Inside the Tunnels of Iwo Jima – 20,000 Men Underground

What does it take to build a city underground, in volcanic heat, in the dark, knowing you will never leave it? In the autumn of 1944, Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi oversaw the construction of something that defied every conventional principle of Pacific island warfare. Beneath eight square miles of sulfuric rock in the Philippine Sea, 20,000 Japanese soldiers carved eleven miles of tunnels by hand, chamber by chamber, in temperatures exceeding 120 degrees Fahrenheit, breathing air laced with hydrogen sulfide gas, rationed to a liter and a half of water per day. They were not building a defense. They were building a trap, and every man inside it knew he was also the bait. When 30,000 Marines landed on Iwo Jima on February 19th, 1945, they stepped into a silence that veterans of the Pacific described as more terrifying than gunfire. Then the island opened up from below. Artillery, mortars, and machine guns fired from tunnel mouths and hardened emplacements that 74 consecutive days of naval bombardment had left untouched. Positions cleared by Marines would be generating fire again within hours through entrances no one had found. The most decorated single battle in American military history was not won by firepower. It was won foot by foot, tunnel by tunnel, by men going into the dark after an enemy that had made the dark its home. And if the principle Kuribayashi proved beneath that volcanic island, that no surface bombardment can defeat men buried deep enough, has resurfaced in Korea, Vietnam, and Gaza in the decades since, what does that tell us about how little warfare has actually changed? Very few people talk about Japan's side of the war in depth, and my goal is to bring you those stories with real value. If you want to keep exploring these untold histories, consider subscribing and sharing your thoughts below. #WW2 #JapaneseWarDiaries #WW2Documentary #IwoJima #PacificWar #ImperialJapan #WW2History #BattleOfIwoJima #MarineCorpsHistory #KuribayashiIwoJima #WW2Pacific #UndergroundWarfare #ForgottenHistory #MilitaryHistory #UntoldWWII Sources: Yoshitaka Horie, Fighting Spirit: The Memoir of Major Yoshitaka Horie and the Battle of Iwo Jima (Naval Institute Press, 2011) Bill D. Ross, Iwo Jima: Legacy of Valor (Vanguard Press, 1985) United States Marine Corps, Fifth Amphibious Corps After Action Report, Battle of Iwo Jima, 1945 Tadamichi Kuribayashi, Letters from Iwo Jima, compiled and translated by Tsuyoko Yoshida (Shinchosha, 2002) Richard F. Newcomb, Iwo Jima (Henry Holt and Company, 1965) James Bradley, Flags of Our Fathers (Bantam Books, 2000) Welcome to Japanese War Diaries. I'm Henry, and on this channel I tell the untold human stories of the Japanese side of WW2 and the Pacific War — drawn from forty years of research, primary sources, and historical records. If you enjoyed this documentary, consider subscribing for new releases every week. And if it meant something to you, share it with someone who loves history as much as I do. _____________________ ▶ ABOUT THE CHANNEL: A WW2 history channel dedicated to the human stories of Imperial Japan and the Pacific War — the kamikaze pilots, the Mitsubishi Zero, the Japanese soldiers, the families, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and everything in between. ▶ HOW WE MAKE THESE VIDEOS: Every single documentary on this channel is built from weeks of original research. We cross-check primary sources, historical records, and verified references before a word makes it into a video. Every script is written from scratch, every fact is verified, and every documentary is professionally edited and produced by our team. This is original work — slow, careful, and made with respect for the people whose stories we tell. ▶ COPYRIGHT & MATERIAL USE: All visual material used in our documentaries is either licensed, in the public domain, or used under fair use for educational and historical purposes. We do not use copyrighted footage without permission. ▶ WATCH IN YOUR LANGUAGE: This channel is also available on our official translated channels. _____________________ © Japanese War Diaries — Official Channel. All documentaries, scripts, narration, editing, and original content on this channel are the exclusive property of Japanese War Diaries. Unauthorized reproduction, re-uploading, or redistribution of our videos — in part or in full, on any platform — is strictly prohibited and will be reported. All rights reserved. _____________________ #WW2 #WorldWar2 #PacificWar #JapaneseHistory #MilitaryHistory #Kamikaze #MitsubishiZero #ImperialJapan #Hiroshima #Nagasaki #WWII #Documentary"