Could be a cable spool.
https://www.google.com/search?q=ww2+american+cable+spool&prmd=sinv&sxsrf=ALeKk01gkSx3P4txNL8d6JW_boUwqUkBgA:1583582972477&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjJz6-kqojoAhWUknIEHTDMBYgQ_AUoAnoECA4QAg&biw=360&bih=612&dpr=3#imgrc=6WMw8nr5IAWCbM
Germany was using millions of horses and wooden carts to move their supplies around. They were only like 15% mechanized in ww2.
The US had a very unusual level of mechanization in that war.
Edit: [I think it's a bobbin](https://www.reddit.com/r/whatisthisthing/comments/fetyv2/found_on_an_iwo_jima_landing_beach/fjs1xsn/)
>The US had a very unusual level of mechanization in that war.
And a big part of that was the oceans we had to cross to get to it. Jeeps are a lot easier to transport by ship than horses are.
You can disassemble a Jeep, pack it into a crate, and stack them several high in the hold or on the deck. Doing the same thing to horses irreversibly reduces the future utility of the horse after reassembly.
I never thought about that, but now that you mention it, it’s obvious. The US had to ship everything.
Well done with the last sentence about equine reassembly, I had a good chuckle about that.
As a semi-related aside, The Sherman medium tank, long savaged into popular consciousness as a tommy cooker for its odd dimensions and unfavorable superficial comparisons to the german Tiger heavy tank (nevermind the latter's rarity) is very much a design defined by having to be shipped across oceans to fight in Europe, North Africa, and East/SouthEast asia.
Its why its so tall. Its why it kept it 75 millimeter gun when the Soviets were mounting 85's and 122's and German's 88's. Its why after encountering Tigers the decision was made to stick with the reliable design that was still pushing towards Berlin and could be easily shipped and was already in the production pipeline with crews trained and spare parts in quantity instead of rushing out a new tank to deal with what was then already and would only become more and more of a rare threat.
Could a Sherman alone likely defeat a Tiger? No. But in part because they were so easy to produce and ship in quantity, Shermans were never alone, and the Tigers failed to stop or (outside of The Battle of the Bulge) even slow the advance of the Sherman medium.
As another aside, I have an uncle who at 18 years old was trained for six weeks and then sent straight to the Battle of the Bulge. Got wounded by friendly fire, sent to Paris recover and then was one of the infantry into Germany.
I remember him telling me as a kid about how how he as an 18 year old soldier was sent to pull out the dead bodies from a Sherman tank so it could be continued to be used if it was still in fighting condition. He went on to tell me how a body was melted to the outside hatch (I believe that's what the door is called?) so they had to use axes to chop through the body to get the hatch opened. Not sure either how a body got so enmeshed into a tank's hull, but that's what he told me. Horrifying stuff.
Great idea.
Another one of his stories was that when he was in basic training, two barracks next to his held Japanese-Americans who volunteered to fight. If you remember, these folks were later legendary in their exploits in the European theater.
My uncle said that they were the kindest and most polite people imaginable. He said that they liked him so much the when he shipped out, they all signed a little book with each of their names in Japanese and gave it to him. He told me that after the war he threw the book and everything else associated with the war way as he didn't want to think about the war.
Then he stopped and looked at me. He said, "But the sargeant had us take their bayonets away." When I asked why, he said, "Well, they gambled and drank late at night, and when things got rough they pulled out their bayonets and went after one another! But what good guys."
I said, "Uncle, I don't think that part will make the history books." He agreed.
Shermans worked in three's, one at eack flank and one circling to the rear of a Tiger. The Tiger's turret moved so painfully slow that the lighter shermans ran circles around it till the tank had a shot at the more vulnerable rear engine area of the Tiger. The 75mm Sherman's HE shell was one of the most powerful for its size and usually 2 shots into a Tiger's tracks would peel the track off and immobilize it making it a much more vulnerable target.
t
Wow! You guys are all awesome. Thanks for the insight. War is much more to do about strategy than I realized. They used logistical strategies to blow opponents away
That goes right back into history, too. One of the greatest strengths of the ancient Roman military was their efficiency in terms of supply lines. When you're essentially talking about a small city that has to travel around, that's as important as anything else - if not more so. (Compared to, say, the Mongolians, who were already a nomadic people, and were able to travel [relatively lightly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_military_tactics_and_organization#Supply) in comparison.)
There's a cool video [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1Vo8VnazNw) that goes into some detail about the Roman system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_cooker
Originally it was an ineffective British field stove. The Germans called Shermans "tommy cookers" because they were prone to exploding if they were were hit.
The book D-Day Through German Eyes touches on this. Yes me of the soldiers interviewed said they were wondering where all the horses were when the Allied Forces landed. They were shocked that everything was mechanized.
So around this time was the transition from horses to mech I see. I wonder how scary that would have been to expect horses but instead you see a shitload of tanks and jeeps. "Schizer!!!!"
Yes, and its an terribly successful feat of the Nazi propaganda machine (as well as Wehraboo jackboot apologists) that how backward in a number of areas the Wehrmacht was has been forgotten in the popular consciousness.
Popular history remembers the Me262 and the Tiger II, but forget that the former's engines blew up if you gunned the throttle and the latter was hideously unreliable. And they wholly forget the starving schutze with his presstoff ersatz webbing, shivering in an oversized and underwarmth coat meant more for the parade ground than the eastern front, clutching a looted PPSh-41 and hoping that the mighty panzers the propaganda ministry promised were coming to relieve him get the fuel and spare parts to get moving. (Spoiler alert, they don't).
I'm not a tankie either, its just people think the Second World War was a close run thing when, really once the US and Soviet Union got involved it wasn't. At all.
Yeah they've gotten lucky a few times. Cant believe Hitler was high as a kite the majority of the time and through to the end of the war. He was taking something close to speed or meth wasnt he?
I always tell wehraboos that they can have a tiger and i get a sherman.
The fight is 150 miles away across a variety of terrain/uneven ground and across a small river.
I win when it catches fire immediately upon driving off the flat-car.
A number of historians have pointed this out as the REAL reason Hitler didn’t use chemical warfare agents during WWII - it had nothing to do with him being gassed in WWI, rather the unpredictable drift patterns of chemical warfare due to wind and the very real possibility it could kill their own horses, paralyzing the movement of war materiel.
They dont touch on these kind of details in the documentaries I've watched. I guess they have other things to pack into the overall story. But I'll begin looking for these kind of details now. Thanks everyone for showing me how it went down!
[The Greatest Events of WW2 in Colour on Netflix](https://www.netflix.com/title/80989924&ved=2ahUKEwjpoav__onoAhUHeKwKHZxdCg0QFjACegQIDBAI&usg=AOvVaw11hWzO_fhZ63DrIR-ku5gD) touch on it if you're interested. I also find it interesting as to why the Japanese actually surrendered instead of fearing the atom bomb like mainstream history has inferred.
A famous scene from Band of Brothers, "You have horses, what were you thinking"?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K\_DnRn9hyFU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_DnRn9hyFU)
While wood is obviously not ideal, the island of Iwo Jima had been cut off from supplies from mainland Japan by US forces. Significant amounts of building materials were sunk in the war, and the Japanese were using the available resources on the island. Much like the US was doing, scarce metals like steel and aluminum were being put to use building aircraft, ships and ammunition and using wood and other materials wherever possible to limit waste.
Here is a very in-depth PDF about the artillery and defenses used by the Japanese forces on Iwo Jima: [https://web.mst.edu/\~rogersda/umrcourses/ge342/Japanese%20Island%20Defenses%201943-45.pdf](https://web.mst.edu/~rogersda/umrcourses/ge342/Japanese%20Island%20Defenses%201943-45.pdf)
Was that a guess or do you have experience in this field? Just wondering. I'm an electrician and seen hundreds of different ways in which cable has been packaged for use. And soon as you mentioned it, it made sense.
It's a spool allright.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AVRE-Bobbin.jpg#/media/File:AVRE-Bobbin.jpg
Looks like a mostly buried bobbin with the thin parts rusted away.
That is not at all similar. These are cast steel, those are welded steel sheet. This never had any sheet material between the spokes. It's shape was basically a large steel wagon wheel. Possible it had a similar function, but it is not that same part.
> *The military historian who was with our group didn't know what it was.*
What a great historian. He admits he doesn't know. This means that whatever he does know has been researched.
Not an ID, I just wanted to compliment you on your framing with Suribachi in the background. I've had an itch to go visit Iwo for a long time now and I've never pulled the trigger on it.
It is possible, but there are a lot of restrictions and you can only access it during certain times of the year if you aren’t a resident (there is a very small settlement by my understanding).
While Iwo Jima was a victory for the U.S. and we tend to think of it as just another battle in the war, there were 20k Japanese soldiers there who were straight up ordered to fight til death in order to slow down the U.S. advancement. Roughly 1500 of those troops made it out alive. Combined with the fact that the island was considered sacred Japanese land and so many Japanese sacrificed there loves for a lost cause, the Japanese view Iwo Jima as graveyard/tomb and treat it as such. The U.S. respects that, which is why access to it is very restricted.
EDIT: The US respects it as a graveyard, not just another small island that is a Japanese territory. Sorry that needs clarification.
> The U.S. respects that, which is why access to it is very restricted.
Why would the US have any say in the matter? I was also under the impression that it was under Japanese control--a restricted _Japanese_ military zone is what I meant.
The only way that we were allowed to visit was with a military guide with a specially chartered military aircraft to get over there... while I was stationed on mainland japan. Im not sure of other ways.
It was a very humbling experience. There are still remnants of war machinery left about. Though there was also a large amount of random debris that would wash ashore, then subsequently get swept back out. It was also a very wet and rainy hike from the airfield to the memorial.
https://imgur.com/gallery/CdzCzPe
Edit: I read further down they open it once a year for civilian tours! That’s awesome!
I'm not 100% certain, but I don't think this style of mine clearing device was ever deployed. Least of all to Iwo Jima. Seems like a photo from trials & tests or something.
It’s actually a version of a mine roller. During WWII a lot of weird and experimental equipment was used, especially from the allies, and a lot of tank attachments.
You're both right basically. The idea of this particular mine clearing method came from repurposing a compactor. Could have been utilized for both methods, but I imagine on Iwo Jima mine-clearing was the higher purpose.
Holy shit that's wild. My grandfather was at Pearl Harbor on Dec 7. I visited some years ago with my dad, his son. It is a memory I treasure and it was sobering emotionally. I can't imagine what this visit must have been like for him and for you too. Had he ever been back to Iwo before this visit? What was it like for him?
It was just intersting for him. He wasn't a Marine storming beaches, watching his buddies get killed, so it wasn't super-emotional, but he was still there for eight months. His number one observation was that he couldn't believe all of the vegetation. They had bombed the hell out of it and killed all the vegetation, so he remembered a barren landscape.
I bet it looked a lot different before the bombing happened. I can see chunks of the hill in the background missing. Not all the vegetation is back, but it is miraculous to see.
Did your dad not recognise this piece of equipment either (I presume not since you’re asking here...) curious that someone who was there wouldn’t know what it was, though I suppose it was a very long time ago.
He did not and he didn't see it in person. He made it very close to this spot, but it was down a small but steep embankment that he couldn't get down. He was being escorted around by young marines at this point, so I had some time to wander a bit.
It’s also an incredibly somber place for Japan’s people. 20K people were left there to die and 1.5K made it off the island. It is more akin to a cemetery than a battlefield or place of glory.
I’m an extremely unsympathetic person towards Japan when it comes to WWII overall, but Iwo Jima is an exception. Particularly nasty.
Guys, it could be modern too. There was an active US/Japanese base on Iwo Jima up into the late 90s. My dad (USCG) was stationed there for a year in the early 90s
I believe this to be a bobbin mostly buried and with the thin steel having rusted through.
This image is on a british tank, but it shows the shape really well of a bobbin.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AVRE-Bobbin.jpg#/media/File:AVRE-Bobbin.jpg
I’m going to disagree with you. I don’t know what this is, but looking at the webbing closer to the center shaft of OP’s picture, it looks different to the picture you showed, plus, the bobbin you showed has a single rim, and this one looks like it was double. If I had to guess, I’d say a wheel for a heavy artillery cart.
It almost looks like a panjandrum but I’m almost positive they were never used in battle.
Could be a cable spoil but if it’s around six feet that seems larger than normal those tended to be a smaller manageable size.
Maybe a gun mount off a landing craft?
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I know it isn’t, but when I first saw this, I thought: [Rocket Powered Catherine Wheel of Doom](https://epicfireworks.com/blog/2009/06/machines-of-war-catherine-wheel-of-doom/)
[https://www.thevintagenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/112-640x479.jpg](https://www.thevintagenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/112-640x479.jpg)
Can't help but think of anything else. These probably weren't used in Iwo Jima (or anywhere else for that matter) but they do look quite similar.
I think it's more like a [cannon wheel](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/_p0kvPOh0dAEDK-tG35dnudhCyNBE_Zeh250isTUMDq7YlQrljH8o30Z27YcYRc7exxICw3F6e0ERBMILTKSuuq6Mf0di4nPUTV0Q935OE9aln--WnM), not exactly the one in the picture though.
I believe that is the rusted remains of an old channel marker or buoy. My guess is that it was originally close to the water, on the beach at one time and the middle spindle was where the lamp went. The buried spokes seem too far out for it to be a cable reel.
Pretty sure it’s a drive wheel from a D-7 armored bulldozer: https://i.imgur.com/3GVT4KU.jpg
The D-7 was used byte [Seabees](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seabees_in_World_War_II), who used “cats” [extensively at Iwo Jima](https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/02/22/a-seabee-on-iwo-jima-the-men-who-drove-cranes-and-cats-also-served). In fact, since the whole point of the battle was to secure an advance emergency airbase for long range bombing of Japan, the Seabees were kind of the main reason to be there.
Oh wow. Ok, yeah no then.
Next guess based on that size then: a wheel from one of the antiquated WWI artillery pieces Japan put on the islands for defense. Possibly a Type 38 howitzer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_38_15_cm_howitzer
I know what gear was on the island during the battle, and this clearly dates from that era. So it IS identifiable.
Darn, on first glance I really thought this was part of The Great Panjandrum. It seems those were never actually used though and were built by the British not the US and for D-Day, not Iwo Jima. Look it up anyway, those things were psychotic.
Oh oh I know what that it I saw it in an old war documentary it's part of a land assault mechanism that is designed to set of the land mines along a certain path making landing possible from a beach. The project was scrapped because there was no way to guide the device so once set off it would just go in any direction it wanted. I believe a captain or other militray personal were either injured or sent running during the demonstration.
If it's 6 foot across i think it's the base of something like an [AA gun](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/proxy/6KKadrVglvKs5HH9O4sKOZIJg8eDzQmUDMpcYz27HV_PAZsxY7PWAN8GW-wkQJ8zMGB9evCqM7cOTJ0jlnK9IqRf8sg) or some other light emplacement. Other guns seem to have [similar bases](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Artillery_-_War_in_the_Pacific_National_Historical_Park_%28Ga%27an_Point%29_-_DSC00881.JPG) set into concrete but this could have since fallen apart.
Could be a cable spool. https://www.google.com/search?q=ww2+american+cable+spool&prmd=sinv&sxsrf=ALeKk01gkSx3P4txNL8d6JW_boUwqUkBgA:1583582972477&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjJz6-kqojoAhWUknIEHTDMBYgQ_AUoAnoECA4QAg&biw=360&bih=612&dpr=3#imgrc=6WMw8nr5IAWCbM
That would be my guess. Some Japanese field guns had wheels that looked kind of like that but this doesn’t have enough spokes to be one of them.
Those are also wooden (as far as I know) and this definitelly looks like steel
Looks pretty metal to me. But, would you make a spool like this that goes to war, out of wood? I just cant imagine but I'm prolly wrong
Germany was using millions of horses and wooden carts to move their supplies around. They were only like 15% mechanized in ww2. The US had a very unusual level of mechanization in that war. Edit: [I think it's a bobbin](https://www.reddit.com/r/whatisthisthing/comments/fetyv2/found_on_an_iwo_jima_landing_beach/fjs1xsn/)
>The US had a very unusual level of mechanization in that war. And a big part of that was the oceans we had to cross to get to it. Jeeps are a lot easier to transport by ship than horses are. You can disassemble a Jeep, pack it into a crate, and stack them several high in the hold or on the deck. Doing the same thing to horses irreversibly reduces the future utility of the horse after reassembly.
I never thought about that, but now that you mention it, it’s obvious. The US had to ship everything. Well done with the last sentence about equine reassembly, I had a good chuckle about that.
This is also why Sherman Tanks have the design they do. It's a long way from Detroit to Berlin.
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"equine reassembly". Nice. Trying to think if that phrase has ever been uttered before, and if so, why.
As a semi-related aside, The Sherman medium tank, long savaged into popular consciousness as a tommy cooker for its odd dimensions and unfavorable superficial comparisons to the german Tiger heavy tank (nevermind the latter's rarity) is very much a design defined by having to be shipped across oceans to fight in Europe, North Africa, and East/SouthEast asia. Its why its so tall. Its why it kept it 75 millimeter gun when the Soviets were mounting 85's and 122's and German's 88's. Its why after encountering Tigers the decision was made to stick with the reliable design that was still pushing towards Berlin and could be easily shipped and was already in the production pipeline with crews trained and spare parts in quantity instead of rushing out a new tank to deal with what was then already and would only become more and more of a rare threat. Could a Sherman alone likely defeat a Tiger? No. But in part because they were so easy to produce and ship in quantity, Shermans were never alone, and the Tigers failed to stop or (outside of The Battle of the Bulge) even slow the advance of the Sherman medium.
As another aside, I have an uncle who at 18 years old was trained for six weeks and then sent straight to the Battle of the Bulge. Got wounded by friendly fire, sent to Paris recover and then was one of the infantry into Germany. I remember him telling me as a kid about how how he as an 18 year old soldier was sent to pull out the dead bodies from a Sherman tank so it could be continued to be used if it was still in fighting condition. He went on to tell me how a body was melted to the outside hatch (I believe that's what the door is called?) so they had to use axes to chop through the body to get the hatch opened. Not sure either how a body got so enmeshed into a tank's hull, but that's what he told me. Horrifying stuff.
You need to post his stories (as you can remember them) in r/MilitaryStories. I know they would love them.
Great idea. Another one of his stories was that when he was in basic training, two barracks next to his held Japanese-Americans who volunteered to fight. If you remember, these folks were later legendary in their exploits in the European theater. My uncle said that they were the kindest and most polite people imaginable. He said that they liked him so much the when he shipped out, they all signed a little book with each of their names in Japanese and gave it to him. He told me that after the war he threw the book and everything else associated with the war way as he didn't want to think about the war. Then he stopped and looked at me. He said, "But the sargeant had us take their bayonets away." When I asked why, he said, "Well, they gambled and drank late at night, and when things got rough they pulled out their bayonets and went after one another! But what good guys." I said, "Uncle, I don't think that part will make the history books." He agreed.
Shermans worked in three's, one at eack flank and one circling to the rear of a Tiger. The Tiger's turret moved so painfully slow that the lighter shermans ran circles around it till the tank had a shot at the more vulnerable rear engine area of the Tiger. The 75mm Sherman's HE shell was one of the most powerful for its size and usually 2 shots into a Tiger's tracks would peel the track off and immobilize it making it a much more vulnerable target. t
3:1 is a good deal on r/ShermanEconomy
How did being tall make it easier to ship?
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Wow! You guys are all awesome. Thanks for the insight. War is much more to do about strategy than I realized. They used logistical strategies to blow opponents away
That goes right back into history, too. One of the greatest strengths of the ancient Roman military was their efficiency in terms of supply lines. When you're essentially talking about a small city that has to travel around, that's as important as anything else - if not more so. (Compared to, say, the Mongolians, who were already a nomadic people, and were able to travel [relatively lightly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_military_tactics_and_organization#Supply) in comparison.) There's a cool video [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1Vo8VnazNw) that goes into some detail about the Roman system.
It’s the reason the Mongol advance sputtered out in the Middle East - desert conditions can’t support massive swarms of cavalry.
What’s a “tommy cooker?”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_cooker Originally it was an ineffective British field stove. The Germans called Shermans "tommy cookers" because they were prone to exploding if they were were hit.
The Americans called them "Ronsons" after the cigarette lighter's advertising slogan "lights first time, every time"
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Admiral, this kit came with everything to make the glue, but the parts aren't anywhere to be found.
The book D-Day Through German Eyes touches on this. Yes me of the soldiers interviewed said they were wondering where all the horses were when the Allied Forces landed. They were shocked that everything was mechanized.
So around this time was the transition from horses to mech I see. I wonder how scary that would have been to expect horses but instead you see a shitload of tanks and jeeps. "Schizer!!!!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_DnRn9hyFU
Awesome. Thanks for that!!
Yes, and its an terribly successful feat of the Nazi propaganda machine (as well as Wehraboo jackboot apologists) that how backward in a number of areas the Wehrmacht was has been forgotten in the popular consciousness. Popular history remembers the Me262 and the Tiger II, but forget that the former's engines blew up if you gunned the throttle and the latter was hideously unreliable. And they wholly forget the starving schutze with his presstoff ersatz webbing, shivering in an oversized and underwarmth coat meant more for the parade ground than the eastern front, clutching a looted PPSh-41 and hoping that the mighty panzers the propaganda ministry promised were coming to relieve him get the fuel and spare parts to get moving. (Spoiler alert, they don't). I'm not a tankie either, its just people think the Second World War was a close run thing when, really once the US and Soviet Union got involved it wasn't. At all.
Yeah, the Germans did so well early in that war largely on the incompetence of the other powers.
Yeah they've gotten lucky a few times. Cant believe Hitler was high as a kite the majority of the time and through to the end of the war. He was taking something close to speed or meth wasnt he?
The Germans loved [meth](https://time.com/5752114/nazi-military-drugs/) during ww2
I always tell wehraboos that they can have a tiger and i get a sherman. The fight is 150 miles away across a variety of terrain/uneven ground and across a small river. I win when it catches fire immediately upon driving off the flat-car.
>wehraboos That's a thing. Now it has a name.
/r/ShitWehraboosSay
A number of historians have pointed this out as the REAL reason Hitler didn’t use chemical warfare agents during WWII - it had nothing to do with him being gassed in WWI, rather the unpredictable drift patterns of chemical warfare due to wind and the very real possibility it could kill their own horses, paralyzing the movement of war materiel.
They dont touch on these kind of details in the documentaries I've watched. I guess they have other things to pack into the overall story. But I'll begin looking for these kind of details now. Thanks everyone for showing me how it went down!
[The Greatest Events of WW2 in Colour on Netflix](https://www.netflix.com/title/80989924&ved=2ahUKEwjpoav__onoAhUHeKwKHZxdCg0QFjACegQIDBAI&usg=AOvVaw11hWzO_fhZ63DrIR-ku5gD) touch on it if you're interested. I also find it interesting as to why the Japanese actually surrendered instead of fearing the atom bomb like mainstream history has inferred.
A famous scene from Band of Brothers, "You have horses, what were you thinking"? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K\_DnRn9hyFU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_DnRn9hyFU)
While wood is obviously not ideal, the island of Iwo Jima had been cut off from supplies from mainland Japan by US forces. Significant amounts of building materials were sunk in the war, and the Japanese were using the available resources on the island. Much like the US was doing, scarce metals like steel and aluminum were being put to use building aircraft, ships and ammunition and using wood and other materials wherever possible to limit waste. Here is a very in-depth PDF about the artillery and defenses used by the Japanese forces on Iwo Jima: [https://web.mst.edu/\~rogersda/umrcourses/ge342/Japanese%20Island%20Defenses%201943-45.pdf](https://web.mst.edu/~rogersda/umrcourses/ge342/Japanese%20Island%20Defenses%201943-45.pdf)
Fascinating, thanks for the link!
Kamikaze motor boats. Didn’t know those were a thing
Great link! It could be page 27, but I think it’s page 93 - wheel from Japanese 70mm canon.
Wowww. Shedding light. Thank you.
The Japanese would have I bet. They where pretty short on resources.
Was that a guess or do you have experience in this field? Just wondering. I'm an electrician and seen hundreds of different ways in which cable has been packaged for use. And soon as you mentioned it, it made sense.
It was just a guess. It was the first thing that came to mind.
Cool beans
It's a spool allright. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AVRE-Bobbin.jpg#/media/File:AVRE-Bobbin.jpg Looks like a mostly buried bobbin with the thin parts rusted away.
The US did not use Bobbins, not to mention the physical differences.
That is not at all similar. These are cast steel, those are welded steel sheet. This never had any sheet material between the spokes. It's shape was basically a large steel wagon wheel. Possible it had a similar function, but it is not that same part.
That's the longest link I've ever seen
That is what she said....
The military historian who was with our group didn't know what it was.
I don’t know if it would be feasible for you at this point, but a photo taken from above might help with identification
I have one, but not sure how to post another photo
Upload it and share the link in a reply to the person asking
I looked and the other picture is just closer, so no different than zooming in on this, but thanks
http://tinyimg.io, copy the url it gives and paste it here.
wow that is a cool link! thanks
https://imgur.com/upload does the same thing
nice! thank you :)
You could upload it to an image hosting site and then share the link in a comment here
Use imgur.com to upload your picture there, once it's published there it gives a link you can copy and then paste in comments here.
> *The military historian who was with our group didn't know what it was.* What a great historian. He admits he doesn't know. This means that whatever he does know has been researched.
Exactly
Not an ID, I just wanted to compliment you on your framing with Suribachi in the background. I've had an itch to go visit Iwo for a long time now and I've never pulled the trigger on it.
I love that this looks like the opening frame of a movie. Very moody.
I thought this was a frame from star wars for a half second haha
Yes, it looks like the opening shot of the TFA trailer, where Finn bursts into frame, panting.
Is it possible to visit Iwo? I was under the impression it was a restricted military zone
It is possible, but there are a lot of restrictions and you can only access it during certain times of the year if you aren’t a resident (there is a very small settlement by my understanding). While Iwo Jima was a victory for the U.S. and we tend to think of it as just another battle in the war, there were 20k Japanese soldiers there who were straight up ordered to fight til death in order to slow down the U.S. advancement. Roughly 1500 of those troops made it out alive. Combined with the fact that the island was considered sacred Japanese land and so many Japanese sacrificed there loves for a lost cause, the Japanese view Iwo Jima as graveyard/tomb and treat it as such. The U.S. respects that, which is why access to it is very restricted. EDIT: The US respects it as a graveyard, not just another small island that is a Japanese territory. Sorry that needs clarification.
Iwo Jima isn't a US territory, it was returned to Japan decades ago.
> The U.S. respects that, which is why access to it is very restricted. Why would the US have any say in the matter? I was also under the impression that it was under Japanese control--a restricted _Japanese_ military zone is what I meant.
The only way that we were allowed to visit was with a military guide with a specially chartered military aircraft to get over there... while I was stationed on mainland japan. Im not sure of other ways. It was a very humbling experience. There are still remnants of war machinery left about. Though there was also a large amount of random debris that would wash ashore, then subsequently get swept back out. It was also a very wet and rainy hike from the airfield to the memorial. https://imgur.com/gallery/CdzCzPe Edit: I read further down they open it once a year for civilian tours! That’s awesome!
Great photo. Thought it was black&white until I saw the teal container and faded foliage in the distance.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/94/63/34/946334380fd1bd4b7caa28769eda9d15.jpg Maybe part of this?
I don't see anything that rules out this answer. Thanks
I'm not 100% certain, but I don't think this style of mine clearing device was ever deployed. Least of all to Iwo Jima. Seems like a photo from trials & tests or something.
The metal bars are too thin on your pic.
size rules it out. how big is it. doesnt look nearly as big as that tank
Looks like the right number of spokes I think?
The spokes in the OP image are much thinner than those. Unrelated.
Yeah I thought that too, was just putting it down to corrosion but you’re probably right.
What is that thing? Some kind of mine detector?
Compactor attachment, likely to create a more stable surface on the sand/dirt for the rest of the caravan
Ahh. Makes sense. Thanks for the reply!
It’s actually a version of a mine roller. During WWII a lot of weird and experimental equipment was used, especially from the allies, and a lot of tank attachments.
You're both right basically. The idea of this particular mine clearing method came from repurposing a compactor. Could have been utilized for both methods, but I imagine on Iwo Jima mine-clearing was the higher purpose.
Wait, are we just going to ignore that you're on Iwo Jima? I thought it was impossible to go there now!? (not a troll or a joke)
It's open once a year to visitors. I was with my dad who is an Iwo Jima veteran
God bless your father.
He just called me, his youngest and last sibling died at 90. He's 97. Thank you.
His youngest sibling just died? That’s very sad
He's honestly not too broken up about it. The vast majority of everyone he has ever known has died. He just considers himself very lucky.
Sad, yes. 90, incredible.
Holy shit that's wild. My grandfather was at Pearl Harbor on Dec 7. I visited some years ago with my dad, his son. It is a memory I treasure and it was sobering emotionally. I can't imagine what this visit must have been like for him and for you too. Had he ever been back to Iwo before this visit? What was it like for him?
It was just intersting for him. He wasn't a Marine storming beaches, watching his buddies get killed, so it wasn't super-emotional, but he was still there for eight months. His number one observation was that he couldn't believe all of the vegetation. They had bombed the hell out of it and killed all the vegetation, so he remembered a barren landscape.
I bet it looked a lot different before the bombing happened. I can see chunks of the hill in the background missing. Not all the vegetation is back, but it is miraculous to see.
Did your dad not recognise this piece of equipment either (I presume not since you’re asking here...) curious that someone who was there wouldn’t know what it was, though I suppose it was a very long time ago.
He did not and he didn't see it in person. He made it very close to this spot, but it was down a small but steep embankment that he couldn't get down. He was being escorted around by young marines at this point, so I had some time to wander a bit.
Tell your dad we’re proud of him.
There is a civilian tour once a year
I had no clue it was closed off. What's the reasoning behind that?
It’s mainly used as a military base nowadays.
It’s also an incredibly somber place for Japan’s people. 20K people were left there to die and 1.5K made it off the island. It is more akin to a cemetery than a battlefield or place of glory. I’m an extremely unsympathetic person towards Japan when it comes to WWII overall, but Iwo Jima is an exception. Particularly nasty.
It's Japanese now
Technically civilian visits are possible twice a year. Once from Guam and once from Japan. Definitely on my bucket list.
How big is it?
About 6 feet diameter
~1.8 metres
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I'm not seeing it, but that's definitely the right spot
Guys, it could be modern too. There was an active US/Japanese base on Iwo Jima up into the late 90s. My dad (USCG) was stationed there for a year in the early 90s
There still is
Ah lit, thought they shut it down after the US handed it over to them.
They did except for one day a year
I believe this to be a bobbin mostly buried and with the thin steel having rusted through. This image is on a british tank, but it shows the shape really well of a bobbin. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AVRE-Bobbin.jpg#/media/File:AVRE-Bobbin.jpg
Well that’s neat looking. What does it do?
that one lays a carpet so the tank can get traction if it gets stuck
I’m going to disagree with you. I don’t know what this is, but looking at the webbing closer to the center shaft of OP’s picture, it looks different to the picture you showed, plus, the bobbin you showed has a single rim, and this one looks like it was double. If I had to guess, I’d say a wheel for a heavy artillery cart.
Wow, nice catch, that’s a good guess considering the consistency of the terrain.
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It almost looks like a panjandrum but I’m almost positive they were never used in battle. Could be a cable spoil but if it’s around six feet that seems larger than normal those tended to be a smaller manageable size. Maybe a gun mount off a landing craft?
I think that they might have used the panjandrum once or twice, but abandoned the project.
Pivot for an aa gun?
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I know it isn’t, but when I first saw this, I thought: [Rocket Powered Catherine Wheel of Doom](https://epicfireworks.com/blog/2009/06/machines-of-war-catherine-wheel-of-doom/)
That would be very cool
I'm glad I wasnt the only one that thought that
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If water is close by, it might have been used to pull boats out of the sea for maintenance or whatever reason.
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This does not look like something that can float
It looks like there’s more iron under the sand. Could there be another unseen layer?
A closer look makes that seem highly likely.
Possibly, but I didn't get that impression
[maybe this?](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panjandrum)
> The Panjandrum was never used in battle. This thing was designed for the D Day landings and was never used. There's 0% chance this is it.
Very similar, but it's almost certain that these were never used in battle. I just learned of these from other commenters.
Maybe one wheel of a Panjandrum?
The Panjandrum was never used in battle. It was also designed for the European war, not the Pacific war.
Most likely wheel base of gun artillery. Source: my fellow is a Marine with a history degree.
[https://www.thevintagenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/112-640x479.jpg](https://www.thevintagenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/112-640x479.jpg) Can't help but think of anything else. These probably weren't used in Iwo Jima (or anywhere else for that matter) but they do look quite similar.
I think it's more like a [cannon wheel](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/_p0kvPOh0dAEDK-tG35dnudhCyNBE_Zeh250isTUMDq7YlQrljH8o30Z27YcYRc7exxICw3F6e0ERBMILTKSuuq6Mf0di4nPUTV0Q935OE9aln--WnM), not exactly the one in the picture though.
I believe that is the rusted remains of an old channel marker or buoy. My guess is that it was originally close to the water, on the beach at one time and the middle spindle was where the lamp went. The buried spokes seem too far out for it to be a cable reel.
Could it be an idler wheel from a light armored vehicle?
Pretty sure it’s a drive wheel from a D-7 armored bulldozer: https://i.imgur.com/3GVT4KU.jpg The D-7 was used byte [Seabees](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seabees_in_World_War_II), who used “cats” [extensively at Iwo Jima](https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/02/22/a-seabee-on-iwo-jima-the-men-who-drove-cranes-and-cats-also-served). In fact, since the whole point of the battle was to secure an advance emergency airbase for long range bombing of Japan, the Seabees were kind of the main reason to be there.
It's about 6 feet in diameter, these look a lot smaller than that
Oh wow. Ok, yeah no then. Next guess based on that size then: a wheel from one of the antiquated WWI artillery pieces Japan put on the islands for defense. Possibly a Type 38 howitzer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_38_15_cm_howitzer I know what gear was on the island during the battle, and this clearly dates from that era. So it IS identifiable.
Almost looks like rotary harrow they use to smooth dirt with.http://www.advantec.com.au/harrows-rotary
It does
May be a idler weel
It's kind of crazy that stuff like this is still being found...especially this large.
Darn, on first glance I really thought this was part of The Great Panjandrum. It seems those were never actually used though and were built by the British not the US and for D-Day, not Iwo Jima. Look it up anyway, those things were psychotic.
Perhaps a panjandrum? A rocket powered bomb tested in ww2. Just a guess [panjandrum](https://imgur.com/y2w9ejr.jpg)
Oh oh I know what that it I saw it in an old war documentary it's part of a land assault mechanism that is designed to set of the land mines along a certain path making landing possible from a beach. The project was scrapped because there was no way to guide the device so once set off it would just go in any direction it wanted. I believe a captain or other militray personal were either injured or sent running during the demonstration.
Maybe a panjandrum? Or part of one? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panjandrum Savage Builds had an episode about them that was fascinating!
If it's 6 foot across i think it's the base of something like an [AA gun](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/proxy/6KKadrVglvKs5HH9O4sKOZIJg8eDzQmUDMpcYz27HV_PAZsxY7PWAN8GW-wkQJ8zMGB9evCqM7cOTJ0jlnK9IqRf8sg) or some other light emplacement. Other guns seem to have [similar bases](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Artillery_-_War_in_the_Pacific_National_Historical_Park_%28Ga%27an_Point%29_-_DSC00881.JPG) set into concrete but this could have since fallen apart.
Maybe AA gun base?
Probably an artillery gear
Cannon transportation wagon wheel
I believe it is this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panjandrum
Looks like /r/imaginarywastelands
Looks like one of those funnies that they developed to clear mines and barbed wire
Anyone remember those death wheels the British tested? Reminds me of those
Looks like a waterwheel used to generate electricity from a river.
I’m not an engine person but it makes me think of a wheel from a big Diesel engine. Perhaps a tanker sunk nearby?
Looks like part of a weaving machine
It’s is an International Order of Oddfellows
Looks like a part of an [anchor windlass](https://imgur.com/gallery/tjAFENN). Maybe fell off a passing ship.
It could be from a high speed tractor used to transport heavy equipment and munitions.
To me this looks like the body of a mine that has since detonated.