Control of Iwo Jima is critical to victory. Our bombers cannot reach the Japanese Islands without stopping to refuel along the way. Iwo Jima is half way between our territories and Japan. It is vital that we take the island, but it is not going to be easy. We have been shelling the island for days, and we have almost completely driven the Japs from the surface. But our intelligence suggests that they are packed into the underground tunnels and still have control of the airports and the artillery on Mt. Suribachi. The artillery on Mt. Suribachi is going to be deadly, and it can reach every inch of the beach we are landing on, so get your asses off the beach and up into the hills pronto unless you want to get chewed up by the guns.

Control of Iwo Jima is critical to our victory. The USA bombers cannot make it to our homeland without stopping along the way, and they want to use Iwo Jima as their refueling station. If we let them take this island they will be able to bomb our homeland, which we cannot allow. They have been shelling us for days and we have abandoned most of the island to hide underground.

Pretty much everything you need to play the game is given tersely on the board image. This wiki page goes into more detail.

USA and Japan both have different advantages, and you will need to exploit your advantages while dulling your opponents advantages. USA can generates units more quickly than Japan in the beginning. Japan has positional advantage (i.e. border modifiers)

The island is dominated on the southwest end by Mt. Suribachi. Rocky cliffs along the northern edge restrict amphibious assault to the beaches along the southern and northwest coasts. There are marine landing zones adjacent to the beaches, and three airfields in the center of the island. The Japanese have built extensive tunnels underground connecting the airfields and Mt. Suribachi. All territories have a max of 20 units (the tunnels start with more than 20 units, but are otherwise still affected by the 20 unit maximum).

Japan starts mostly underground with some units on the airfields and on Mt. Suribachi. USA starts in the Marine Landing Zones.

Attacking uphill (i.e. across orange lines towards the center of the island or up Mt. Suribachi) is at extreme disadvantage (defend at +2). Mt. Suribachi gets a +1 artillery attack to all beach territories. Attacks from the tunnel to above ground are at +1.

Units can only be placed in a few territories. Iwo Jima is an isolated island, so units can only arrive at the airports or the marine landing zones. These “placeable” territories also earn factory bonuses by themselves. Control an airport at the beginning of your turn and you get +2 placed there for you. Landing Zones get a +1 bonus each turn automatically placed on them. In addition to these automatic factories, every territory above ground on the island is worth +1 units “in hand”, but there is no reserve, so if you earn more units in a turn than you can place, you will lose the excess.

• 6 attacks
• 3 fortifies
• fortify to any connected
• return to attack from transfer
• 20 unit max in all territories (although tunnels start with more units, once they move out they are limited to 20 units thereafter)
• Medium Fog

You need to make sure you have some airports and/or landing zones that do not have 20 units on them. If those territories are “full”, not only will you lose your automatic factory bonus, but you will have nowhere to place the units you've earned. If this happens, you will have to hit 'apply' even though you still have units left to place. WarGear will let you apply once you have no where else to put any units. If “apply” is greyed out, you still have a territory with room for placeable units. Usually you want to leave 1 or 2 units behind in most territories. Even though a single unit cannot defend very well, an opponent would have to spend one of their limited attacks to clear that territory. Also, because you can fortify to any connected, leaving a unit behind in every territory as you move your main army, gives you more options for fortifying.

• http://www.wargear.net/forum/showthread/4231plast/U_S_strategy_on_Iwo_Jima
• http://www.wargear.net/forum/showthread/4230/Japanese_Strategy_on_Iwo_Jima

I think your best move in the beginning of the game is to either try to dive right into the tunnels, or circle around back and try to grab some territories without Japan noticing. Make sure to get some units off of the marine landing zones, because they earn +1 a turn automatically, but if they are full (i.e. have their 20 unit max) those factories are wasted. Usually you don't want leave a lot of units on the airports or Mt. Suribachi unless you have cleared the tunnels first (because tunnels get +1 to attack the airports & Suribachi). Use the fortify to any connected to connect your marine landing zones to territories on the island, and move units onto Iwo Jima, but usually you don't want to leave many units on the beach at the end of your turn, or they will be chewed up by the artillery on Mt. Suribachi.

Build slowly and use your superior position and border modifiers to your advantage, try to force USA to attack across topo (orange) lines. Eventually you need to get down and start taking marine landing zones, or the USA will out produce you. Make sure you get some units out of your airports or you will have no where to place units you earn. But don't leave them too empty or USA will try to take them from you. North airport is fairly easy to defend from one topo level down, so you can then leave it relatively empty in order to place units there every turn.

(thanks Wikipedia)

The Battle of Iwo Jima (1945), was a major battle in which the United States Armed Forces fought for and captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Japanese Empire. The American invasion had the goal of capturing the entire island, along with its three airfields, to provide a staging area for attacks on the Japanese main islands. This five-week battle comprised some of the fiercest and bloodiest fighting of the War in the Pacific of World War II. The Imperial Japanese Army positions on the island were heavily fortified, with a dense network of bunkers, hidden artillery positions, and 18 km (11 mi) of underground tunnels.

The 36-day (Iwo Jima) assault resulted in more than 26,000 American casualties, including 6,800 dead. Of the 22,060 Japanese soldiers entrenched on the island, 18,844 died either from fighting or by ritual suicide. Only 216 were captured during the course of battle. After Iwo Jima, it was estimated there were no more than 300 Japanese left alive in the island's warren of caves and tunnels. In fact, there were close to 3,000. The Japanese bushido code of honor, coupled with effective propaganda which portrayed American G.I.s as ruthless animals, prevented surrender for many Japanese soldiers. Those who could not bring themselves to commit suicide hid in the caves during the day and came out at night to prowl for provisions. Some did eventually surrender and were surprised that the Americans often received them with compassion, offering water, cigarettes, or coffee. The last of these holdouts on the island, two of Lieutenant Toshihiko Ohno's men, Yamakage Kufuku and Matsudo Linsoki, lasted four years without being caught and finally surrendered on 6 January 1949.

The iconic photo of raising the flag on Iwo Jima is not without controversy. It was not the first flag raised, but the second. And due to a miscommunication some believed it to be staged.

(wikipedia)

Following the flag-raising, Rosenthal sent his film to Guam to be developed and printed. George Tjaden of Hendricks, Minnesota, was likely the technician who printed it. Upon seeing it, Associated Press (AP) photograph editor John Bodkin exclaimed “Here's one for all time!” and immediately transmitted the image to the AP headquarters in New York at 7:00 am, Eastern War Time. The photograph was quickly picked up off the wire by hundreds of newspapers. It “was distributed by Associated Press within seventeen and one-half hours after Rosenthal shot it—an astonishingly fast turnaround time in those days.”

However, the photograph was not without controversy. Following the second flag-raising, Rosenthal had the Marines of Easy Company pose for a group shot, the “gung-ho” shot. A few days after the photograph was taken, Rosenthal—back on Guam—was asked if he had posed the photograph. Thinking the questioner was referring to the 'gung-ho' photograph, he replied “Sure.” After that, Robert Sherrod, a Time-Life correspondent, told his editors in New York that Rosenthal had staged the flag-raising photograph. Time's radio show, Time Views the News, broadcast a report, charging that “Rosenthal climbed Suribachi after the flag had already been planted. … Like most photographers [he] could not resist reposing his characters in historic fashion.”

As a result of this report, Rosenthal was repeatedly accused of staging the photograph, or covering up the first flag-raising. One New York Times book reviewer even went so far as to suggest revoking his Pulitzer Prize. In the following decades, Rosenthal repeatedly and vociferously denied claims that the flag-raising was staged. “I don't think it is in me to do much more of this sort of thing … I don't know how to get across to anybody what 50 years of constant repetition means.”