This was part of Lt. Kuribayashi's plan to allow U.S. assault forces to land on the shore and to hold off attacking them until they began to move inland. As American marines advanced onto the Island, Kuribayashi's hidden machine gun nests dug into the island opened up and inflicted very heavy casualties. The interconnected bunkers enabled the Japanese forces to retreat under attack and then emerge from other bunkers behind American the lines of American advances to attack them from their rear

(Bishop & McNab, 2007; Ray, 2003).

After four days of fighting since the February 19, 1945, U.S. marines captured

Mt. Suribachi, the highest point on the Island on February 23rd (Ambrose, 2001; Bishop & McNab, 2007; Ray, 2003). Five marines and one Navy corpsman erected a small U.S.

flag that was immediately ordered replaced with a larger flag so that it would be visible to the entire island...
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