The tunnels were seemingly unknown to the Americans the History channel documentaries say, but I find that a bit hard to believe since this sort of thing was done before by the Japanese, tunnels that is.

So, with that in mind, what might've been a better approach to the Island? Tallboys?

As an aside, Sakai mentioned in his book that the island was easy for the taking much earlier, but the Americans waited which allowed tunnels & defenses to be built up.

Well first off we knew about defensive structures and tunnels to some extent. We flew recon missions over the island and took pics as in all operations. But the defenses were built into the side of the mountains and were so well camoflaged that we only identified a few emplacements in the photos. We knew that the Japanese incorporated caves and tunnels into their defenses but this was still a relatively new discovery. And we suspected that there would be some on Iwo, but we had no idea that they would be so elaborate and massive. It was a complete shock. We still don't know to what extent the tunnels go. No one's ever gone down them, most of them have been sealed, and their are no guides or maps available. All we have are japanese first hand accounts and crude drawings and sketches to give us some idea. But we do know that no tunnel system has ever come close the sheer size and complexity of the tunnels on Iwo. Except maybe for the vietcong.

As for Sakai's book, which I have not read. But judging from what you quoted from his book. Yes the island itself was easier to take early on before the defenses were built up. But he's forgeting that Iwo Jima is only about 300 miles from japan. It was well behaind enemy lines. We had to go through everything else in the Pacific before we reached Iwo. We had to work our way up the islands like stepping stones before we got to Iwo. That gave the defenders more than 3 years to prepare. We couldn't have just sent an invasion force through the pacific, steaming behind enemy lines in 1942 to attack Iwo. Saying that we should have took Iwo earlier is like saying that Russia should have attacked Berlin in 1943, before the germans were able to build up their defenses of the city.

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"The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything." Teddy Roosevelt

Sakai meant just before the invasion. A few months earlier, & there would have been little preparation done.

Point taken on tunnels being shock. I was thinking chemical drops. Make em sick before landing. Something like that.

The tactics used by the Japanese on Iwo were relatively new. By the Summer of '44, seeing that the war was lost, the Imperial General HQ ordered it's troops to take up "Fukkaku Positions" (translated means Endurance Engagement) in the hopes that they could inflict enough casualties that the Americans would settle for a negotiated peace. General Kuribayashi while in Tokyo many months prior to the invasion had been told, "If America's casualties are high enough, Washington will think twice before launching an another invasion against Japanese territory."

The United States was unaware of the new Jap strategy. We were expecting them to fight us like they had throughout the rest of the Pacific, but the days of banzai charge after banzai charge were over. The Japs were expected to hold their ground and ordered to kill 10 Americans before they themselves were allowed to be killed. You can see this as early on as the Battle for Peleliu and later on Okinawa. Documents were captured revealing this new Japanese defensive strategy, but unfortunately were not translated until the end of the war.

I believe that the island was captured the only way possible: with the courage and the sacrifice of young Marines. The complex tunnel system was invulnerable to any type of bombardment, from the sea or air. There were 3 levels of tunnels that ran throughout the entire 16 mile island with 1,500 undergound rooms 30-50 feet deep. Kuribayashi's HQ was an incredible 75 feet below the ground with 5 foot thick walls and a 10 foot thick roof. As James Bradley, author of Flags of Our Fathers, put it, "..the Japanese were not on Iwo Jima. They were in Iwo Jima."

That probably explains why Japanese "hold-outs" were able to live on the island for several years after its capture, totally unaware of the Imperial Japanese Government's surrender.