FoxtrotOscar
10-23-21, 11:27 AM
To be clear, these ships aren’t victims of a battle; instead, the U.S. Navy intentionally scuttled them at the location in 1945 after taking the island in an attempt to create an artificial breakwater for a planned harbor. Several of them are reinforced concrete barges, ships built to support naval operations and not necessarily for any direct combat role.
Four of them are former cargo vessels, at least one of which is Japanese according to naval documents. As the island rises (https://volcano.si.edu/volcano.cfm?vn=284120) by between 10 and 30 inches per year—the beach where U.S. forces landed in 1945 is now over 50 feet above sea level—they are “moving” from offshore relics to eerie onshore monoliths.
We’re able to confirm that several ships are reinforced concrete barges not only because of up-close photography that reveals their composition, but also because of archival records and first-hand accounts from operations on the island during the war.
In a digitized portion (http://www.justinmuseum.com/famjustin/Gibsonbio.html) of his book In Search of Angels, the late Staff Sergeant Arvin S. Gibson reported thatOn March 17, 1945, the Seabees (Naval Construction Battalions) were going to “sink some old concrete ships out from the beach to provide a breakwater for our DUKW operations,” a DUKW being a popular type of light amphibious vehicle used for marine landings. They had trouble in rough ocean waters, and a breakwater would’ve made landing them much easier.
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/seismic-activity-raises-wwii-era-ghost-ships-off-the-coast-of-iwo-jima.html
Four of them are former cargo vessels, at least one of which is Japanese according to naval documents. As the island rises (https://volcano.si.edu/volcano.cfm?vn=284120) by between 10 and 30 inches per year—the beach where U.S. forces landed in 1945 is now over 50 feet above sea level—they are “moving” from offshore relics to eerie onshore monoliths.
We’re able to confirm that several ships are reinforced concrete barges not only because of up-close photography that reveals their composition, but also because of archival records and first-hand accounts from operations on the island during the war.
In a digitized portion (http://www.justinmuseum.com/famjustin/Gibsonbio.html) of his book In Search of Angels, the late Staff Sergeant Arvin S. Gibson reported thatOn March 17, 1945, the Seabees (Naval Construction Battalions) were going to “sink some old concrete ships out from the beach to provide a breakwater for our DUKW operations,” a DUKW being a popular type of light amphibious vehicle used for marine landings. They had trouble in rough ocean waters, and a breakwater would’ve made landing them much easier.
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/seismic-activity-raises-wwii-era-ghost-ships-off-the-coast-of-iwo-jima.html