A Comparative Study of The United States Marines and the Imperial Japanese Army in the Central Pacific War Through the Experiences of Clifton Joseph Cormier and Hiroo Onoda.

A thesis by John E.. Domingue, 2005. Original material will be in italics.

I downloaded this thesis simply because it looked interesting. It approaches the war from a personal viewpoint of one man on each side of the fighting. Almost all accounts deal with large numbers of soldiers at one time so it's refreshing to see one that is this specific.

Cormier was in the Third Marine Division, and Onoda was on Lubang Island in the Philippines. Onoda is a fascinating character since he is one of the Japanese soldiers who did not know the war ended and continued to live on the island in a sort of guerrilla-type life.

The first chapter is on Cormier, going into his biography. He joined the Marines at the age of $19 and was paid the princely sum of $21 a month. The paper then describes his boot camp training.

Regimentation, following orders instinctively, leadership and the camaraderie of brotherhood unique to the Corps are the by-product of this training....Marine Corps training of WWII placed a strong emphasis on self-discipline and unit-discipline as essential the prompt and correct execution of orders...The individual no longer belongs to himself, but rather becomes part of something much bigger and transcendent: the United States Marine Corps.

This is the point where I wished he would have done a side-by-side comparison in the paper rather than a chapter on Cormier and then Onada's chapter. Both the Marines and the IJA had strong emphasis on self-discipline, but they went about it in very different ways with the IJA soldiers being brutalized during the training. Both groups of soldiers no longer belonged to themselves, but what they belonged to was different. In one case it was the Marine Corps itself as an extension of the American government. In the other case, the Japanese soldiers belonged to the Emperor and they were consider dying for him to be an honor.

He explains the '8-corners' approach of the Japanese which they called Hoko Ichiu.

Cormier was in three major battles in the Pacific. He fought at Bougainville, Guam, and Iwo Jima. The division suffered 8,600 casualties during the war.

The author of the paper then talks about the specific battles Cormier was in. He talks about the banzai charges of the Japanese during one of those battles. They made six charges over a period of two weeks. They ended up gaining nothing but lost 6,800 dead during the attacks.

Then he talks about how the Japanese refused to surrender. It was dishonorable and unthinkable to surrender. The Japanese paid dearly for this mindset.

This, of course, made it relatively easy for them to become kamikaze and to do the banzai charges.

He notes that the closer we got to Japan, the more fiercely the Japanese soldiers fought and the higher the casualty rate.

He notes that at Peleliu the Japanese changed their tactics from banzai charges to defense in depth, using pillboxes, bunkers and caves. This type of defense was what faced the Marines on Iwo Jima. This type of defense made the aerial bombing almost ineffective as only direct assaults that allowed hand grenades and flamethrowers to be used on the caves and pillboxes really got to the defenders. On Iwo Jima around 5,885 marines and 433 navy men died during the battle. The fact that it became an air base saved the lives of 24,761 airmen.

The next chapter talked about Onoda. He was drafted, trained in stealth, sniping, spying and wire taping and was then set up as an observer to report enemy movements and intentions. Unlike other Japanese soldiers, his training emphasized staying alive and keeping those reports flowing.

This differed from the training since the other soldiers were taught never to surrender, to fight to the last and absolute obedience was paramount.

The chapter then goes on to talk about Onoda's assignment and how he survived on the island and refused to surrender. Attempts were made after the war but he didn't believe what he was being told. He ended up staying on the island for thirty years.

He talks about how the militarists came to power and how Shinto became the state religion. Any soldier showing cowardice was expected to commit suicide. Numerous soldiers during battles, when it was evident the Americans were going to overrun their positions, committed suicide, either in useless banzai charges or by strapping grenades to themselves and setting them off.

In Japan, he notes, education was run by the military and public forums and speeches could get a person sent to prison. There was no freedom of the press.

'Boot camp was brutal and savage, the purpose being to minimize fear in real battle.'

If a soldier became a prisoner ...it was believed that his name and memory was permanently erased and forgotten and no longer a member of his family and society.

A really significant piece of his writing is:

Men behave differently in battle because war allows them to do so.

The extremes to which the soldiers were expected to go was given in a pep talk by Lt. General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, the man commanding the Japanese forces on Iwo Jima:

Above all else we shall dedicate ourselves and our entire strength to the defense of this island. We shall grasp bombs, charge the enemy tanks and destroy them. We shall infiltrate into the midst of the enemy and annihilate them. With every salvo we will, without fail, kill the enemy. Each man will make it his duty to kill 10 of the enemy before dying. Until we are destroyed to the last man, we shall harass the enemy by gurerilla tactics.

The result of this approach? 5,845 Marines were killed. 21,000 Japanese soldiers died, and they still lost the island to the Americans.

Japanese intentions were to inflict as many casualties as possible in hopes the American public would become outraged and pressure Washington to negotiate a peace settlement of some kind favorble to Japan. It never happened. America wanted vengeance and retribution for the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.

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A Comparative Study of The United States Marines and the Imperial Japanese Army in the Central Pacific War Through the Experiences of Clifton Joseph Cormier and Hiroo Onoda.

A thesis by John E.. Domingue, 2005. Original material will be in italics.

I downloaded this thesis simply because it looked interesting. It approaches the war from a personal viewpoint of one man on each side of the fighting. Almost all accounts deal with large numbers of soldiers at one time so it's refreshing to see one that is this specific.

Cormier was in the Third Marine Division, and Onoda was on Lubang Island in the Philippines. Onoda is a fascinating character since he is one of the Japanese soldiers who did not know the war ended and continued to live on the island in a sort of guerrilla-type life.

The first chapter is on Cormier, going into his biography. He joined the Marines at the age of $19 and was paid the princely sum of $21 a month. The paper then describes his boot camp training.

He explains the '8-corners' approach of the Japanese which they called Hoko Ichiu.

Cormier was in three major battles in the Pacific. He fought at Bougainville, Guam, and Iwo Jima. The division suffered 8,600 casualties during the war.

The author of the paper then talks about the specific battles Cormier was in. He talks about the banzai charges of the Japanese during one of those battles. They made six charges over a period of two weeks. They ended up gaining nothing but lost 6,800 dead during the attacks.

Then he talks about how the Japanese refused to surrender. It was dishonorable and unthinkable to surrender. The Japanese paid dearly for this mindset.

This, of course, made it relatively easy for them to become kamikaze and to do the banzai charges.

He notes that the closer we got to Japan, the more fiercely the Japanese soldiers fought and the higher the casualty rate.

The next chapter talked about Onoda. He was drafted, trained in stealth, sniping, spying and wire taping and was then set up as an observer to report enemy movements and intentions. Unlike other Japanese soldiers, his training emphasized staying alive and keeping those reports flowing.

This differed from the training since the other soldiers were taught never to surrender, to fight to the last and absolute obedience was paramount.

The chapter then goes on to talk about Onoda's assignment and how he survived on the island and refused to surrender. Attempts were made after the war but he didn't believe what he was being told. He ended up staying on the island for thirty years.

In Japan, he notes, education was run by the military and public forums and speeches could get a person sent to prison. There was no freedom of the press.

'Boot camp was brutal and savage, the purpose being to minimize fear in real battle.'

If a soldier became a prisoner ...it was believed that his name and memory was permanently erased and forgotten and no longer a member of his family and society.

A really significant piece of his writing is:

Men behave differently in battle because war allows them to do so.

The extremes to which the soldiers were expected to go was given in a pep talk by Lt. General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, the man commanding the Japanese forces on Iwo Jima:

The result of this approach? 5,845 Marines were killed. 21,000 Japanese soldiers died, and they still lost the island to the Americans.