Picture Letters From the Commander in Chief Letters From Iwo Jima

The battle of Iwo Jima was one of the bloodiest campaigns of WWII. Under the command of Lt. General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, the Japanese army held off U.S. Navy and Naval Air Corps. attack for over a month before finally succumbing to defeat. Comprised mostly of personal letters from Kuribayashi to his family, Picture Letters From the Commander in Chief offers readers a unique glimpse into arguably the most iconic battle of the second World War. A sensitive man, Kuribayashi is able to articulate in these letters his love for his family and his unwavering loyalty to his country. And in doing so, he helps bring a new voice and perspective to history.

User Ratings and Reviews

2 Stars Must know old conjee very well to read and enjoy
I intially got this for my son who is fluent in Japese hoping he’d enjoy it but the conjee is very difficult for the average youthful reader.

5 Stars WWII history
This unique book offers an amazing insight into the commander of the Iwo Jima’s forces mind and experiences. It adds a great deal to both of Clint Eastwood’s films! A definite “must read”!

4 Stars Glimpse into the Private Life of an Enemy Commander.
The book is a compilation of Kuribayashi’s letters home to his children during his military career. It’s a very touching glimpse into the heart of a father from another culture who is separated from his children and is trying to have some kind of communication with them. Each letter is illustrated with Kuribayashi’s own hand and each provides for the children an illustration of their father’s everyday life in a foreign land, taking a stroll, riding in a car, even taking a bath.

Kuribayashi encourages his children to do well and to be good to each other and to listen to their mother. His last letter from Iwo Jima is especially sad as you can tell he expects never to see his family again.

4 Stars The Letters of LTG Kuribayashi
LTG Tadamichi Kuribayashi, an officer of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II, was one of those rare individuals who seem born to become soldiers. Displaying a strong will and unorthodox tactics during the struggle for Iwo Jima in early 1945, he nevertheless was possessed of a rare humility and ingrained honor that made him a highly-respected leader to both his subordinates and enemies.

“Picture Letters from the Commander in Chief” is a very short read. It is simply a collection of LTG Tadamichi Kuribayashi’s letters to his family during his time abroad as a young military man and his letters from Iwo Jima island. Reading the actual letters portrayed so movingly in “Letters From Iwo Jima” serves to round out one’s understanding of who Kuribayashi was as a man.

There are no insights to his tactics for the Iwo Jima battle and only a small window is opened into his personal views on the Pacific War in one of his last letters from the forsaken island. The rest of them were written and sketched by him for benefit of his wife and children. As his son Taro and later, his infant daughter Takako, were very young when the letters were written oftentimes the subjects were light and focused on Kuribayashi’s observations of his time in the United States or anything light-hearted he could report from the dismal island of sulfur that is Iwo Jima.

The letters reveal above all a loving and doting father, who despite enormous distances from his children still cautioned them on discipline. Preparing for the Battle of Iwo Jima, which would cost him his life, he still found time to correct his Tako-chan’s grammatical errors in her letters to him and apologized to his wife for not fixing the draft in their kitchen during his last leave. His occasional snipes at his wife for not writing him or for the paucity of packaged herring roe sent to him during his stay in America will elicit a smile from any married man. His love for his wife and children permeate the letters, particularly in his first letter from Iwo Jima, when he instructs his children to grow fast and take care of their mother after his death.

“Picture Letters from the Commander in Chief,” if read as an appendix to Kumiko Kakehashi’s powerful portrayal of Iwo Jima in “So Sad to Fall in Battle,” serves to further deepen an understanding of who Tadamich Kuribayashi was as a man.

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