Japan renames Iwo Jima, upsetting vets
TOKYO — Japan has returned to using the prewar name for the island of Iwo Jima — site of one of World War II’s most horrific battles — at the urging of its original inhabitants, who want to reclaim an identity they say has been hijacked by high-profile movies like Clint Eastwood’s “Letters from Iwo Jima.”
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By Hans Greimel - ASSOCIATED PRESS
Updated: 06/21/07 6:43 AM
The new name, Iwo To, was adopted Monday by the Japanese Geographical Survey Institute in consultation with Japan’s coast guard.
Surviving islanders evacuated in the war praised the move, but others said it cheapens the memory of a brutal campaign that today is inextricably linked to the words Iwo Jima.
Back in 1945, the small, volcanic island was the vortex of the fierce World War II battle immortalized by the famous photograph by Joe Rosenthal of the Associated Press showing Marines raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi.
Retired Marine Maj. Gen. Fred Haynes, who was a 24- year-old captain in the regiment that raised the flag, was surprised and upset by news of the name change.
“Frankly, I don’t like it. That name is so much a part of our tradition, our legacy,” he said.
Haynes, 87, heads the Combat Veterans of Iwo Jima, a group of about 600 veterans that travels to the island every year for a reunion. He is writing a book about the battle called “We Walk by Faith: The Story of Combat Team 28 and the Battle of Iwo Jima.” He doesn’t plan to change the name.
“It was Iwo Jima to us when we took it,” he said. “We’ll recognize whatever the Japanese want to call it, but we’ll stick to Iwo Jima.”
Even some Japanese veterans, like Kiyoshi Endo, 84, who heads an association commemorating soldiers killed in the battle, feel uncomfortable about the switch. “Naval maps have long used the name Iwo Jima,” he said. “We should respect that history.”
Before the war, the isolated spit of land was called Iwo To by the 1,000 or so who lived there. In Japanese, that name looks and means the same as Iwo Jima — Sulfur Island — but it has a different sound.
The civilians were evacuated in 1944 as U.S. forces advanced across the Pacific. Some Japanese navy officers who moved in to fortify the island mistakenly called it Iwo Jima, and the name stuck.
After the war, civilians could not return, and the island was put to exclusive military use by both the United States and Japan, cementing its identity.
Locals were never happy the name Iwo Jima took root. But the last straw came this year with the release of Eastwood’s “Letters from Iwo Jima” and “Flags of Our Fathers,” war films that only reinforced the misnomer.
In March, Ogasawara, the municipality that administers Iwo To and neighboring islands, responded by adopting a resolution making Iwo To the official name. Ogasawara residents and descendants of Iwo To evacuees petitioned the central government to follow suit.
The government agreed; an official map with the new name will be released on Sept. 1.
Still, Iwo Jima is the only name that clicks with most Japanese who aren’t from the remote island chain, some 700 miles southeast of Tokyo.
The battle pitted 100,000 U.S. troops against 22,000 Japanese dug into a labyrinth of tunnels and trenches. Nearly 7,000 Americans died and under 1,000 Japanese survived.