the airfield for training, and that an annual memorial to the fallen Americans could be held there in perpetuity.
Your humble narrator is among many Americans who think that returning Iwo Jima to Japan was a mistake. My father having fought and served there during World War II, I had the opportunity to return there with him during the 60th anniversary of the battle in 2005. During that visit we couldn’t help but notice how so many important landmarks have been razed by the Japanese, sometimes replaced with shrines to the Japanese Marines who fought and died on the spot, but without acknowledgment of the Americans who did the same. One such example was a well-known landmark called (by the Americans) “Turkey Knob”. It was a unique natural pillar of rock that looked something like a turkey’s head and neck. It was near where some of the heaviest fighting occurred. It no longer exists as a landmark at all, and veterans who return to the spot with their families are disappointed to have lost that icon. This is only one of several examples that could be cited of the Japanese “erasing” evidence of defeat from the island.
Every year when the Americans return to the island for the annual memorial services, the Japanese air force evacuates their 400 airmen stationed there. The official Japanese contingent who come to join the commemoration are not entirely welcoming to the Americans. You don’t get the feeling of hospitality that you have heard about in other aspects of the Japanese culture. They clearly consider Iwo Jima to be an emblem of failure; and not something that they would commemorate if they were not obligated by treaty to do so. Changing the name of the island is just the most recent manifestation of this.
Japan is not alone in this sort of action; a few years back the re-unified German government destroyed Hitler’s bunker in Berlin. Nazism is a more or less taboo topic in Germany, but isn’t that bunker an historic landmark worthy of preservation? Even holocaust survivors and others have embraced such sites when teaching us all to “never forget” the horrors associated with World War II.
Would it not be better for the Japanese to treat Iwo Jima the way American’s treat Pearl Harbor? The U.S.S. Arizona is not a memorial to Japan’s battle victory or to American unpreparedness, but rather a monument to brave men and women who fought and died for their countries. We don’t treat Pearl Harbor with shame. And the Japanese don’t need to treat Iwo Jima with shame either.
The Japanese emerged strong and prosperous from World War II, albeit with some help from Americans and others, but nonetheless with a recognition of the wrongfulness of the warlords that led them into conflict and the betterment that they realized for having come out of it the war as well as they did. They would have had much more to be ashamed of had the Axis powers of which Japan was a part had won World War II.
I hope that the “new” name of Iwo To will never come into common use. I hope that Iwo Jima will stand as symbol to those who fought there and as a testament to the righteousness of cause of the Americans and other allied powers who, in concert with post-war Japan, have created a more honorable and democratic world as the result of that battle and that war.
