Japanese radio transmitter from WWII found on Iwo Jima

in Featured Article, War Articles / by Jack / on August 20, 2012 at 14:02 /

A Japanese military radio was found in a World War II bunker on the island of Iwoto, also known as Iwo Jima. Also significant is that the transmitter is believed to be the one used by the Japanese Imperial Army to send their final message before control over the island was won by U.S. soldiers. Measuring two meters wide and found underground, officials say it must have been used by Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, the Japanese commander of the island.

The volcanic island of Iwo Jima was the location of one of WWII’s bloodiest battles, with the lives of roughly 21,900 Japanese soldiers and 7,000 U.S. soldiers lost to a month of fighting. The island was also the setting of the popular 2006 film Letters From Iwo Jima, directed by Clint Eastwood and featuring Ken Watanabe as

Kuribayashi. Former survivors have stated that the transmitter must have been the one where Kuribayashi sent his last message of “arrows and bullets are exhausted” and “sorrow comes as I fall,” known for their poetic expression of self-sacrifice and suggestive of the ways of the samurai.
The Japanese Health Ministry says that the underground bunker was found on the northern side of the island, with the remains of one Japanese soldier nearby, and functioned as the communications center for the Imperial Army. The health ministry leads the efforts to find and recover the remains of the thousands of Japanese soldiers still on Iwo Jima. To date, only around 10,000 have been collected…
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