Chapter Six: Armada Summary and Analysis

First stopping in Honolulu, the armada traveled day and night toward their destination. The four-thousand mile journey took three weeks. The E Company was on the USS Missoula which, like all the ships, had only small and cramped quarters for the men. Two days out the boys were told that their destination was Iwo Jima. No ordinary battle waited for the boys. Rather, it would be a battle of epic proportion, changing the fates of east and west forever. The armada consisted of more than 800 ships and one-hundred thousand men all on their way to converge on an eight-mile square island.

The taking of Iwo Jima was seen as imperative since it was home to a radar station, several airstrips and a fleet of Japanese warplanes. The combat plans laid out on large maps showed how the...