The Two Prisoners Who Carried the Enemy's Letter
——Iwo Jima, twelve hours in March 1945
March 1945, Iwo Jima. At the headquarters of the American 3rd Marine Division, a general wrote a letter. It was addressed to the Japanese defenders. It was not carried by an American. It was carried by two Japanese soldiers who had been taken prisoner.
This page retraces, as far as it can be confirmed, the lines the episode could not hold and the facts standing behind them. It draws on both records: the American one (Bartley, Iwo Jima: Amphibious Epic, 1954, the official U.S. Marine Corps history) and the Japanese one (an operational record held through JACAR).
① Why the letter was addressed to a colonel 🟢 Confirmed
The letter was not addressed to Lieutenant General Kuribayashi, who commanded the island, but to Colonel Ikeda, commanding the 145th Infantry Regiment. The American record gives the reason:
Believing that General Kuribayashi might feel himself personally committed against surrender, the 3d Division Commander addressed an appeal to the commanding officer of the 145th Infantry Regiment
The general would be personally bound; a regimental commander might not be. One side is reading its way into the mind of the other side's commander.
② They switched off the radio themselves 🟢 Confirmed
What the two were given was cigarettes, rations, and a walkie-talkie. No American went with them. They went out into the middle of the battle, the two of them.
After a few transmissions during the morning, the Japanese couriers discontinued use of the radio for fear it might jeopardize their security.
A few reports during the morning, and then they stopped — because using it put them in danger.
Consider what that means. Two Japanese soldiers, on an American radio, talking to the American lines. If their own side saw them doing it — what then? For these two, meeting their own army was the greater danger. In the middle of enemy ground, the one line that kept them connected, they cut themselves.
③ The man they were calling was “Smith-Chui” 🟢 Confirmed
This is the line the episode could not hold. The station the two were to contact had a call sign.
maintain contact with 'Smith-Chui,' the 3d Division Language Section
“Smith-Chui.” It was the Japanese-language section of the 3rd Marine Division. Chui is the Japanese word for lieutenant — 中尉. Japanese-speaking prisoners were calling in Japanese, so the name came out that way.
……It's an enemy unit, and yet they call it by a Japanese rank. Both the one calling and the one called — in Japanese.
On the way back, the two broke their silence for the first time since morning: coming in now. That was to “Smith-Chui” as well.
④ This regiment had been bound for Saipan 🟡 A single source
The 145th Infantry Regiment, to which the two belonged, was raised in Kagoshima. Some three thousand men crossed to the island in stages between July and October 1944.
A regimental history records the background: the regiment had first been due to move to Saipan, could not get there in time, and so was sent to Iwo Jima instead. That one sentence can so far be confirmed in only this one book, so read it with that in mind.
The island was held by the Ogasawara Army Corps (109th Division): roughly thirteen thousand army troops and seven thousand navy. Of those, this was the only infantry regiment on the island. The rest were independent battalions, armour, and artillery.
⑤ The side that wrote the letter had also come from another island 🟢 Confirmed
For the 3rd Marine Division, which wrote the letter, Iwo Jima was not the first island either. Bougainville (1943), Guam (1944), then Iwo Jima (1945). They had come north through the southern islands, one at a time.
A regiment from Kagoshima, meant for Saipan, arrived here. A division that had come up from the south arrived here. Both came from somewhere else, and met on this island. And then a prisoner from one side walked with a letter from the other.
⑥ He came back to a place he had not set out from 🟢 Confirmed
Half past six in the evening. The man reached the American lines — but not where he had set out that morning. He came in at a separate position, held by a different division. What waited for him there was questions.
considerable difficulty in explaining what two Japanese were doing with a walkie-talkie
What were two Japanese doing here with a walkie-talkie? Explaining that took a great deal of trouble. The radio that had been a lifeline on the way out had become a reason for suspicion on the way back.
⑦ The number of prisoners does not match between the two countries 🟡 Accounts differ
On the Japanese soldiers taken prisoner on this island, the recorded figures do not agree.
- American: 216 as of 26 March, and a further 867 in the mopping-up that followed (Bartley, 1954)
- Japanese tally: 1,033 altogether (Senshi Sōsho, vol. 13)
The figures are close, but they do not match. We will not write here that one of them is the correct one.
⑧ And both records end on the same word 🟢 Confirmed
In the Japanese record, three things stand on the same page: that the regimental colours were burned on 14 March, that 16 March brought the last radio message, and that on 17 March it becomes “no further word thereafter.” The letter was carried in exactly these days, as the record was breaking off.
So what became of the letter? Read that record through, end to end, and not one line mentions it. And the American record closes like this:
whether or not the message ever reached Colonel Ikeda will never be known
Both records end on the same “we do not know,” don't they.
What is known about these twelve hours is known because the two men came back and said so. Neither record contains their names.
⑨ Where this comes from
- Bartley, Whitman S. Iwo Jima: Amphibious Epic. Historical Branch, HQ USMC, 1954. (A U.S. government publication — public domain.)
- Iwo Jima operational record (Japan Center for Asian Historical Records, Ref. C22110003500). The original images are held by the National Institute for Defense Studies, so this site sets the text in type rather than reproducing them.
- Taiheiyō Sensō Rentai Senshi (regimental histories of the Pacific War), the section on the 145th Infantry Regiment.
- Senshi Sōsho, vol. 13 (the Japanese figures for prisoners).