Which island was worse to fight in WW II, Iwo Jima or Okinawa?

It depends in part upon what services you are talking about. For the Navy Okinawa was far and away the tougher battle as ships were subject to deadly kamikaze attack. Nearly 10,000 sailors were killed or wounded off of Okinawa (about evenly divided) while Navy casualties off Iwo Jima were relatively minimal. read more

On the ground, Iwo was the tougher fight when one considers, as other posters have, the relative sizes of the islands. However, this is misleading. Because Iwo was a small island and the garrison large enough to cover pretty much the entire length and breadth of the place, the Japanese fought for every meter. read more

By February 1945, the United States had turned back the Japanese advance in the Pacific and had re-taken a sweeping arc of islands that surrounded the enemy nation. For all these gains, however, two small islands remained crucial to an invasion of Japan: Iwo Jima and Okinawa. read more

The Battle of Okinawa was the last major battle of World War II, and one of the bloodiest. On April 1, 1945—Easter Sunday—the Navy’s Fifth Fleet and more than 180,000 U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps troops descended on the Pacific island of Okinawa for a final push towards Japan. read more