There was no glamour on Iwo. There were millions of flies. The bodies burned black. The smell was overpowering. The burials began as soon as possible. Two cemeteries were established for the thousands of marines slain. The Japanese dead lay where they fell or else were covered in anonymous graves plowed out by bulldozers. To this day thousands remain entombed in the caves and tunnels. All were memorably eulogized by Rabbi Roland B. Gitelsohn. The text of his remarkable speech is included in this part.
The Army took over as the Marines departed in March and April. There were up to thirty-five thousand Army and medical personnel stationed on Iwo until September, when the numbers began to decrease, according to William A. Glaser of New York City, who served as an emergency surgical nurse in an Army hospital and later as a clerk on Iwo from February 1945 to February 1946. Substantial numbers of Japanese soldiers remained in small groups in caves in the northeast. Many came out at night to steal food and clothing. Glaser tells of a group of soldiers coming out to surrender from behind a movie screen set up near Suribachi. He said they had been living in caves inside Suribachi for months. Many who surrendered were Korean slave laborers rather than uniformed soldiers. A huge hospital, the 232nd General Hospital, was planned to treat wounded expected from the invasion of Japan, scheduled for late 1945.
The island was returned to Japan by the United States in 1968. Various individuals from both nations, such as Tsunezo Wachi and John Ripley, acted to preserve the heritage of Iwo Jima, to venerate the dead and preserve the island as a shrine to the sacrifice of the fallen soldiers. Colonel Ripley was determined to find a way to sustain access to the island by Americans in general and the Marines in particular. Captain Wachi founded the Association of Iwo-Jima (Iwo-to Kyokai) and helped make possible the Reunions of Honor, which now occur annually on Iwo.