Holland Smith was an undeniable asset to the Iwo Jima campaign. During the top-level planning stage he was often, as always, a “voice in the wilderness,” predicting severe casualties unless greater and more effective preliminary naval bombardment was provided. He diverted the press and the visiting dignitaries from Schmidt, always providing realistic counterpoints to some of the rosier staff estimates. “It’s a tough proposition,” Smith would say about Iwo, “That’s why we are here.” General Schmidt, whose few public pronouncements left him saddled with the unfortunate prediction of a 10-day conquest of Iwo Jima, came to resent the perceived role Holland Smith played in post-war accounts. As he would forcibly state: I was the commander of all troops on Iwo Jima at all times. Holland Smith never had a command post ashore, never issued a single order ashore, never spent a single night ashore.... Isn’t it important from an historical standpoint that I commanded the greatest number of Marines ever to be engaged in a single action in the entire history of the Marine Corps? General Smith would not disagree with those points. Smith provided a useful role, but Schmidt and his exceptional staff deserve maximum credit for planning and executing the difficult and bloody battle of Iwo Jima. The V Amphibious Corps achievement was made even more memorable by the enormously difficult opposition provided by the island and the enemy. In Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi [see sidebar], the Americans faced one of the most formidable opponents of the war. A fifth-generation _samurai_, hand-picked and personally extolled by the Emperor, Kuribayashi combined combat experience with an innovative mind and an iron will. Although this would be his only combat against American forces, he had learned much about his prospective opponents from earlier service in the United States. More significantly, he could appraise with an unblinking eye the results of previous Japanese attempts to repel American invasions of Japanese-held garrisons. Heroic rhetoric aside, Kuribayashi saw little to commend the “defend-at-the-water’s-edge” tactics and “all-or-nothing” _Banzai_ attacks which had characterized Japan’s failures from Tarawa to Tinian. Kuribayashi, a realist, also knew not to expect much help from Japan’s depleted fleet and air forces. His best chances, he concluded, would be to maximize Iwo’s forbidding terrain with a defense in depth, along the pattern of the recent Biak and Peleliu defensive efforts. He would eschew coast defense, anti-landing, and _Banzai_ tactics and instead conduct a prolonged battle of attrition, a war of nerves, patience, and time. Possibly the Americans would lose heart and abandon the campaign.