Iwo Jima 1945 Read online

  It was clear that 23rd Marines needed reinforcements if it was going to get to Airfield 1 and at 13:00 Major Scales was ordered to put 3/23rd Marines ashore on Yellow 1 Beach. In spite of heavy casualties on the beach, it passed through 1st Battalion and reached the airfield perimeter by nightfall. General Cates had also ordered the 1st and 2nd Battalions of Colonel Walter I. Jordan’s 24th Marines ashore at 14:00. While 2nd Battalion relieved the shattered 2/23rd Marines at the airfield, 1st Battalion dug in as a reserve.

  Colonel John R. Lanigan’s 25th Marines landed on 4th Division’s right flank on Blue 1 Beach and the southern edge of Blue 2 Beach while the Japanese watched from the quarry cliffs to the northeast. They did not watch for long and the beaches came under heavy fire as the regiment advanced in two directions. Lieutenant Colonel Mustain’s 1st Battalion went quickly inland on the left, reaching the airfield before noon. Lieutenant Colonel Chambers’ 3rd Battalion ran into difficulties as it set about clearing Blue 2 Beach and the quarry area. The battalion headquarters and Company L landed on 1st Battalion’s beach while the rest of 3rd Battalion lost contact with 1st Battalion as it headed northeast towards the quarry.

  RCT 25 Regiment came under intense fire as soon as it advanced off Blue Beach on the right flank. While 1st Battalion crawled forward, 3rd Battalion took heavy casualties trying to reach the Quarry area.(NARA-127-GW-110108)

  HEROISM AT THE QUARRY

  The momentum of the assault on the Quarry area was threatened by heavy casualties but Lieutenant Colonel Chambers reorganised his men and inspired them to attack the critical high ground. He lost most of his officers and carried out many tasks himself during the eight-hour battle for the Quarry. Chambers was critically wounded while directing the rocket platoon’s fire and was evacuated under heavy fire; he was awarded the Medal of Honor for his part in securing the beachhead’s right flank.

  1st Battalion also encountered difficulties as it turned north and advanced under heavy fire across Airfield 1. A second gap began to open in the Marines’ line as RCT 25 wheeled sharply away from RCT 23; Colonel John R. Lanigan had to deploy reserves to fill it.

  The three LSMs carrying Company A, 4th Tank Battalion were all hit on Blue 1 Beach and they had to withdraw as soon as they had unloaded. The company tank dozer was knocked out while it carved a road off the beach, and although the rest of the company headed inland in column, they soon ran into a minefield. The tank crews then had to fight a battle with the Japanese gunners on the cliffs while engineers quickly cleared a way forward.

  In spite of the intense fire and heavy casualties the Marines kept pushing inland and by nightfall they had established a solid beach head. The white tape directs them to their assembly area. (NARA-127-GW-109821)

  In the early afternoon Lieutenant Colonel Hudson’s 2nd Battalion came ashore on Blue 1 Beach and advanced through the regiment’s centre aiming to take the high ground northwest of the quarry. RCT 25 renewed its attack at 14:00 and although 3rd Battalion advanced to the top of the quarry it had lost 19 officers by nightfall. Elsewhere progress was slow and casualties were high. While 1st Battalion was unable to hold the ground it had taken near Airfield 1, 2nd Battalion captured the ridge line northwest of the quarry.

  By the time Colonel Lanigan joined his advance command post, 25th Marines had secured the eastern end of the beachhead and Lieutenant Colonel Vandegrift’s 3/24th Battalion was in reserve. Although it would take most of the night to reorganise and evacuate casualties, Lanigan’s men would be ready to renew the attack the following morning.

  Reconnaissance parties belonging to Colonel Louis G. DeHaven’s 14th Marines, 4th Division’s artillery regiment, found that many battery positions were still in enemy hands when they went ashore. Only 1st and 2nd Battalion’s DUKWs put ashore and by the time tractors had dragged their artillery pieces inland it was too dark to fire at observed targets.

  FIREPOWER

  The Amphibious Support Force gave fire support all day and many support vessels were hit as they fought a running battle with the Japanese coastal guns. The 606 aircraft belonging to Task Force 52 and Task Force 58 flew missions throughout the day. They fired 2254 rockets, delivered over 100 napalm bombs and dropped 274,500lbs of bombs.

  Japanese mortars, machine guns and anti-tank guns continued to hit the congested beach as landing craft brought supplies ashore. (NARA-127-GW-110271)

  The beach was a congested mess of men, equipment and stores and the Japanese guns shelled it mercilessly throughout the day. Only ammunition, rations, water and signal equipment were delivered on D-Day by a continuous stream of LCVPs and LCMs. Shore party teams stacked supplies above the high water mark so the landing craft could withdraw, while LVTs and Weasels worked around the clock, hauling supplies to inland dumps before returning with wounded men. Meanwhile, amtracs ferried stores directly from the LSTs to the Marines.

  Unloading stopped when nightfall approached and the shore parties spent the night clearing mines and cutting routes off the beach. Meanwhile, many wounded spent the night on the beach, lying helplessly near the waterline while shells exploded around them. Most of the transports and vessels withdrew to a safe distance at nghtfall but the command ships, preloaded LSTs and hospital LSTs remained close to the beach.

  By the end of D-Day neither 5th nor 4th Marine Divisions were anywhere near the O-1 Line set by V Amphibious Corps; but it was highly unlikely that the Japanese would be able to drive them back into the sea. Six Marine regiments, six artillery battalions and two tank battalions were ashore and they were holding a virtually continuous front with the few gaps covered by fire.

  Although the Japanese defenders only tried one counterattack against RCT 27 during the night, they did pound the Marines’ lines with mortars and artillery. They also tried to infiltrate the Marines’ lines at several points but were all stopped. 1/28th Marines engaged a barge which tried to land on the west coast, killing everyone onboard.

  The initial reports on casualties on D-Day were exaggerated due to the high number of men missing from their units. Many had joined the first platoon commander or squad leader they met on the beach and fought under them until nightfall. They returned to their units during the night. While the accurate casualty figures are shockingly high, they were lower than expected and V Amphibious Corps’ assessments of the regiments’ combat efficiency ranged from very good to excellent.

  D-DAY CASUALTIES

  V Corps casualty figures for D-Day were later determined to be over 2300 – one man killed or injured for every 1.5 metres of Iwo Jima’s beach.

  Killed in action 501

  Died of wounds 47

  Wounded in action 1755

  Missing in action 18

  Total 2321

  The Battle for Hot Rocks (D+1 to D+4)

  By the early morning of 20 February there were two distinct battle developing on Iwo Jima: the fight for Mount Suribachi at the southern end of the island and the advance north astride Airfield 1. General Kuribayashi had designed his defences to cope with such a situation and the Suribachi position was capable of fighting on without assistance. We will first consider the battle for Mount Suribachi.

  28th Marines were in the shadow of the 500-foot-high extinct volcano and Colonel Liversedge planned to explore the base of the mountain for routes to the summit, while his artillery shelled the Japanese bunkers on the slopes above. Following a bombardment by naval guns and carrier aircraft, 2nd Battalion and 3rd Battalions attacked, even though the tanks were still waiting to be refuelled or rearmed. The mortars and artillery were also too close to target the Japanese positions, leaving the Marines reliant on their assault demolition teams to silence the enemy with flamethrowers and explosive charges. 28th Marines had hardly moved when the tanks joined the battle and they helped them advance another 200 yards before dusk.

  After an uneasy night, 40 planes swooped low past Mount Suribachi on the morning of 21 February, striking targets close to RCT 28’s front lines. Once again the tanks were delayed and neither 1
st Battalion nor 3rd Battalion could move until they arrived; they then advanced rapidly to the base of the mountain. Both flanks then pushed forward along the shoreline, aiming to reach Tobiishi Point at the southern tip of the island. By nightfall Colonel Liversedge’s men were entrenched in a semicircle at the foot of Suribachi while the Japanese in their bunkers overhead were unable to bring their guns to bear on the Marines.

  While 2nd Battalion mopped up RCT 28’s rear area, Private First Class Donald J. Ruhl crawled onto a bunker with his platoon guide. As they fired down on Japanese soldiers, a grenade landed next to them and Ruhl rolled on top of it to save his buddy’s life. He had already made a name for himself by helping to silence a blockhouse on D-Day before risking his life to rescue a wounded Marine lying in No Man’s Land the following day. Ruhl was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

  28th Marines prepare for the toughest task of all, the capture of Mount Suribachi. As fighters dive bomb the Japanese positions at the base of Hot Rocks, 105mm howitzers of the 13th Marines join in the bombardment. (NARA-127-GW-110141)

  By 22 February, RCT 28 had been in action for 72 hours and Liversedge’s Marines had had little rest and only cold rations to eat. After three days of good weather, D+3 was a miserable reminder of how quickly it could deteriorate. Cold, drizzling rain and a driving wind soaked the Marines to the skin and turned the volcanic ash into a sludge that stuck to clothing and clogged weapons.

  The bitterest fighting occurred in RCT 28’s centre because the tanks could not reach the area and the artillery were unable to give support. Instead the Marines used demolitions and flamethrowers to silence the bunkers at the base of Suribachi. Meanwhile, the patrols continued working their way around the mountain and they met at the southern tip of the island at 16:30. Although Hot Rocks had been surrounded, both patrols reported that naval gunfire and airstrikes had destroyed most of the paths up the steep slopes; the only way up was on the north face in 2nd Battalion’s zone.

  On the morning of 23 February, Colonel Liversedge ordered Lieutenant Colonel Johnson to investigate the path and two 3-man patrols from Companies D and F set out at 09:00. Up and up they went, meeting no Japanese on the way, and 35 minutes later they reached summit and peered into Suribachi’s crater. 1st Lieutenant H. ‘George’ Schrier, Company E’s executive officer, then led a 40-man detachment up the steep path but they came under fire at the top. While some of Schrier’s men engaged the Japanese, others found a length of iron pipe and secured a small US flag, measuring no more than 54 inches by 28 inches, to one end; they then raised the Stars and Stripes on the summit of Mount Suribachi. It was 23 February, D+4, the time was 10:20 and Staff Sergeant Lewis Lowery, a journalist for Leatherneck Magazine, had caught it all on camera.

  Lieutenant Schrier’s group pose for the camera in front of their Stars and Stripes on the summit of Mount Suribachi. All eyes turned to the top of Hot Rocks and as the Marines cheered, the vessels offshore sounded their horns. (NARA-127-GW-112449)

  Down below, men across the beachhead caught sight of the tiny flag fluttering in the breeze and pointed it out to their comrades. Before long every Marine and Navy man was cheering as they looked towards Suribachi while every vessel in the sea sounded their horns. The flag was an inspiring sight for the thousands of US servicemen on Iwo Jima.

  The second large Stars and Stripes flies proudly above Iwo Jima; now everyone could see it, including the Japanese. These artillery observers are using a high-powered telescope to spot enemy positions. (NARA-127-GW-113721)

  Colonel Liversedge was furious to hear that higher command wanted the flag as a memento and he decided to replace it before it disappeared. Sergeant Michael Strank collected a larger flag (measuring 8 feet by 4 feet 8 inches) from LST 779 on the beach and carried it to the top followed by Joe Rosenthal, a photographer working for the Associated Press. An impromptu ceremony was organised and Rosenthal took the iconic picture of the second flag raising. His picture was the one that was splashed across every American newspaper over the days that followed and the ceremony has been immortalised by the US Marines memorial in Arlington, Virginia. The flag raising was timed to perfection because Secretary of the Navy, James V. Forrestal and General Holland Smith had just stepped ashore.

  The mountain provided a grandstand view of Iwo Jima and the huge fleet off shore and the Marine artillery observers quickly installed their flash-ranging equipment near the summit. The men of RCT 28 did not have time for sightseeing and both 1st and 2nd Battalions spent the afternoon blasting shut cave entrances and hunting down snipers. Many Japanese soldiers were entombed inside the mountain while others committed suicide rather than surrender.

  40 men from Company E spent an uneasy night on the summit of Suribachi while the rest of the regiment dug in around the base. Over 120 Japanese tried to escape from the mountain under cover of darkness; they were all killed. Most of them had demolitions strapped to their bodies hoping to die gloriously for their Emperor. Another 2000 had had been killed or were buried alive beneath the mountain. 28th Marines had suffered 895 casualties in the five-day battle, 385 of them on the first day.

  LAST WORDS

  The final message from Mount Suribachi’s garrisoncommander to General Kuribayashi read: ‘Enemy’s bombardments from the air and sea and their assaults with explosions are very fierce and if we ever try to stay and defend our present positions it will lead us to self-destruction. We should rather like to go out of our position and choose death by banzai charges.’

  Engineers seal the bunkers and caves on Mount Suribachi while the beach below is a hive of activity. (NARA-127-GW-109608)

  The Battles for Airfield 1 and the Quarry (D+1 to D+2)

  To the north the plan was to attack all along V Amphibious Corps’ 4000-metre front, following a bombardment by Marine artillery, naval gunfire and air strikes. General Schmidt wanted to complete the pivot north to the O-1 line and while 5th Division advanced along the west coast, 4th Division had to clear Airfield 1’s runways and taxiways. Both divisions had to work their way through a fortified zone of bunkers, pillboxes and caves, all camouflaged in the deadly maze of ravines and ridges.

  Colonel Wornham’s RCT 27 controlled 5th Division’s sector, and 1/26th and 3/27th Marines encountered Japanese pillboxes protected by minefields as they moved forward. As they closed in to silence each position, the Japanese mortars and artillery seemed to know exactly when to shoot and where to aim to inflict maximum casualties on the Marines. But with the help of Companies A and B, 5th Tank Battalion, both battalions managed to advance 800 yards.

  The advance northeast between D+1 and D+7 (20–26 February).

  Two men of 1/26th Marines were awarded the Medal of Honor. Captain Robert H. Dunlap repeatedly crawled forward alone along the cliffs to locate Japanese-held caves. After reporting their location to the artillery and the ships off shore, he risked his life to personally direct their salvoes. Seventeen-year-old Private Jacklyn H. Lucas (he enlisted at the age of fourteen without consent) and three other Marines were ambushed in a narrow ravine. Lucas dived on two grenades when they landed at their feet, absorbing the blast; he was the youngest recipient of the Medal of Honor since the American Civil War. He lived to the age of 80 with more than 200 pieces of shrapnel still in his body.

  Colonel Wensinger’s RCT 23 had to advance across Airfield 1 on 4th Division’s left and both 3/23rd and 2/24th Marines drew heavy fire from every direction as they advanced across the airfield’s exposed runway; they both reached the northern perimeter by midday. Anti-tank fire stopped 4th Tank Battalion’s Company C crossing the runway, leaving Wensinger’s Marines to push on alone beyond the airfield, having overrun an important position held by Colonel Ikeda’s 1/145th Battalion.

  Colonel Lanigan’s RCT 25 had to improve its situation on the ridge overlooking Blue Beach and once 2/25th Marines had captured the high ground in the centre of the regiment’s sector, 1/25th Marines could advance alongside RCT 23 on the left. Disaster struck before zero hour when a mort
ar shell hit 2/25th Battalion’s command post wounding several senior officers, including the commanding officers of both the battalion and Company B, 4th Tank Battalion. Lieutenant Colonel Taul, 3/25th Battalion’s executive officer, took command and although the attack began on time, the Marines made little progress in the face of heavy crossfire.

  RCT 25’s bad luck continued when 1/25th Battalion’s command post received a direct hit while 1/24th Battalion was hit twice by friendly fire, by an air strike and then an artillery strike and naval gunfire. Despite the problems, Colonel Lanigan was able to report that RCT 25 had pushed its left flank forward by 200 yards.

  After spending an anxious night on the beach, these Marines could not wait to be evacuated to one of the hospital ships. (NARA-127-GW-110217)

  The build up of supplies continued as the landing craft continued to deliver their cargo to the beach. RCT 25 had to carry their supplies forward by hand from Blue Beach because the LVTs could not reach the front line. All day the Japanese mortars and artillery targeted the beaches and routes inland, hitting supply dumps, evacuation stations and command posts. Shells fell indiscriminately on the congested beaches and wounded men were often hit a second time as they waited to be evacuated.