Even during the months when Iwo absorbed most of its attention, the Seventh went on with its routine neutralization of other enemy bases which could have threatened the Marianas. That mission was to continue until the summer of 1945, and it is useful here to interrupt the Iwo Jima story with a brief summary of operations elsewhere.
Marcus, through which planes could stage from Japan to Saipan--though with longer flights than via Iwo--was kept under constant surveillance, usually by armed reconnaissance missions of two or three B-24's. Between September 1944 and July 1945 such missions totaled 565 sorties. Using Marcus as a target for shakedown missions, XXI Bomber Command dispatched eighty-five B-29's against it during the last month of the war.
35 Woleai was visited occasionally by AAFPOA planes, as was Yap, until responsibility for the latter island was turned over to a Marine air group at Ulithi in November.
36 Truk, in spite of its severe mauling earlier, was considered a potential danger spot which needed more than sporadic armed reconnaissance, and missions were sent against its installations until the end of the war. Until 26 June 1945 it was AAFPOA's B-24's that did most of the work there, flying 1,094 sorties after 1 August 1944, of which 595 came after the t groups had moved from Kwajalein to the Marianas. The half-dozen or so fighters that the Japanese managed to keep patched up did not offer much resistance, but AAFPOA was generous with escorts, sending P-38's in 75 sorties, P-47's in 234 escort and strafing sorties.
37
Until the assault on Iwo Jima the B-24's continued the antishipping campaign in the Bonins. After 6 November there were no more bombing attacks, but with technical aid from NAVY officers the 42d Squadron carried out a number of mining missions against harbors and anchorages in the islands. By 12 February the 42d had planted 275 mines, about half of them around Chichi Jima.
38 In his official report Harmon said that the squadron had not been successful in its
objective of clearing the area of all ships over 2,000 tons, and the Joint Army-Navy Assessment Committee credited the B-24's with sinking only a single ship with its mines. Nevertheless, there was some belief in the Marianas that Harmon had deliberately minimized the effectiveness of the campaign "because mine-laying was not considered a proper function for B-24 bombers."
39
Capture and Development of Iwo Jima
Japanese raids against B-29 bases, though troublesome, were not important enough alone to have justified the cost of capturing Iwo Jima: the decision to seize the island was made a month before the raids began and they had ceased seven weeks before Iwo was assaulted. Meanwhile, the island had proved a hindrance to the VHB campaign in other ways. Since fighters based on the rock had attacked B-29's en route to or from Japan, to avoid interception the bombers had been forced to fly a dog-leg course which complicated navigation and reduced bomb loads; even then, enemy radar at Iwo gave early warning to Honshu of northbound Superforts. But the idea of seizing the island derived less from its menace while in Japanese hands than from its potential value as an advanced base for the Twentieth Air Force.
HyperWar: The Army Air Forces in WWII: Vol. V--The Pacific: MATTERHORN to Nagasaki [Chapter 19]
