At 11:00 a.m., the Japanese mortar and artillery barrage suddenly intensified. The weapons had been preregistered to hit the invasion beaches, between the surf line and the top terraces, where the American troops were densely concentrated in exposed positions. The naval task forces and support planes did their best to silence this fire, but the Japanese gun emplacements on Suribachi and the Motoyama Plateau were well camouflaged, and many could not be seen even from overhead. Sherman tanks, put ashore from LSMs in the third and fourth waves, struggled to climb the beaches, and they made fat targets for the Japanese artillerymen. Marines landing behind Chambers’s 3rd Battalion on Blue Beach were cut down by machine gun fire as they left their landing boats. Heavy mortar fire also descended on the Red beaches north of Suribachi, where the going had been easier that morning. The marines lay prone in the soft cinder, digging for cover with their entrenching shovels, their helmets, and their bare hands. But the cinder lacked cohesive consistency, and their foxholes collapsed inward. “God damn!” one exclaimed. “It’s like digging a hole in a barrel of wheat.”42
By noon, the landing beaches looked like junkyards. Surveying the scene through binoculars from the Eldorado, about two miles offshore, General Holland Smith compared it to “a row of frame houses in a tornado.”43 Tanks and amphibious tractors failed to surmount the steep beach gradient, or were swamped in the surf, or took direct artillery hits, or ran over mines, or fell into tank traps, or stripped their treads, or could not find a path between other wrecked, stranded, and burning vehicles. Bodies and debris were scattered across the congested beach, and tanks were driving directly over the remains of slain marines. The pileup of wreckage posed a hazard for incoming landing boats. The coxswains steered toward an unobstructed patch of sand between the burning wrecks, but many boats broached in the surf. Pontoon causeways became unmoored and went rogue, surfing uncontrollably on the incoming breakers, colliding with boats or striking marines from behind as they trudged up the beach. But since the marines ashore desperately needed more men, tanks, artillery, ammunition, and supplies, Admiral Turner had no option but to keep sending more boats to attempt landings.
Entire platoons lay immobilized, pinned down in the dark volcanic cinder. The whine and blast of the mortars was earsplitting, and men had to shout to make themselves heard. Those who stood and advanced to a new position risked being cut down by machine gun or rifle fire from the pillboxes at the top of the terraces. But those who remained in their hastily dug holes risked taking direct hits from the relentless mortars. The Japanese were using a giant 320mm “spigot mortar,” which lobbed a 675-pound shell to a distance of 1,440 yards. The marines called it the “flying ashcan,” or the “screaming Jesus.” They could look up and watch the ugly black specks as they approached in high-arching trajectories. One officer recalled, “I’d hold up my finger out in front of my eye, and if it moved left or right I’d know it wasn’t coming down near me. But if my finger blocked it for more than a split-second, then I knew I was in trouble.”44
Medical corpsmen rushed across exposed ground to assist the wounded, but for the men worst hit by mortar shrapnel, there was little that could be done. Flesh was slashed and shredded, limbs severed, faces disfigured, and wounds contaminated by the ubiquitous volcanic cinder. The corpsmen administered morphine shots, applied tourniquets, bandaged wounds, inserted intravenous needles for blood plasma, and dragged the wounded men to cover. Often they were hit by artillery or snipers while crouched beside their patients. On Red Beach, a badly wounded marine—blinded, with both hands blown off—was stumbling back toward the beach through a hail of artillery and machine gun fire. A lone corpsman rushed out over open ground to guide the man to an aid station. Many corpsmen on Iwo Jima paid the price for such selfless service. In the 4th Marine Division, the casualty rate among medical corpsmen was 38 percent.
On the ships offshore, pitching and rolling on the whitecap-flecked swell, the expressions on the faces of senior commanders told the tale. The situation was dire. The later waves were taking heavier losses than the earlier waves. A backlog of casualties on the beach awaited evacuation to the fleet. Warships offshore and carrier planes circling overhead were doing their best to identify and destroy the Japanese mortars and guns, but the enemy’s weapons were mounted in deep embrasures. Nothing but a direct hit could silence them, and sometimes not even that. Carrier planes dropped napalm bombs on the positions they could see, hoping to kill the Japanese gunners or drive them underground. But the rain of mortars continued unremitting, and each successive blast ejected ash, debris, and bodies high into the air. It was vital to get more troops and tanks ashore before dark, because all dreaded a night counterattack in force. The marines on the beach had to push inland as quickly as possible, even if it meant taking heavy casualties, to make space for succeeding waves.
At nightfall, the Americans had 40,000 troops ashore. They held about 10 percent of the island, from the northeast corner of Motoyama Airfield No. 1 to a point farther south where the 5th Division had bisected the narrow isthmus north of Mt. Suribachi. The Japanese held high ground to the north and south, and looked down on the marines from lofty observation posts. All night long—indeed, for every night in the month to come—the battlefield was kept brightly illuminated by starshells fired by the warships offshore. An average of a thousand illumination rounds were expended each night of the campaign. The marines credited the searing, spectral light for deterring Japanese small-unit infiltration attacks. In a letter home, a destroyer sailor described the strange visual effect: “It was interesting watching the shells float downward through a thick white cloud. They would burst in the midst of the cloud and cause it to glow like snow and then drift downward through the layers and finally through the bottom and light up the whole island.”45
Few slept a wink that first night, and lookouts kept their eyes peeled for any sign of the enemy. The night was chilly, even cold—a reminder that this was winter and they were north of the tropics. But no attack came, and by dawn the American commanders were beginning to understand that they were up against a shrewd infantry tactician. There would be no major counterattacks over open ground, where the Americans could bring their superior firepower and air support to bear. The defenders would remain underground, out of sight, and out of range, and make the attackers pay for every inch of territory they gained.
TO THE SOUTH, THE 28TH MARINES looked up at “Hot Rocks”—the name they had given to Mt. Suribachi—a steep-sided mass of brown ash, barren of vegetation, whose sulfuric steam vents jetted foul vapors. The regiment, led by Colonel Harry B. Liversedge, had orders to isolate the little volcano, seal off its caves and bunkers, root out its defenders, and secure the summit. Around the base, at ground level, was a girdle of seventy earth-covered concrete blockhouses manned by the soldiers of Iwo Jima’s southern defense sector, led by Colonel Kanehiko Atsuchi. Before Suribachi could be scaled, the fortifications at the base would have to be cleaned out. They could not be flanked; they would have to be taken by direct infantry assault.
On the morning of D plus 1, under a cold drizzle, a tremendous combined onslaught of field artillery, naval gunfire, and carrier bombers fell upon Mt. Suribachi, and the volcano momentarily vanished behind a mantle of smoke, flames, and dust. At 8:30 a.m., the appointed “jump-off time,” the shelling and bombing abruptly halted. The marines advanced in a running crouch, crossing from rocks to shell craters to rocks. The 2nd Battalion attacked to the left, and the 3rd to the right. Advancing into machine gun and 47mm antitank gunfire, many fell. The 2nd Battalion took the worst casualties of the day. The last 200 yards of their advance was over flat volcanic soil, offering little or no cover. Throwing smoke grenades to blind their enemies, they advanced directly against the enemy firing ports. Private Donald J. Ruhl of Company E fell on a Japanese grenade, trading his life to shield others in his platoon. In recognition of this ultimate sacrifice, he was awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor.
At Camp Pendleton, in Southern California, th
e marines had learned and practiced their system. They executed it patiently, meticulously, with devout attention to detail: heavy naval gunfire, napalm bombs dropped by planes, tanks and 75mm halftracks advancing to point-blank range, smoke grenades to blind the Japanese, phosphorus grenades and demolition charges thrown into firing ports, flamethrowers fired into rear exit doors, hand-to-hand combat with bayonets, knives, and even fists. Where the terrain prevented tanks from advancing on the Japanese defenses, 37mm guns were hauled into an advanced position, from which they could take a concrete structure apart, little by little—killing, stunning, or otherwise neutralizing the occupants, so that infantry squads could move in and finish the job. One by one, the blockhouses were converted into tombs. Armored bulldozers pushed mounds of earth against them, so that they could not be reoccupied by the Japanese.
The third day of the battle was gray and blustery, with scattered rain showers. The 3rd Battalion attacked in the center of the line, through broken terrain that stopped the U.S. tanks. To the left, the 2nd Battalion worked to clean out its rear areas, where snipers and individual Japanese fighters had mysteriously appeared. By nightfall, the 28th Marines had surrounded the mountain and silenced all but a few of the enemy firing positions around the base. According to Lieutenant Colonel Robert H. Williams, the regimental executive officer, the fighting tailed off sharply once the regiment overran the enemy lines at the base of Suribachi. He told Major General Keller E. Rockey, commander of the 5th Marine Division: “We figure we’ve killed about 800 Japs down there, but we’d have a hard time finding 100. We must have blown up 50 caves.”46
With the Americans in control at the base of the hill, Colonel Atsuchi now attempted a breakout, ordering his remaining organized forces to try a dash for the northern lines. Nearly all the Japanese were cut down as they came into the open, but about twenty-five somehow crossed through the American lines to the Motoyama Plateau, where the bulk of Japanese fighting forces remained. Kuribayashi was disappointed to learn that his Suribachi detachment had not held out longer. He asked his staff, “I had imagined the fact that the first airfield should fall into the enemy’s hands. But what is the matter that Mt. Suribachi would fall within only 3 days?”47
On the fourth day of the fight, the marines took the summit. The morning was gray and drizzling, as the previous days had been—and it began as the previous days had begun, with a prodigious naval and air bombardment that pummeled Mt. Suribachi until it was enveloped in smoke and dust. Two scouting patrols reconnoitered a footpath to the crater, up the steep and menacing east face. A forty-man patrol followed, reaching the summit a few minutes after ten. Resistance was scattered. A few Japanese emerged from tunnels and caves, including an officer who waved a samurai sword as he charged; all were quickly killed. Wielding flamethrowers and explosive charges, the marines sealed off all cave entrances they could locate. Many Japanese took their own lives, by holding grenades against their chests or inserting their rifles into their mouths and pulling the triggers with their toes. A revolting stench emerged from some of the interior cavities on Suribachi, where the remains of Japanese soldiers were scattered thickly on the ground.
From the peak, the Americans took in a panoramic view to the north: the airfields, the landing beaches, the naval task force offshore. Their fellow marines were heavily engaged in a firefight on the flat terrain between the two airfields. For the first four days of the battle, the Japanese had commanded this tactically useful observation post. Now the roles were reversed; the Americans owned Suribachi, and they had a flag to prove it. Marines of Company E, 2nd Battalion pulled a 10-foot length of lead pipe out of the rubble—it had connected a water cistern to a bunker beneath the summit—and rigged it as a flagpole. At 10:20 a.m., they raised their battalion flag. Observers to the north, and on ships offshore, were overjoyed. Lieutenant Ronald Thomas recalled, “Everyone yelled and I suppose some cried.”48 Brigadier General Leo Hermle, assistant commander of the 5th Division, called it “one of the greatest sights that I remember in my whole life . . . a terrific cheer went up from the whole island, as far as you could see.”49
Jim Forrestal, the secretary of the navy, had been observing Operation DETACHMENT from Admiral Turner’s command ship Eldorado. Forrestal was a spare man of medium height, with a pug nose and a straight, wide mouth. His sandy brown hair was slicked back and parted high on his head. He was an intense, hard-driving former Wall Street bond salesman who had become one of FDR’s most trusted and influential cabinet advisors. The secretary had chosen this morning, D plus 4, to come ashore for a brief tour of Red Beach. Wearing a helmet and plain green fatigues without insignia, escorted by General Holland Smith and a platoon of marines, he disembarked from a Higgins boat just as the tiny flag was spied atop the southern peak. Forrestal turned to Smith and said, “Holland, the raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next 500 years.”50
The navy secretary had been pushing for more fulsome publicity in Nimitz’s theater. He had taken a direct hand in streamlining censorship functions, and had pressured the admirals to guarantee overnight transmission of press copy and photographs to newsrooms in the United States. During his current tour of the Pacific, Forrestal had often reminded the navy and marine brass that an epochal political struggle lay ahead over the reorganization and unification of the armed services, and the postwar status of the Marine Corps was not yet decided. The “ 500 years” remark thus had a contemporary context and subtext: Forrestal meant that the stirring image would strengthen the corps’ claim to an autonomous role in the postwar defense establishment.
According to the scene recounted by General Smith in his postwar memoir, Forrestal sauntered among wrecked boats, tanks, and tractors on the crowded beach, shaking hands with surprised marines, while artillery shells and mortar blasts blanketed the area. Twenty men were killed or wounded within a hundred yards of where they were standing, Smith wrote—“but the Secretary seemed utterly indifferent to danger.”51 Perhaps Forrestal seemed indifferent because the situation was not as the general described it. In his diary entry that day, Forrestal recorded only that “the beach received some shelling during the morning but it was not considerable, although one burst did inflict casualties an hour before we were there.”52
A second and more famous flag-raising occurred three hours later, when a subsequent patrol of the 28th Marines carried a larger “replacement” flag to the summit of Mt. Suribachi. Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal was on hand to record the scene. As six marines raised the flagpole, with the flag snapping smartly in the breeze, Rosenthal pressed the shutter button on his camera without even looking through the viewfinder. He sent his undeveloped film roll to Guam, where it was developed by an AP photo editor and sent on to the United States. The hastily snapped photograph, an accidental masterpiece of composition, became the single most iconic image of the Pacific War. Transmitted through copper telephone wires to newsrooms throughout the United States, it appeared simultaneously on hundreds of front pages and magazine covers. Rosenthal received a Pulitzer Prize. The flag-raising was adopted as the thematic showpiece of a national war bonds campaign, and three surviving marines in the photo were recalled to the United States for a publicity tour. The image was re-created as a bronze sculpture at the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Virginia.
The 28th Marines reported 510 men killed and wounded in the fight for Mt. Suribachi. Including its losses on D-Day, the regiment had suffered 895 casualties in five days. As bad as those losses were, they were no worse than those suffered over the same period by other regiments fighting to the north. At home, many Americans assumed that the flag-raising in Rosenthal’s photograph must have marked the triumphant climax of a victorious campaign. In fact, the conquest of Suribachi was just one early phase of a long and costly battle. The fight for the Motoyama Plateau would eventually claim twenty American lives for every one lost on Suribachi. On D plus 6 (February 25), the 28th Marines were returned to the V Amphibious Corps reserves, and
they began moving north to join their brothers on the bloody line bisecting the midsection of the island.
GENERAL SCHMIDT ESTABLISHED his V Amphibious Corps (VAC) headquarters north of the now-pacified Mt. Suribachi. That entire portion of the island, half a mile behind the front line, was gradually assuming the appearance of a working base. The unfavorable weather of past days gave way to lighter winds and calmer surf, allowing cargo unloading to proceed. Supply dumps, assembly areas, motor pools, fuel dumps, administrative command tents, and field hospitals were set up by rear-echelon troops, even while the enemy’s mortars and artillery kept raining down. Bulldozers were improving the road net, and clean-up details were hauling wreckage away from the main transportation arteries. Seabees of the 31st Naval Construction Battalion were at work on Motoyama Airfield No. 1, clearing the runway and revetments of mines and bringing concrete mixers and heavy construction equipment ashore. Schmidt told a reporter that five more days of heavy fighting would extinguish enemy resistance on Iwo Jima: “I said last week it would take ten days, and I haven’t changed my mind.”53
The major combat line now ran through Motoyama Airfield No. 2, which was at slightly higher elevation than No. 1. The runway and taxiways were strewn with airplane wreckage that the Japanese infantry units had adopted as rough and ready pillboxes. The marines called down naval gunfire, heavy artillery fire, and airstrikes on these positions, and then attacked across the open field with tanks and infantry. The dark domed rock of the Motoyama Plateau loomed ahead to the north. Taking it would require ascending a staircase of lava terraces honeycombed with fearsome defenses. Holland Smith described it as a “deep belt of fortifications running from coast to coast, a mass of mutually supporting pillboxes, many of them almost buried underground.”54 The terrain did not offer many prospects for flanking attacks, so the marines were left with no option except direct frontal assault by brute force. Lieutenant Colonel Joseph L. Stewart called it a “grunt and crunch-type operation.”55 Another officer used the inevitable football metaphor: “You can’t run the ends up there. Every play is between the tackles.”56
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