Volcano Islands uninhabited. The first recorded sighting by Europeans was in October 1543 by Spanish navigator Bernardo de la Torre on board of carrack "San Juan de Letrán" when trying to return from Sarangani to New Spain. Iwo Jima was charted as Sufre, the old Spanish term for sulphur. The islands were uninhabited until 1889, when the two northern islands were settled by Japanese settlers from the Izu Islands. They were annexed by Japan in 1891. The population was about 1,100 in 1939, distributed among five settlements: Higashi, Minami, Nishi, Kita and Motoyama (meaning "East", "South", "West", "North" and "Mountain of Origin",
Japanese occupation of the Andaman Islands whilst the remainder either died of starvation or were killed by Burmese pirates. A rescue mission sent to the island after the end of the occupation found just twelve survivors, and over a hundred skeletons on the beach. In all, approximately 2,000 people in the Andamans are thought to have died as a result of the occupation, and at least 501 were tortured by the Japanese. The former figure represents 10% of the pre-war population of Port Blair. Casualties on the more sparsely-populated Nicobar islands were fewer, as the Japanese did not have a garrison there, although in 1943 they