Pacific War Fifth and Thirteenth Air Forces to attack targets throughout the Philippines and the South China Sea. The Battle of Iwo Jima ("Operation Detachment") in February 1945 was one of the bloodiest battles fought by the Americans in the Pacific War. Iwo Jima is an 8 sq mile (21 km) island situated halfway between Tokyo and the Mariana Islands. Holland Smith, the commander of the invasion force, aimed to capture the island and prevent its use as an early-warning station against air raids on the Japanese Home Islands, and to use it as an emergency landing field. Lt. General Tadamichi Kuribayashi,
Internment of Japanese Americans as Henry Emerson Fosdick so wisely said, 'Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have.' The Niihau Incident occurred in December 1941, just after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Three Japanese Americans on the Hawaiian island of Niihau assisted a Japanese pilot, Shigenori Nishikaichi, who crashed there. Despite the incident, the Territorial Governor of Hawaii rejected calls for the mass internment of the Japanese Americans living there. In "Magic: The Untold Story of U.S. Intelligence and the Evacuation of Japanese Residents From the West Coast During World War II", David Lowman, a former National Security