Japanese air attacks on the Mariana Islands and anti-aircraft guns shot down about 37 Japanese aircraft during these raids. After the Marianas began to come under attack, the United States military stepped up its raids on the Japanese-held islands which could be used to launch raids on the B-29 bases. Particular attention was given to Iwo Jima, as it was correctly assumed that the Japanese aircraft which attacked the Marianas were flying from Japan and staging through the island en route to their targets. Following the first raid against Saipan in November, XXI Bomber Command B-29s were dispatched against Iwo Jima's airfields on November 5 and 8.
Japanese settlement in the Marshall Islands population on the islands was repatriated back to Japan. People of mixed Japanese–Marshallese heritage generally stayed behind, although a few were granted an option if they were above 16 years old. The Japanese–Marshallese quickly assimilated with the Marshallese in the years after the war. Many of them became politicians and businessmen, and in the 1970s people of mixed Japanese–Marshallese heritage controlled most of the private enterprises in the state. Japanese–Marshallese politicians generally held critical opinions on nuclear weapon tests carried out by the United States in Operation Crossroads. At least one ethnologist, Greg Dvorak suggested that the shared Japanese and