War has played a key role in the history of the United States, from the nation's founding

right down to the present. War made the U.S. independent, kept it together, increased its

size, and established it as a global superpower. Understanding America's wars is essential for understanding American history.

Welcome to Key Battles of American History,

a podcast in which we discuss American history

through the lens of the most important battles of America's wars.

Here is your host, James Early.

Thank you. James Early.

Hello and welcome to a special bonus episode of Key Battles of the Pacific Theater World War II.

This is your host, James Early, as always.

And I am super excited today because I have a very special

guest, and he and I are going to have a discussion on the topic of geography and the Battle of

Iwo Jima. Of course, if you've listened to my key battles series, you've heard my two-part

episode on Iwojima. And if you haven't, you may want to stop this and go back and listen to those two and then listen to this one.

But even if you haven't and you just want to just plow through and go ahead with this one, maybe listen to the other later.

That's fine too because we're going to explain the basics as well as some more detailed information.

We're going to do a little bit of a deeper dig into the Battle of Iwo Jima

through the lens of geography.

Geography played a huge role in all of the Pacific Theater battles,

but I can't think of one where it was more important than at Iwo Jima.

Maybe there is, but suffice to say that the geography of the island of Iwo Jima had an enormous influence, again, on the battle.

My guest today is a guy that I've become friends with over the last few weeks or so.

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