VERY RARE WWII 1945 Iwo Jima & Okinawa USAAF B-29 Air Navigation Mission Map

When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

VERY RARE WWII 1945 Iwo Jima & Okinawa USAAF B-29 Air Navigation Mission Map:
$3420.00

Comes with hand-signed C.O.A.

This incredible and rare museum-grade artifact is an original World War II a very rare double sided CINCPOA Iwo Jima & Okinawa B-29 Superfortress aerial navigation map. Dated February 1945, this B-29 mission map was printed during the Invasion of Iwo Jima (Operation Detachment) fromFebruary 19th – March 26th 1945. This map was used by USAAF long-range bombers on aerial missions from Iwo Jima to Okinawa and later used following Operation Iceberg on the strategic US bombing campaign on mainland Japan and Tokyo. Iwo Jima in American hands produced immediate and highly visible benefits to the strategic bombing campaign. Marines fighting on the island were reminded of this mission time and again as crippled B-29 Superfortresses landed after bombing Japan. The capture of Iwo Jima served to increase the operating range, payload, and survival rate of the big bombers. The monthly tonnage of high explosives dropped on Imperial Japan by B-29s based in the Mariana Islands increased eleven-fold in March alone. Nearly every day until the end of World War II, crippled bombers landed on Iwo Jima's airfields. The importance of the island hit its peak on June 7, 1945, when 102 B-29s landed on Iwo Jima and then again when 186 bombers landed on the island on July 24, 1945. By war's end, a total of 2,451 B-29s made forced landings on the island. This figure represented an estimated 26,961 flight crewmen, many of whom would have perished at sea without the availability of Iwo Jima as a safe landing strip. One B-29 pilot said, "Whenever I land on this island I thank God for the men who fought for it." In 1945, US forces bounded forward in the central Pacific as combat reached ever bloodier crescendos. On Iwo Jima, Marines achieved a costly victory as they grappled with tenacious Japanese defenders dug into the island’s volcanic terrain. Americans faced even worse on Okinawa, the natural springboard for an invasion of Japan’s home islands. In Okinawa’s craggy southern reaches, US soldiers and Marines battered a Japanese fortress as kamikaze aircraft rained down on the invasion fleet.