Iwo Jima
In February, 1945, we were aboard ship once again sailing for we knew not where. Stopping off in the Marianas, we were treated to the sight of hundreds of B-29s taking off on the long 1500-mile flight to Japan, and we couldn’t help but marvel at the transformation that had taken place since the attack on Pearl Harbor which had decimated our Navy. Now, we were so powerful, nothing could stop us. It would just take a little more convincing.
This time, our situation was unique. We were on a Landing Ship Medium, a vessel big enough for two tanks and a smaller vehicle, and able to accommodate the crews. They were designed to hit the beach, drop the ramp, discharge the vehicles, and back off and get out of harm’s way. But the beauty of it all was the informality. In addition to the ship’s crew, there were about a dozen of us and no high-ranking brass to contend with. I wore zoris the whole trip and my tanned feet showed no signs of the fungus I had been troubled with earlier. As usual, we were part of a huge convoy, happy that no one seemed to pay us any attention.
Once we left the Marianas, we were told that Iwo Jima was to be our objective. It was a ten-square mile island some 700 miles beyond Saipan and about the same distance from Tokyo, and it had been the target of B-24 and B-29 bombings for some time. Sounded like a piece of cake so we didn’t work up much of a sweat thinking about it. However, on February 19 when we got our first glimpse of Iwo, it was not a pretty picture. Instead of palm trees and a white beach, or cane fields and green hills, we saw a grungy glob rising out of the water, with no vegetation visible, and an ominous-looking mountain at one end. To make it worse, the Navy was shelling the place unmercifully and planes were dive-bombing and strafing at will. Smoke from the bombardment enshrouded the island giving it an even more unearthly appearance.
The Japanese knew that once Saipan fell, Iwo would be next, and if there was any question of when it would happen, the sight that greeted them this particular morning should have removed any doubt. Our ships were everywhere, including battlewagons, cruisers, destroyers, carriers, and newly-conditioned gun boats, and they were all firing at once while planes dropped bombs and strafed suspected positions. The explosions virtually rocked the island and we couldn’t help but think that, aside from a little cleaning up, our job was being done for us. It was on that note that the first wave was sent in encountering little enemy fire. But by the time the next waves began to hit the beach, all hell was breaking loose and machine guns were opening up, mortars were landing, and dual-purpose guns were firing from cave-openings and blockhouses that had withstood the pre-landing bombardment. From Mount Suribachi and the craggy heights to the north, artillery fire began landing along the beach creating wreckage that made it difficult to land additional troops and supplies. And if that wasn’t enough, the beach consisted of loose, coarse, black volcanic ash that grabbed at feet and wheels and tracks and made any movement extremely difficult. That situation was to be memorialized at a later date in a movie called “The Sands of Iwo Jima,” starring John Wayne. But this was no movie, and as bodies and wreckage began to pile up, two questions had to be in the minds of every Marine in the Fourth and Fifth Divisions: “Why didn’t the pre-landing bombardment do more damage, and, do we really need this piece of excrement?
However, there was only one answer: “Just do it!” And do it we did, through the loose sand, over the terraces ahead, and despite increasing enemy fire. This was a last ditch stand for them because the Home Islands would be next, and they wanted to prevent our using this island to help us get there. In deep, underground caves, they had endured the bombings and the shellings and were now trying to keep us pinned down on the beaches, but the combined efforts of tanks and the guys on foot gave the Fourth the edge of airfield # 1 and a piece of the heights to the right, while the Fifth had isolated Suribachi by cutting across the narrow neck of the island. Thus the scene was set for our first night on Iwo Jima.
Interestingly enough, there was no counterattack that first night. In all other battles they had always used that as a terrifying tactic to demoralize us. It had never worked and had always cost them dearly. These guys were better fighters, more disciplined, knowing they were going to die for the Emperor but willing to do so at the expense of as many of us as possible. So the night of D-Day was quiet.
The next morning when we could look back from some 500 yards inland, we were shocked by what we saw. Many landing boats had been hit; tanks and halftracks had bogged down in the shifting sand and had to be abandoned; amphibian tractors had run into mines; shells had hit bulldozers and cranes; and personal effects and bodies lay amid the wreckage. D-Day had cost our Division 1,000 casualties plus.
You have to remember this is a tiny island somewhere between eight and ten square miles, and there are about 23,000 Japanese defending against about 50,000 Marines. The defenders owned the place and had worked on its defense for years with this result as recorded by a Lieutenant John C. Chapin: “…there was no cover from enemy fire. Japs deep in reinforced concrete pillboxes laid down interlocking bands of fire that cut whole companies to ribbons. Camouflage hid all enemy installations. The high ground on every side was honeycombed with layer after layer of emplacements, blockhouses, dugouts, and observation posts. Their observation was perfect. Whenever the Marines made a move, the Japs watched every step and when the moment came, their mortars, rockets, machine guns, and artillery—long ago zeroed-in—would smother the area in a murderous blanket of fire. The counter-battery fire and preparatory barrages of Marine artillery and naval gunfire were often ineffective, for the Japs would merely retire to a lower level or inner cave and wait until the storm had passed. Then they would emerge and blast the advancing Marines.” And this is how it was until March 16, the day the island was declared secured.
Because conditions were pretty much as described above, we didn’t see many of the enemy. We could only fire at targets pointed out to us and we rarely knew the results. The real heroes were the guys who went after the pillboxes and blockhouses with hand grenades and satchel charges and destroyed them. The casualties were fierce but the fight went on.
On February 23, the flag went up on Suribachi and you could sense the cheers emanating from all the troops as they surely took a minute to consider the significance of that event. We now had Suribachi and Motoyama Airfield No. 1, and were closing in on Airfield No. 2, with the help of elements of the Third Marine Division which had been called in to bolster our offense. Little did we know what a historic event that flag-raising would become.
Along about here a shot-up B-29 made a life-saving landing on Iwo, having been seriously crippled by anti-aircraft fire over Tokyo and carrying several wounded crewmen. It would never have made it back to the Marianas, and was the first of many sorely injured planes and crews to whom this ugly, costly island would become a haven. By the end of the war it was estimated that 1,449 Superforts with Air Corps crews totaling 15,938 had used Iwo’s airfields for emergency landings. Our morale was given an added boost when a flight of P-51 Mustangs showed up making a pass over the island and then settling in for graceful landings. They had come from the Marianas and would now be escorting our B-29s in raids over Japan. So there was the answer to the question of why we needed this place.
Now we felt better, but the complexity of the action didn’t change. It was still the agonizingly slow pace, the cave-by-cave, pillbox-by-pillbox progress that continued to take a heavy toll in energy and lives. There were no genuine rear areas on Iwo, only less volatile spots where one might snatch a nap, heat a C-ration, and brush teeth. One of our guys, wanting to look again at the area from which we had just returned, climbed a knoll, trained his binoculars on what he believed to be the front, and fell dead seconds later, victim of a single bullet. The action was that close. Nights were terrifying. The Japanese were running out of food and water and infiltrated while flares popped overhead giving everything the appearance of an enemy silhouette.
Navy Corpsmen, attached to Marine units, were tremendous as they tended to casualties in the face of enemy fire, administered initial treatment, then somehow got the wounded Marine back to the temporary Division hospital for evaluation and movement to an offshore ship equipped to handle the serious cases. The speed with which all this was done saved countless lives.
Unlike on Saipan where our tank was knocked out of action, we stayed in one piece and, despite heavy enemy fire, were able to do a lot of damage firing machine guns and the cannon at enemy positions. We were lucky because many tanks ran into land mines or were knocked out by artillery fire. But again, we saw few enemy soldiers because of their underground defensive positions. In an effort to convey the minute-by-minute intensity of the fighting, I again defer to this terrain description by Lieutenant John Chapin: “Crevices, draws, ravines, cross compartments, and hills were all filled with caves and tunnel systems. Halftracks and tanks were unable to move into the area. Advancing troops would be met with fire from one quarter and when they attacked there, they would be hit from a different side by Japs using underground passages. The enemy had to be routed out by assault squads and their weapons….Antipersonnel mines were sown in cave mouths, approaches, tunnels, paths; deadly accurate snipers were everywhere.”
A moment of comic relief was provided by one defensive weapon, ultimately described as a one-thousand-pound rocket which was launched from well behind enemy lines, usually at day’s end. It looked like a 55-gallon oil drum in flight, trailing fire and actually landing somewhere out in the water the first few times. Later, when they lowered their sights, it would hit the island with a monumental bang, but its progress had been so slow, you had time to gauge where it would land and get out of the way. It was completely out of touch with everything else they were doing, and we actually cheered every time we saw one wending its way across the sky.
As the difficult days of March labored on, the three Divisions had pushed the enemy into a last pocket of resistance, and on March 12, the Fourth Division’s General Clifton Cates sent the following message, transcribed into Japanese and broadcast by loudspeaker, to the Japanese Brigade Commander believed to be in that pocket with his men:
12 March, 1945
TO: The Brigade Commander
This is the Commanding General of the Fourth Marine Division, U.S. Marines, making a direct appeal to the Brigade Commander and his command to honorably surrender. You have fought a heroic and gallant fight, but you must realize that the Island of Iwo Jima has been lost to you. You can gain nothing by further resistance, nor is there any reason to die when you can honorably surrender and live to render valuable service to your country in the future. I promise and guarantee you and the members of your staff the best of treatment. I respectfully request you accept my terms of honorable surrender. I again appeal to you in the name of humanity—surrender without delay.
C.B. Cates
Fourth Marine Division
The broadcast was repeated several times but the Brigade Commander, if he heard it, chose to ignore the offer.
After a few additional days of resistance, that last pocket fell and on March 16, the island was declared secured. Of the estimated 23,000 Japanese defenders, all were killed or sealed in their caves except 216 who allowed themselves to be taken prisoner. Of the 26,000 casualties suffered by all three of our Divisions, upwards of 6,000 lost their lives. The toll was unbelievably high, but already we could see how portions of the island were changing. The airfields were alive with action; roads were laid out; tents and buildings appeared; and tons of equipment promised a fully-equipped launching site for our attack against the Home Islands of Japan. It was such a relief to hear the sounds of construction rather than gunfire as we gathered our belongings, such as they were, and got ready to leave the island. On March 20, all elements of Our Division were aboard ship and the convoy set sail for Maui.
You have to use your imagination to picture what we looked like after 26 days of action on Iwo. Before landing on February 19, we had smeared our faces and hands with some kind of cream designed to protect exposed skin from exploding phosphorus shells, and the grime of daily activity combining with that cream made us all look like chimney sweeps from a Dickens novel. Because we’d had little opportunity for cleaning up while the fight was going on, we had to be a scary-looking bunch as we boarded this new, ship-shape vessel and were eyeballed by its spotless crew. They stood by open-mouthed as we, so disreputable-looking, gazed with admiration at the cleanliness on all sides. And then came the most welcome words possible over the PA system: “This ship has all the fresh water you’ll need so take a long, luxurious shower and make yourselves comfortable.”
And we did, and it was heavenly. Clean dungarees appeared to replace the outfits we had worn throughout the fighting, and this particular voyage took on the aspects of a cruise. Nor did it end there. Cheering crowds met the ships docking in Kahului Harbor, with signs proclaiming “MAUI MARINES NO KA OI,” which means, Maui Marines are the best. Add to that the words of Admiral Nimitz: “Of the men who fought on Iwo Jima, Uncommon Valor was a Common Virtue,” and we couldn’t help but feel pretty good about ourselves.