Other Pacific events

Mt. Suribachi, Iwo Jima and landing craft

As the 11th Airborne Division worked its way to Mount Macolod, other events were transpiring around the Pacific. As stated in the Los Banos post, 23 February 1945 was also the date on which Ole’ Glory was raised on Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima. This event was portrayed in the newspapers as the day the Americans won the island, but the Marines would actually face another month of fighting.
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Tokyo received heavy bombing from the aircraft carriers on the 25th and later that night, 172 Boeing B-29 bombers dropped 500 tons of incendiary bombs on the city. (You will find that this action is constantly repeated.)
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The Army’s 41st Division landed on Palawan Island, P.I. to secure the excellent port facilities for the Navy on 28 February. All through the month of March, U.S. forces invaded the numerous islands of the southern Philippines to ensure the safety of the entire country.
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On 3 March, Manila was considered to be in American hands. Japanese resistance within the city limits appeared to be eradicated.
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B-29 in flight

During a night raid on Tokyo, 279 B-29 Superfortress aircraft dropped nearly 2,000 tons of incendiary bombs over the capital. The resulting firestorm killed between 80,000 and 130,000 people and destroyed approximately 300,000 buildings. Two nights later, 285 B-29′s did the same to Nagoya. After that, 274 bombers erased Osaka from the map. These bombing runs were becoming a daily event. (With all this damage being inflicted during the start of March, were we still required to drop the A-bomb five months later?)
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The USS Randolph aircraft carrier was badly damaged by the suicide aircraft in the Caroline Islands on 11 March. I mention this because the practice of kamikaze warfare will emerge more and more after this attack. I will be having a separate post to discuss this subject further.

USS Randolph getting repairs on forward deck

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Other weapons were being developed by the Japanese as the last year of the war unfolded such as the “Cherry Blossom,” the Ohka rocket-powered bomb with a 2,646 pound warhead. To be certain the pilot delivered his package to the target, he was sealed into his cockpit for a one-way journey. Clearly this was an act of desperation – not one of strategy.
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Current news - The U.S. Submarine Veteran’s Pelican Harbor base wants to hear from the men that served aboard a submarine – irregardless of which era: ussvi.org/base/PelicanHarbor.asp. During the war in the Pacific, submarines were responsible for sinking 55% of the enemy ships lost. (or 1,314). Out of the 16,000 submariners in WWII, 3,500 died on the 52 U.S. subs destroyed.