During the last days of the battle hundreds of thousands of "surrender leaflets" fell among Japanese soldiers who, caught between the sea and American front lines, were beginning to doubt the promises of their own government and army and to ponder the truth of American promises of humane treatment to those who came into American lines. A more direct appeal for surrender was made by the 7th Division on 17 June when all of its units ceased firing for an hour while interpreters broadcast pleas of surrender over portable loudspeakers. Several enemy soldiers walked toward the lines, watched for a few minutes, and then disappeared. One American soldier was wounded, and the Japanese put three holes through one of the loudspeakers. The appeal was wholly ineffective. On the same day, although firing continued, interpreters of the 7th Division set up a loudspeaker at the cliff southeast of Nakaza and coaxed between 500 and 600 civilians from natural caves in the rocky sea cliff. From this group the interpreters culled more than seventy enemy soldiers who had previously deserted their army and hoped to pass as civilians.{539}
Mass surrender of Japanese soldiers did not begin until the Tenth Army crowded them almost to the water's edge. There was a noticeable increase, however, after the intensification of the psychological warfare program. During the first seventy days of battle, prisoners captured by Tenth Army averaged less than four a day. This average increased to more than fifty a day between 12 and 18 June; and on 19 June, as the 6th Marine and 7th Infantry Divisions rolled forward near the east and west coasts, 343 enemy soldiers voluntarily surrendered. On the afternoon of 20 June the 32d Infantry seized the east end of Hill 89, a coral bulge next to the sea which housed General Ushijima's staff and headquarters. On the same day 977 prisoners were taken—an unprecedented accomplishment in the Pacific war.{540}
Even among these destitute and disorganized soldiers, less than a third chose to surrender rather than die, although prisoners claimed that others wanted to surrender but could find no opportunity. Casualties among the Japanese averaged about a thousand a day during the first half of June, jumped to nearly 2,000 on 19 June, to 3,000 the next day, and reached more than 4,000 on 21 June.{541}This tremendous rise in enemy deaths resulted from the sudden and complete unbalance of power between the opposing forces and from the resignation of many Japanese to death. When cornered or injured, many of them would hold grenades against their stomachs and blow themselves to pieces—a kind of poor man's harakiri. During the last days of the battle many bodies were found with the abdomen and right hand blown away—the telltale evidence of self-destruction. Men in the 184th Infantry counted at least sixteen separate explosions when an armored flame thrower threatened a troublesome source of enemy fire. One Japanese soldier approached a field artillery outpost, jumped into plain view, and yelled in understandable English: "Watch out! I'm going to blow my head off!" He fulfilled his promise, but a companion with him had to be killed. Many others hid among the brush and rocks until the Americans were almost upon them. Then they would suddenly jump up, throw a grenade or fire a few aimless shots, and wait to be killed.{542}
SURRENDER instructions to the enemy were broadcast by this "converted" Japanese from an LCI standing off the rocky cliff near Hill 89. Below is seen a group of prisoners who preferred capture to suicide. They are waiting to be questioned by American officers.