A Tomb Called Iwo Jima

by King, Dan

  On July 18th, USS Cobia struck again sinking two supply ships near Chichi Jima: Unkai Maru No. 10; and Nisshu Maru, which was carrying Olympic gold medalist "Baron" Takeichi Nishi's 26th Tank Regiment, the Independent 26th Mortar Battalion, and part of the Independent Mixed 17th Regiment. Although 95% of the troops aboard Nisshu Maru were rescued, the Japanese lost valuable equipment: Baron Nishi's tanks; a shipment of Type-98 spigot mortars; anti-aircraft guns; Type-96 150 mm mortars; and a large supply of ammunition, cement and building material.34 The following month, Baron Nishi took some of his men back to Tōkyō for replacement tanks.35

  Lieutenant Commander Albert L. Becker received the Navy Cross for his actions in harassing Japanese shipping during the summer of 1944.36

  First Lieutenant Kōtarō Inada, Corporal Shōichi Kawai, and the fifty-man radio unit were all reunited and fitted with new gear on Chichi Jima, but had no assigned duties, so spent several weeks living in commandeered civilian homes. They witnessed several air raids until August 23, 1944, when Lieutenant Kōtarō Inada told his men that he was leading them to Iwo Jima the next day. The radiomen knew that food was in short supply on Iwo Jima so took matters into their own hands. Risking severe punishment, that night they snuck into a storage cave near the wireless station at Yoakeyama and stole several boxes of canned rations. Corporal Kawai wrote that theft of food was the primary crime committed in the army, and that the Kempeitai was on the alert but seldom able to catch the culprits.

  At midnight on August 24, 1944, Corporal Kawai and the other radiomen shipped out for Iwo Jima under complete darkness hoping, and praying, to evade further entanglement with US submarines.

  The army radiomen finally came ashore on Iwo JIma the following afternoon in small wooden Daihatsu boats that were lowered from their mother ship; they hit the beaches much like the US Marines would. Lieutenant Inada, Corporal Kawai, and the other army radiomen were divided among the Division and Brigade headquarters. Corporal Kawai was instructed to take three men and position them in a wooden civilian home located near a rock face that was 900 feet east of Kuribayashi's Division Headquarters. Kawai's four-man squad was issued pickaxes and shovels with orders to carve out a U-shaped tunnel in the face of the cliff. They completed their excavation work on their new home in the end of September and were issued a radio to begin the work for which they had been trained.

  Due to the heat inside the tunnel, the radiomen were usually dressed in nothing but loincloth underwear and combat caps. As a result, soldiers across the island resorted to sewing their rank insignia to their caps making it easier to distinguish ranks inside the dimly lit caves and tunnels. They only wore their uniforms when an officer, or the Kempeitai, made the rounds.

  The Medic

  Prior to the war, Shūji Ishii was employed as a photographer for the Mainichi Shinbun, a major newspaper in Tōkyō. Ishii was drafted into the army in May 1944, leaving behind a wife and two children. After minimal training as a medic, he made the journey to Iwo Jima disembarking on the western shore on July 27, 1944.37 PFC Shūji Ishii was trucked to a point near Tachikawa Point and billeted in a wooden building. He was placed in Captain Kazuyoshi Morimoto's 2nd Mixed Brigade Field Hospital. As a medic, PFC Ishii was under the direct control of an army doctor, Captain Iwao Noguchi, who was the chief physician in charge of 160 medics, orderlies, doctors, pharmacists, and clerks. Upon arrival, PFC Ishii was immediately put to work digging tunnels so the hospital could be transferred underground. Ishii stated that they used pickaxes and digging bars to carve out three feet of tunnel per day, unless they were using dynamite in which they could achieve six feet of tunnel per day. Hauling the dirt up to the surface was backbreaking work that left Ishii and the others covered in a thick crust of sweat and dirt. Since he was issued a sparse ½ liter of water per day, it was only during rare rainstorms that he could rinse himself clean.

  Ishii explained that the 2nd Mixed Brigade Field Hospital was eventually comprised of three underground levels and two major bunker complexes: Bunker No.1 contained the Headquarters cave, the pharmacy cave, the galley cave, and the clerical cave; Bunker No.2 consisted of several external medicine caves and the surgery facilities.

  Ishii said that long before the US Marines landed, the Japanese were constantly under siege by various diseases. Poor hygiene, unsanitary and insufficient numbers of latrines, and blowflies led to constant outbreaks of amoebic dysentery. As a result, everyone experienced dysentery, some worse than others. There were not enough latrines to handle the high volume of dysentery cases so men were relieving themselves where possible. There was no toilet paper so the men used leaves, and pages torn from newspapers and magazines, which they discarded on the ground. There was naturally no water for washing one's hands. Ishii claimed that Iwo Jima was a sanitation nightmare.

  Ishii's said the Japanese military simply sent too many people to the island and couldn't take care of them. The US Navy blockade meant there were insufficient amounts of food, medicine, water and general supplies available to handle the thousands of men who were suffering from malnutrition, dehydration, exhaustion and dysentery. The doctors and medics were running low on medicine and bandages, but there was one item that they had an adequate stockpile for when the Americans landed; hand grenades, the cure-all for their patients' maladies.

  Hattori's Letters from Iwo Jima

  In 2011, Rex Butler, a WWII memorabilia collector, bought a collection of war relics at a flea market that once belonged to a US Marine who fought on Iwo Jima. Butler was able to track down the next-of-kin of the Marine to return some of the more personal belongings.

  In the grouping were a Japanese postcard and a letter. The postcard was to First Lieutenant Genichi Hattori from his younger brother. The letter was from Mrs. Kurie Hattori to her son Genichi Hattori. In one paragraph of the letter, she referred to Chikako, Lieutenant Hattori's three-year-old daughter, who was "lying fast asleep on her mother's lap." Hattori's mother also wrote of B-29 raids that were destroying cities across Japan. The missive was written, "at night using a shrouded black-out lamp." Another line of the faded letter reads, "Chikako is happily pointing to a photo of you in uniform on horseback."[22]

  The author was privileged to be involved in helping return the letter to Chikako who said that it became a connection not only to her father, but to her departed mother, and grandmother as well.

  Genichi Hattori was born on February 3, 1916, in Sakurai City, Nara. He was at the top of his class in both elementary and middle school. In 1934, Hattori graduated from Nara Prefecture's Forestry Trade School in order to follow in his father's footsteps as president of the Kigen Lumber Corporation. His father's untimely illness thrust Genichi into the role of becoming the 6th generation of the Hattori clan to manage the forests of Nara. The sacred forests yielded solid, straight lumber sought after for centuries to build temples. Hattori's family had been of the samurai class loyal to the Toda Daimyō in the historic battle of Sekigahara in 1601. The Hattori family tree had proud, deep roots.

  Two years after graduation, in December 1936, twenty-year-old Genichi Hattori was drafted into the 4th Imperial Guard Regiment. He proved himself a leader and was accepted into the Officers Candidate School. In July 1938, Hattori received a field commission to 2nd Lieutenant and was dispatched to the Manchurian-Russian border. Hattori wrote to his parents often, frequently including photos.

  Because Hattori was a field-commissioned officer, and not a product of the Officer Academy, he was not considered a career man so was discharged after his tour of duty ended in May, 1941. He left active duty for the Army Reserves and returned to Nara Prefecture to work in the forest industry. In June 1941, through an arranged marriage, Genichi married Sawako Kawai. In February 1943, the couple was blessed with a baby girl named Chikako. Hattori was elected to the position of Secretary to Nara Prefecture's Minister of Forestry, and had a promising business and political future ahead of him.

  Things change
d dramatically when the Army sent a recall notice in June 1944. Hattori was given a promotion to First Lieutenant and assigned to the Headquarter section of the "22nd Osaka Unit," a shore battery that guarded the entrance to nearby Osaka Bay. Hattori wouldn't be going overseas, so would be able to make occasional trips to visit his wife and daughter. He had a younger brother named Genji who was also recalled to active duty.[23]

  When Lieutenant Genichi Hattori arrived in Osaka, he learned there was a unit in desperate need of an Executive Officer to replace one that had been hospitalized with appendicitis. The unit was shipping out immediately so there was no time to go through normal channels to request a replacement. Lieutenant Genichi Hattori was re-assigned to Major Haruhiko Matsushita's 10th Independent Anti-Tank Battalion. The unit promptly boarded a transport ship in Osaka Bay and headed for Yokosuka with 303 officers and men.

  Once the ship pulled into Yokosuka, Lieutenant Hattori was granted a brief shore leave so he hired a car to take him to visit his younger brother, who was the commander of a coastal artillery guarding the Navy's Kisarazu Air Base. The younger Hattori wrote in his memoirs that the brothers spent three painfully short hours together before the older brother shipped out for parts unknown. The younger brother promised to write once a week, and send care packages twice a month.38

  From the beginning of his ocean journey to Iwo Jima, Lieutenant Genichi Hattori penned letters to his parents, wife and younger brother. Judging from the total of forty-four pieces of correspondence the Hattori family received, roughly one-third of their letters, cards and care packages sent to and from Iwo Jima reached their recipients. A unique aspect is that Lieutenant Genichi Hattori was the Executive Officer of his battalion, which made him the censor for outgoing mail. He censored his own postcards and letters by affixing his hankō seal in the military censor's box on each card and letter that he wrote. In turn, since the younger brother was the commander of the shore battery at Kisarazu, he too, could write without going through a censor. The brothers could, and did, write freely to each other.

  On June 28, 1944, Lieutenant Genichi Hattori's Independent 10th Anti-Tank Battalion boarded the converted passenger liner Noto Maru and joined a convoy bound for Iwo Jima via Chichi Jima.39

  Another army officer that was on board Noto Maru was Second Lieutenant Yasuhiko Murai. According to Lieutenant Murai, the deck of the Noto Maru was covered with pallets of freshly cut bamboo poles that had were tied to act as rafts in case the ship was torpedoed.40 Lieutenant Murai was one of twenty-five instructors that were plucked from the Infantry School and sent to Iwo Jima on three days notice. The energetic junior officers from the Infantry School were needed to function as troop handlers to deal with the large number of inexperienced draftees that were coming to Iwo Jima. Half of the Infantry School officers would travel to Iwo Jima by sea, like Murai, and the other half would fly to Iwo Jima in a pair of army Hiryū "Peggy" bombers. Lieutenant Murai had with him an attendant who carried his footlocker, in which was packed Murai's father's American-made Colt pistol with 25 rounds of ammunition, a sword in a plain wooden sheath, some amulet charms, and the 1,000 stitch belt that his father had worn during the previous war.

  The convoy to Chichi Jima was part of the I-go Yusen Sakusen plan to transport men and materials to the Ogasawara Islands. The Noto Maru traveled along with the destroyers Hatakaze and Shiokaze, and the anti-submarine escort ship Kaibōkan No. 4. Due to aggressive American submarine patrols, the convoy was under the watchful eye of three Aichi E13A "Jake" seaplanes, and eight Nakajima A6M2-N "Rufe" floatplane fighters from Chichi Jima that conducted air combat patrols.41 The ships safely reached Chichi Jima's Futami Bay on July 1, 1944.

  An SBT landing craft came alongside the Noto Maru to transfer Lt Yasuhiko Murai, the Infantry School officers, and part of the 145th Infantry Regiment south to Iwo Jima. Lieutenant Yasuhiko Murai's landing craft was packed to the gills as it grounded up on the sand at Iwo Jima's East Boat Basin area at 1:30 a.m. The men unloaded their equipment in the darkness as trucks arrived to cart their gear away from the beach. The drivers were in a rush to get the men and equipment dispersed before dawn. There were no bunkers yet for the 145th Infantry to occupy so they had to dig their own. Murai noted the elementary school (Taishō Kokumin Gakkō), the Taiheikan Inn, and several wooden homes in the immediate area. The remainder of the regiment would be shuttled over from Chichi Jima in the coming weeks in various Daihatsu landing craft and other small boats as they became available.

  The next afternoon, a pair of Peggy bombers flew in carrying the remaining junior officers from the Infantry School. The twenty-five junior officers, led by Captain Kenjirō Nagata, walked to the Ishina family's Taiheikan Inn to report to General Kuribayashi who welcomed the young officers. After they were issued their assignments, Kuribayashi explained the importance of the island in Japan's overall security plan. Lt Murai and three others were assigned to Captain Yoshinobu Hakuta's Independent 314th Battalion in the Eastern Defensive Zone.[24]

  Army Captain Kenjirō Nagata was assigned to the Independent 312th Infantry Battalion in the Suribachi Defense Zone. One of his enlisted men was Corporal Torao Miyazaki, a thirty-five-year-old schoolteacher, who would leave behind two young sons and an infant daughter.42

  Lieutenant Hattori and the 10th Independent Anti-Tank battalion stayed on Chichi Jima for roughly two weeks before landing on Iwo Jima on July 15th. They were also placed in the Suribachi Defensive Zone under Major General Makoto Ōsuga's 2nd Mixed Brigade.[25] Lieutenant Hattori positioned his 47 mm anti-tank guns in two lines of bunkers to defend Suribachi's northeastern plain (Green Beach area), an area in the path of Captain Dave Severance's E Company, 2nd Battalion, 28th Marine Regiment (E/2/28). Captain Severance's Marines would be immortalized by photographers Joe Rosenthal and Sergeant William Genaust for something they did with a flag and a piece of Japanese irrigation pipe.43

  Akikusa Runs the Gauntlet

  Naval radioman Akikusa was promoted to Leading Seaman on May 1,1944, and was proudly wearing his new rank insignia on his right sleeve.

  After his second shore leave, Akikusa bid farewell to his parents and returned to the transit barracks at Yokosuka Naval Base where he, Kageyama, and fifteen others, waited for further orders. Several hours passed without any word, so the men unpacked and settled in. There was always plenty of waiting in any navy. It was here in the barracks that Akikusa made friends with another farm boy, Yasuo Kumakura. Akikusa described Kumakura as "strong and stocky with thick bushy eyebrows, like caterpillars, and hairy arms that made him look older than he was." Kumakura liked to smoke a traditional Japanese kiseru pipe. He would take a cigarette and break it into pieces, then place the sections standing vertical in the tiny brass bowl and chain smoke with great satisfaction. Kumakura talked with his hands and used the skinny pipe when making dramatic points.

  Shortly before dinner, a blast from a police whistle pierced the air as a petty officer wearing a red duty armband exploded into their quarters, "Outside now!" They formed up to get the word that they were shipping out that night, but to where they did not know.

  The naval radiomen would be embarking on the Enjū Maru, a 5,374-ton Canadian Merchant Marine vessel, originally known in 1919 as SS Canadian Miller, which once carried cargoes of canned salmon.44 She later sailed under a Greek flag, then Panama colors, and finally under the flag of the Rising Sun. As the men stood on the dock, Yasuo Kumakura said, "My first chance to go out to sea and it's not even on a proper naval vessel."

  Under a din of police whistles and shouts, Akikusa watched seemingly endless numbers of soldiers trudge up the steep gangway, heavy-laden in cloth-covered steel helmets, carrying rifles and transport packs on their backs. They disappeared into the ship's hold as if being devoured. When Akikusa's boarding group number was called the trio of radiomen; Akikusa, Kageyama and Kumakura, joined the others in shuffling below decks, and were met with the blended odors of fuel oil, diesel exhaust,
grease, rust, freshly assembled wooden crates, and sweat. A trip by troop transport in a convoy is a remarkable experience. Akikusa came to Iwo Jima that way.

  After several hours of waiting, Akikusa felt the deep rumble of the idling engines; the vibrations passed through the floor and into the humid summer air. The ship's steam whistles announced their departure. Akikusa almost expected a grand sendoff like in the newsreels, but there were no streamers or bands playing martial music. Things aren't often what we expect them to be. Once the ship was underway, the radio boys came topside to witness the lights of Tōkyō Bay slowly slip away. The enlisted men were allowed to move freely on deck, except for a small portion that was set aside for officers.

  No one could, or would, tell them where they were going, or how long it would take to get there. As the night fell, the young men searched the sky for the North Star to track their movements. The guiding star appeared on the starboard and then on the port side, telling Akikusa that they were moving in a zigzag pattern to avoid enemy submarines. In the dim moonlight he could see the faint wakes of other vessels but couldn't make out details due to blackout conditions. One of the vessels drew close; it looked to Akikusa like a stubby tugboat with a long rear deck, "That must be an escort destroyer," he noted to Kageyama. The sight of the warship was comforting. Soon, the North Star settled in one place, telling them they were heading south. The ocean was rough that night and the boat steadily rocked up and down through the inky darkness. "We must be headed to the Ogasawara Islands, don't you think?" asked Kageyama. Akikusa couldn't reply because he was too seasick. Akikusa was embarrassed, what kind of sailor gets seasick? Kumakura suggested he stare at the stars, maybe that would help. The young men looked up at the Milky Way studded with billions of tiny dots of light. "It was incredible, truly spectacular," recalled Akikusa.[26]