During the Battle of Iwo Jima in the Pacific War, a Japanese soldier committed suicide in February 1945 by lying face down on a slope of volcanic terrain and detonating a hand grenade that he had placed on his chest.

　　During the Battle of Iwo Jima in the Pacific War, a Japanese soldier committed suicide in February 1945 by lying face down on a slope in volcanic terrain and detonating a grenade that he had placed on his chest. The Japanese soldier was cornered by the American army and refused to surrender or be killed, so he killed himself. In 1945, the American army invaded the central Pacific Ocean, and the fighting with the Japanese army became increasingly bloody. In the Battle of Iwo Jima, the Marines struggled with the tenacious defense of the Japanese army, which had entrenched itself in the volcanic terrain of Iwo Jima, and suffered heavy casualties.

　　In the Battle of Iwo Jima, a volcanic island located between the Mariana Islands and Japan, the Japanese Army dug a network of underground fortifications to turn the volcanic island into a death trap for the invading US Marines. When the US Marine Corps Division landed and invaded on February 19, 1945, the Americans expected the battle to be short. However, the Japanese army waged a fierce defense for over five weeks until March 26th. The Japanese army launched unrelenting close-quarters attacks from caves and other strongholds. The American army uprooted and cleared them out. The Iwo Jima massacre horrified American soldiers and American citizens. The Allied forces feared that a far greater massacre would accompany an invasion of the Japanese mainland.

　　General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, the Japanese commander on Iwo Jima, recognized that it would be impossible to defeat the American invasion. Instead, he decided to prolong the battle on Iwo Jima, engaging in a long and costly defensive campaign that would shake the resolve of the American forces invading the Japanese mainland. He positioned weapons that could deliver deadly fire onto the beaches. He concentrated his forces in gun emplacements linked by underground tunnels and bunkers in the northern part of Iwo Jima. The deadly isolationist defensive network resulted in horrific casualties for both sides.

The US Marine Corps described the bloodiest and cruellest fighting on Iwo Jima as the “Grindstone” and the “Bloody Gorge”, where nearly 850 Marines died trying to capture a Japanese fort and where the Japanese defenders put up their last stand. 6,821 of the American landing force were killed and 19,217 were wounded. The Japanese garrison of around 20,000 men were mostly conscripts. They refused to surrender and fought on tenaciously until only a few hundred were taken prisoner.