Japan changes Iwo Jima’s name

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Japan changes Iwo Jima’s name




By Hans Greimel - The Associated Press
Posted : Wednesday Jun 20, 2007 5:20:15 EDT

TOKYO — Japan has changed the name of Iwo Jima, the volcanic island immortalized in one of World War II’s most brutal battles, to reflect the original name given by its inhabitants, the Japanese Geographical Survey Institute said.
The new name is Iwo To, which will retain the same written characters and meaning — “Sulfur Island” — but is different when spoken.
The name change was approved Monday by a joint geographical naming committee meeting between the survey institute and Japan’s coast guard, a statement from the institute said.
An official map with the new name will be released Sept. 1.
Iwo To, about 700 miles southeast of Tokyo in the Pacific Ocean, was inhabited by civilians until 1944, when they were evacuated as U.S. forces advanced across the Pacific, said the survey institute’s Mitsugu Aizawa.
The residents were not allowed to return after the war, when the island was put to exclusive military use by both the U.S. and Japan.
“These people are now scattered nationwide and are not able to go back to Iwo To,” Aizawa said. “These people have said that the place is originally called Iwo To and their claim led to this revision.”
Today the island’s only inhabitants are about 400 Japanese soldiers.
The 1945 battle for Iwo Jima, made iconic by the famous photo of U.S. Marines raising the American flag on the islet’s Mount Suribachi, pitted some 100,000 U.S. troops against 22,000 Japanese deeply dug into a labyrinth of tunnels and trenches.
Nearly 7,000 Americans were killed capturing the island, and fewer than 1,000 of the Japanese would survive.
The Americans occupied the island after the war, and returned it to Japanese jurisdiction in 1968.
The U.S. Navy still uses an Iwo To airstrip to train pilots who operate from aircraft carriers.



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