A Tomb Called Iwo Jima

by King, Dan

  Rear-Admiral William H.P. Blandy's Task Force 52 arrived off the coast of Iwo Jima on Friday, February 16, 1945. Naval radioman Tsuruji Akikusa said that a thick fog blanketed the island that day. Akikusa peered through the mist to see ominous silhouettes of several ships anchored in the distance. The clouds gently lifted to reveal dozens of gray ghostly ships. Akikusa said, "The American ships were sitting ducks. Why didn't our planes come out to attack them?"

  With so many surface warships, submarines and aircraft in the Ogasawara Islands, the Americans enjoyed complete control over the sea and sky. Resupply for the Japanese was out of the question; the entire area was locked in a ring of steel that stretched below the water line and up through the clouds. Akikusa said at that time he wondered, how many ships could the enemy possibly have? They have several hundred ships pinning us here at Iwo Jima, yet they can simultaneous strike Tōkyō? Their Navy must be three times as large as ours.

  A formation of B-24 bombers droned overhead to deliver their payloads. The blue-eyed flyboys were hoping to knock out any beach defenses that might have survived previous air raids. From the perspective of the ships at sea, the island disappeared in explosive splashes of red that flickered along its purplish hump and spine, forming billows of dark smoke and dust. The smoke from the aerial bombs gave straining eyes aboard the ships only periodic glimpses of the island's volcanic cone.

  Akikusa estimated that 100 or more US Navy F6F Hellcats and Mariana-based P-38 fighters arrived overhead. On seeing the swarm of fighters, he was reminded of the clouds of hungry dragonflies that prowled the rice paddies back home. The fighters repeatedly strafed the island, but did little more than provide a buzzing distraction as they carpeted the island with spent .50 caliber brass shell casings and steel links.

  As a result of the US Navy's radio jamming operations, Japanese message runners had to dash through the tunnel systems hand delivering messages and status reports. The runners often had to travel above ground because all of the positions were not yet connected with tunnels. In addition to delivering messages, the runners were expected to return with their observations about the condition of the other bunkers, defenses and numbers of wounded.

  The noose of dark gray camouflage-patterned American warships grew tighter; Akikusa observed several battleships to the south. He had never seen a battleship, not even a friendly one, and was entranced by the enormous size. Offshore were the battleships USS New York, Tennessee, Nevada, Texas, Arkansas and Idaho. The cruisers USS Pensacola, Tuscaloosa, Chester, Salt Lake City and Vicksburg joined the battleships and destroyers. There were even more ships out beyond the second and third rings of navy gray. Akikusa felt that the blanket of US warships might even have reached as far as Kita Iwo Jima and Minami Iwo Jima. The battleships are moving now, jockeying into position, getting ready to fire, he noted. The Marines had requested a ten-day naval bombardment, but due to unfavorable weather and concerns over ammunition, the leathernecks would only get three days worth of pre-invasion support.

  Akikusa watched a lone battleship belch a silent orange flash. The other ships followed suit, firing their guns at the island. Akikusa witnessed fat shells arching in slow motion that ripped the earth open when they struck. Shells churned up the ground around Tamana-yama and Funami-dai. It looked as if a giant rotor-tiller had been thrust down into the soil launching truckloads of rocks and sand sky high. The smoky debris showered back to earth with a thudding roar, sounding like a herd of stampeding horses. Many times, there was little Akikusa could see because of the massive plumes of dust and dirt that were repeatedly sucked off the ground.

  Then, low hanging, heavy rain clouds covered the island. The rain prevented the US naval gunnery officers from accurately determining where the shells were hitting so the bombardment was temporarily halted.

  "We opened our bunkers to collect rainwater, but were careful not to move far from the entrances," Akikusa said. The rain soon passed, and the Japanese dashed back into their holes drenched to the skin, carefully cradling their containers of precious rainwater. The ships began firing again, almost as if the American gunners were jockeys, each trying to get to their racehorse out of the gate first.

  At noon, the ships' gunners took a breather while American aircraft arrived to strafe and drop bombs. Akikusa said the machine gun fire hitting the ground outside the bunker sounded like "heavy spring rain pounding on the roof." To this day, he finds the sound of heavy rain discomforting. This pattern of bombardment from the sea and air continued until roughly 4:00 p.m. An entire day of rolling thunder, rocking explosions, and vibrating earth set Akikusa's nerves on edge; he welcomed the sunset but feared it might be his last.

  As the evening fell, the warships moved back out to sea to open some distance between themselves and the island. There would be no rest for the shell-shocked Japanese troops. The darkness meant digging, excavating and backbreaking lifting in confined spaces for thousands of defenders as they dug out their collapsed bunker and tunnel entrances and air vents. There were fears the Americans would land that very night. There had been so many false alarms in the past, but perhaps this was the real thing; the defenders had experienced nothing so concentrated before.

  The US Navy was determined to give Kuribayashi and his troops no rest. The support ships fired star shells over the island that hung suspended from parachutes lighting up the terrain like a nighter at Yankee Stadium. The illumination rounds dangled like spiders, gently swinging to and fro, casting long, eerie shadows. The blinding flares put out 800,000 candlepower until their three-minute lives were extinguished.82 "When the flares died, they smoked and sparked like the senkō hanabi sparklers we played with as children," Akikusa said.

  The star shells also cast an ghostly pale light out to sea, faintly revealing silhouettes of darkened ships. "It looked like a mountain range had risen up out of the sea," Akikusa said.

  On this same day, Admiral Shigeyoshi Miwa (6th Fleet), ordered four submarines to prepare for action against the Americans operating off the coast of Iwo Jima; RO-43, I-44, I-368, and I-370. The three "I" submarines formed an underwater kamikaze unit called "Chihaya-Tai." They would use kaiten one-man suicide submarines that were carried into battle on the deck of a mother submarine. The pilot, or captain, of each kaiten would ram his human torpedo into an Allied ship. The Chihaya-Tai submarines began immediately practicing simulated kaiten attacks on towed targets in the Seto Naikai Inland Sea. The fourth submarine, RO-43 a non-Kaiten-carrying submarine, had already left for Okinawa, but it turned around and headed straight for Iwo Jima to conduct standard torpedo attacks.

  The four submarines carried a combined total of nineteen kaiten human-torpedoes and sixteen Type-93 Sansō Gyorai (Long Lance torpedoes), which had the combined potential to sink thirty-five ships.83

  PART 3

  Invasion

  The Americans Arrive

  The dawn broke on Saturday, February 17th with not a cloud in the sky. As the darkness slowly dissolved, the outline of the American ships sharpened. Following an aerial attack from Mariana-based B-24s, eager US Navy gunners sent a salvo of good-mornings to the Japanese defenders at 8:00 a.m. Akikusa watched the battleships USS Idaho, USS Nevada and USS Tennessee fire point blank at their assigned targets. He tried to describe the sound of so many guns firing at once, and shook his outstretched hands with a wild look in his eyes. Akikusa said that shells ripped large chunks of soil from the hillsides, shooting geysers of volcanic rocks and soil high into the air. Some of the shells ricocheted, arching high and away. Were the Americans trying to wake the volcano by punching a hole in it? Akikusa wondered.

  The ships pulled back to clear for the Underwater Demolition Team (UDT) operations. Four UDT teams were embarked in the Destroyer Transports Bull, Bates, Barr and Blessman. Seven destroyers provided cover for the landing craft carrying the frogmen to the beach. These UDT frogmen, whom Ernie Pyle, the famous war correspondent, tagged, "half fish and half nut
s" rolled into the 59-degree water about 300 yards from shore wearing short pants.84 "The first enemy troops I saw were the swimmers. They were bobbing up and down as they swam," said Akikusa. The UDT frogmen were pushing demolition bags and carried little tobacco sacks to gather sand for analysis.85 As the men crawled out of the surf, Akikusa saw what he thought were dark-skinned Pacific Islanders. Some of the frogmen were covered in grease as a protection against the cold water, which might have made them appear dark-skinned.86 Their primary jobs were to survey beach conditions and destroy beach obstacles. American planners needed firsthand assurance that tanks and jeeps could travel over the volcanic ash of Iwo's foreboding shoreline.

  The defenders exhibited more of their stoic fire-discipline as American phosphorous rounds landed to provide a smokescreen for the audacious swimmers.

  Akikusa estimated about 150 frogmen landed and occupied themselves with their work at the waterline. He expected to hear the bugle calls sounding the "commence fire" order. A feeling of panic gripped his chest, why isn't anyone firing? Did the shelling kill all of our gunners?

  A heavy machine gun opened fire, scattering the frogmen. The swimmers dashed into the surf under ribbons of tracer fire and mortar round splashes. "Yes! Get ‘em!" yelled Akikusa.

  In an instant, 5-inch naval rifles opened fire from Suribachi hitting the support vessels. The large caliber guns were well camouflaged in heavy concrete casemate block house bunkers. The volcano, which was silent throughout past bombardments, exploded into light and sound as first one, then another vessel was hit by Japanese gunners. Other guns to the northeast unleashed and scored six hits on USS Pensacola, killing seventeen of her crew and wounding nearly a hundred more.

  The heaviest fire came from a battery in the high ground just north of the beaches. The commander of US Task Force 54, RAdm Bertram J. Rogers, reported, "These batteries had remained concealed through over two months of softening preparation… because of their peculiar nature they could be neutralized only by point-blank fire."87 The ships fired back with a vengeance and snuffed out the concrete casemates one-by-one.

  Akikusa said the US Navy wasn't content to simply knock out the positions, they blasted them again, and again, to grind the broken rubble into dust. Had the Japanese held their fire until the actual landings two days later, it would have certainly resulted in a much higher butcher bill for the US Marines, soldiers and sailors involved in the first few waves. Akikusa guessed that the impatient Japanese gun crews had reached their emotional limit; they had endured months of shelling, bombing and strafing, and the sight of so many targets close to shore was too much to resist.

  Lieutenant (jg) Rufus G. Herring, commander of one of the gunboats supporting the frogmen, was wounded yet kept his ship in action. Herring was awarded the first of twenty-seven Congressional Medals of Honor in the battle for Iwo Jima, fourteen of which were award posthumously.88 89

  Shortly after 12:30 p.m., all but one of the swimmers from the eastern beach operation had been recovered. With every one of the supporting LCI(G)s damaged, none were available for the scheduled late afternoon reconnaissance of the western beaches on the opposite side of the island. Undeterred, the leader of the mission, Capt B. Hall Hanlon, asked for smoke planes, and for the ships to fire white phosphorus shells. The UDT frogmen made their second reconnaissance with little resistance and no casualties.

  A possible explanation for the lack of resistance to the second UDT mission against the western beaches could be found in the smokescreen. When the planes released the white billows of smoke, Akikusa was convinced, (even until recently) that the Americans were releasing poison gas, or the insecticide DDT to incapacitate the defenders. Akikusa and the others donned their gasmasks and plugged their observation ports with blankets and sandbags, thus blinding themselves to the second UDT mission. One of the radiomen found dark humor in the perceived use of DDT, and quipped, "What do they think we are, head lice?" This misunderstanding on the use of DDT seems to have arisen from the holdouts that later watched American planes criss-cross the island spraying DDT after the battle to kill the swarms of flies that were feasting on the dead.90

  After the second UDT mission, the defenders sent optimistic reports to Imperial General HQ that quickly found their way into NHK's daily English radio propaganda program called "Zero Hour" that aired at 6:00 p.m.[56] Following the playing of a few American songs, a female announcer who called herself "Orphan Anne" stated, "The brave defenders of Iwo Jima have repulsed the Marine Corps landing after the heaviest concentration of fire in the war." She went on to proclaim, "The Marines have turned tail and run [sic]."91

  On February 18th, Kuribayashi ordered Colonel Kanehiko Atsuchi to leave the 109th Division HQ bunker to take command of the Suribachi Defense Sector. It is likely that Major Haruhiko Matsushita (10th Independent Anti-Tank Battalion) retained direct control of the Suribachi Defense Sector, while Colonel Atsuchi acted as an advisor. Colonel Atsuchi took his new post one day prior to the invasion, in the midst of a three-day bombardment. It is remarkable that he was able to traverse the island and move from the northernmost part of the island down to the foot of Mount Suribachi.

  At the Tamana-yama Communications Unit bunker, radioman Tsuruji Akikusa's fragile optimism was shattered as the overcast dawn revealed countless ships jockeying into position to fire. The Americans were not going away. The weary defenders had worked through the night, repairing their fighting positions, cleaning debris from firing ports, and running messages. Rainclouds gathered over the island fortress as the ships moved to within a few hundred yards of the southern shore, so close that Akikusa thought they might scrape their hulls. At 8:00 a.m., the ships opened fire.

  At the neighboring Nanpō bunker, Ensign Satoru Ōmagari received a messenger with an order to confirm rumors that the 5-inch naval gun at Kamiyama had been destroyed and enemy troops had landed. This casemated gun was located southeast of Tamana-Yama between East Boat Basin and Tachikawa Point in a rocky area. Ōmagari sent a petty officer and a squad of enlisted men to confirm the report. They returned to state the gun had been destroyed but no enemy troops had landed. Ōmagari needed to get this information to Captain Inoue's neighboring Nanpō HQ bunker so he rushed out into the zigzag communication trenches, keeping low as he moved. But the trenches were filled with debris, and in some places had collapsed. Ōmagari crawled the short distance to the bunker, with shrapnel snapping and buzzing overhead.

  Once inside the Headquarter bunker, Ōmagari witnessed LtCdr Sosonosuke Tachikawa chew out a small group of men, saying, "How dare you desert your post in the face of the enemy!" Ōmagari quickly surmised the men were survivors from the Kamiyama 5-inch naval gun.[57] Tachikawa punched and kicked each man in turn, and then then drew his sword and threatened to execute them if they didn't return to their gun position saying, "The supreme commander of the island has forbidden retreat. All hands will defend their posts to the death."92 The survivors of the smashed naval gun headed back out into the maelstrom.

  At noon, now back in his own bunker, Ensign Ōmagari received a runner with a message from LtCdr Tachikawa. The messenger said, "Ensign Ōmagari is instructed to retrieve the landmines from the airfield. End of message." Ōmagari was aghast, and had the man repeat the outrageous message. Had Tachikawa lost his mind? Unwilling to question Tachikawa's orders and risk a summary execution, Ōmagari told the runner that he understand and would obey the order.

  Ensign Ōmagari waited until dusk and gathered up his thirty-man team and headed to Chidori Airfield where he encountered a jaw-dropping view of the US task force assembled off shore. The airfield was almost untouched so he guessed that the Americans planned to use it soon. Upon seeing the condition of the airfield, Ōmagari felt that the enemy would be landing at first light.

  Ōmagari's men moved to quickly, and carefully, recover all twenty-four landmines that they worked so hard to place. As darkness fell, they continued their labor under the li
ght of illumination rounds fired from the ships. Ōmagari couldn't explain why they weren't fired on, but presumed the American naval gunners were ordered not to shell the airfield. Per the instructions he received from LtCdr Tachikawa, Ōmagari transported the bombs to one of the Kugishō rocket team bunkers (to be converted into rocket-bombs) and then drove back to the Nanpō HQ bunker. With his hands quivering from the adrenaline rush, Ōmagari made his verbal report to LtCdr Tachikawa, and then shared his own theory as to why the airfield was unscathed. Tachikawa shook his head in disbelief, saying that Ōmagari must be mistaken. Ensign Satoru Ōmagari returned to his own bunker in frustration.

  The naval bombardment intensified on Monday morning, February 19th. The battleships USS North Carolina and Washington added their 16-inch shells to the orchestra of destruction. The cruisers USS Indianapolis, Santa Fe and Biloxi brought more 8-inch and 6-inch guns to the one-sided battle artillery duel. The island had been broken into target areas which bore numbers. Each numbered target area was further broken down into twenty-five smaller squares that were identified with letters. For example, the Nanpo Naval Air Group bunker was in target area 201-R. Each ship was given targets in their assigned areas. The US Navy was methodically trying to lay waste to Iwo Jima.

  There were periodic lulls to allow carrier-based airplanes to bomb, strafe, and fire rockets as the curtain went up on the battle. A ship that had survived the Pearl Harbor attack, USS West Virginia, arrived later in the day to join the fracas.

  The Marines are Landing

  Akikusa watched boats carrying troops head towards the island, and described odd-looking tracked vehicles and tanks that came ashore ahead of the Marines.

  Growing in the soil outside of Akikusa's vision port were a few lavender-colored flowers, looking much like morning glories. Akikusa had not taken notice of the delicate petals before, and felt it as a sign from heaven that he would survive the battle.