by King, Dan
Hershel Williams, who goes by the nicknames "Woody" and "Hershey," told the author when they met in Charleston, West Virginia, in 1997, "I wouldn't call myself a hero. I was doing what I was trained to do." Williams, who is also a veteran of the Guam campaign, was wounded on March 6th and evacuated. At the time of this writing, 90-year-old Hershel Williams is the last surviving Medal of Honor Recipient from the battle of Iwo Jima.103
The Return of the Bettys
On the night of February 23rd, the same day that Hershel Williams earned his Medal of Honor, seven Betty bombers from the K704th Squadron left Kisarazu Airfield and set out to hit the US Marines on the beach. According to Ensign Masayoshi Nemoto, three of the Bettys turned back due to bad weather, two planes aborted due to engine trouble, and two Bettys disappeared without a trace.
A second attempt with only four Bettys was planned for the following night, February 24th. Ensign Nemoto's bomber, carrying radioman PO1/c Iwao Yamada, was one of the four Bettys assigned to the raid. This time, Yamada would be going to Iwo Jima to drop bombs and not deliver supplies. Yamada did not like the possibility of killing friendly troops.
Around 3:00 p.m., the entire K704th Squadron was called to a formation at which Admiral Kinpei Teraoka gave a speech to the aircrews of the four Bettys slated for the night time attack. The men were instructed to look for a line of blinking blue lights that would mark the front lines. They were to drop their twelve 60 kg bombs and then use the 20 mm tail gun to strafe as they departed. It wasn't called a suicide mission, but Yamada felt it was going to be a one-way trip.
That night, the Betty bombers left Kisarazu Airfield and passed the Izu Islands before making sight of Smith Island at 7:37 p.m.104 In an attempt to confuse US radar operators, they headed to Torishima and then changed course for the Ogasawara Islands. As they neared Chichi Jima, searchlights pierced the darkness and then captured the plane. One, then another of the brilliant white rays stabbed the aircraft filling it with blinding light. Crack shot anti-aircraft crews were tracking the bombers, and were moments from firing when Ensign Nemoto used the handheld blinker light to flash the friendly code "M.I." to the troops below. A moment later the brilliant lights went out.[61] Yamada Yamada prayed that they still had the element of surprise but was concerned that American night fighters had spotted the searchlights and would be on the alert. Even accounting for the curvature of the earth, the searchlights would have been visible for at least fifty miles. "Someone failed to inform Chichi Jima about our mission and it nearly got us killed," he said.
The Bettys then made a heading for the island of Kita Iwo Jima at the height of 9,000 feet. As the planes droned south, Ensign Nemoto set a new course in order to skirt the island of Haha Jima to avoid a similar mishap.
The silence was interrupted as the intercom crackled with the voice of the greenhorn gunner, Airman 1/c Tsunehara, whose young voice squeaked the urgent warning, "Enemy fighter!"
Dammit, they saw the searchlights. Airman 1/c Tsunehara was manning the top turret and had trained his 20 mm cannon towards a light in the distance. The other gunners scanned the sky and waited for enemy tracer rounds to tear through their thin-skinned bomber. But after several tense minutes, it was determined the jumpy dorsal gunner had mistaken the planet Mars for an enemy fighter's running light. Tsunehara's snafu put the entire crew on edge, but he was forgiven because it was his first combat mission. In an attempt to calm the men, Ensign Nemoto called out for an intercom check. One by one the men checked in. Then once again, silence.
At 8:00 p.m., the bombardier spotted Iwo Jima in the distance resembling a bed of glowing, writhing hot coals Yamada pushed forward in the cabin for a better view. The eerie beauty of countless lights, silent explosions, tongues of flame and sparks below captivated him. Yamada began to shiver but it wasn't from the cold. "I saw streams of friendly tracer rounds pouring out from the northern half of the island towards the beaches, so I knew our boys were holding out," he said. The plane changed course as the crew tossed out bundles of chaff to confuse American radar operators and anti-aircraft gunners. Yamada said that the night sky behind them was filled with searchlights and colorful tracers as anti-aircraft guns from countless ships fired into the darkness. Streams of tracer shells arched upwards leaving glowing trails before exploding, which reminded Yamada of a fireworks show. Flashbulbs of light reflected off the Betty's wings and through its windows; the acrid smell of gunpowder filled the cabin as the explosions drew closer. He could hear shrapnel pinging and banging as it struck the aircraft. A near miss threw Yamada from his seat. It was only a matter of time before they get us, he thought. Ensign Nemoto described the fire as "thousands of brilliant arrows forming a curtain of light."
There was a Betty flying several miles in front of Yamada's plane that disintegrated in a bright explosion of light and color. Men and flaming debris tumbled to the ocean below. There were no survivors because Yamada said the bomber crews didn't wear parachutes.
Yamada has no explanation for why his plane was able to fly through the long brilliant streaks of light without being blown into pieces. The bombardier hunched over the bombsite as the target drew closer. The crew had their eyes fixed below, searching for the friendly blue lights. The bombardier did not want to release the payload on his countrymen. Yamada looked down to see American illumination rounds suspended above the battlefield by parachutes, casting a bluish-white ghostly light on the terrain. "It was what hell must look like," said Yamada. Here and there, long flames of fire stretched out and disappeared. "I see the lights!" shouted one of the crew. The blue lights marking the front lines weren't blinking but were solid and pointing straight up. The pilot made a course heading for the final bomb run while the gunners dumped more chaff. The bombardier flipped the switch at 8:20 p.m., taking less than one second to release twelve 60 kg bombs.
The pilot fishtailed and side slipped down and away from the target as the crew released more bundles of chaff. Ensign Nemoto wrote the time in his logbook noting that they had been under fire for eighteen minutes. He later said that it felt like three hours.
As the bomber fled from Iwo Jima, Radioman Iwao Yamada looked down and saw hundreds of ships under way, betrayed by luminescent wakes. Stunned at the number of vessels he saw, he says he knew that Iwo Jima was doomed.
Once the plane was at a safe distance, Ensign Nemoto checked on the crew, then cracked open a bottle of lemon soda to celebrate their survival. The Betty landed back at Kisarazu at 12:23 a.m., and turned out to be the first one back. Ensign Nemoto made his report to the squadron commander who who then made marks on a large map of Iwo Jima.
Admiral Teraoka appeared at the control center to proudly share the contents of a message he received from General Kuribayashi expressed gratitude for the bomb run and a desire for further support. The Admiral congratulated the crew on a job well done, and suggested they get to bed. However, due to the adrenaline rush of combat, and concern for the other Bettys, Ensign Nemoto, radioman Yamada and the rest of the crew elected to wait up until dawn, but no other planes returned.
Yamada had seen one plane go down over Iwo Jima but didn't immediately know the fate of the other two aircraft. He later learned that the second plane had taken flak in the left engine and diverted to Chichi Jima where it crash-landed. The remaining Betty took flak damage, jettisoned its bombs and managed to limp to Toyohashi Airfield. It turned out that Iwao Yamada's Betty was the only plane to drop their bombs on target.
One of those on the receiving end of this raid was Sergeant Cyril "Cy" O'Brien. A veteran of the Guadalcanal and Guam campaigns, O'Brien was a combat correspondent attached to the Third Marine Division. Although the division was held in reserve, O'Brien had "worked his bolt" and arranged for him and his bulky field typewriter to go in piggybacking with the Fifth Marine Division. On the night of February 24th, O'Brien was sleeping in a foxhole when the night came alive with anti-aircraft tracer fire from the ships. "It was like t
he Fourth of July, I tell ya," said O'Brien in a 2010 trip to Iwo Jima with the author.[62] "It looked like everyone in the Fleet was trying to bring him down. He dropped his bombs and got away. Don't ask me how he did it, but he got away," said O'Brien.
During the same 2010 visit, Cy O'Brien met Betty bomber gunner Hikōji Nozaki (K704th Attack Squadron). O'Brien shared what it was like to be on the receiving end of a Betty bomber attack. Typical of when WWII veterans meet their former foes, the pair of veterans traded honest smiles and handshakes. Through the author acting as interpreter, Nozaki joked to O'Brien, "If I would have known it was you down there, we wouldn't have dropped bombs on you."
Cy responded, "And if I'da known it was you up there, I would've told ‘em not to shoot at you!"
In 1974, Ensign Masayoshi Nemoto was interviewed by NHK radio about the February 24th mission. During the course of the interview, Nemoto mentioned the blue lights marking the front lines. A man named Haruo Sakuma who had been a 12 cm AA gunner stationed at Iwo Jima's Osaka-yama, contacted Nemoto. Sakuma had survived the battle and was captured. According to Sakuma, the defenders had been promised a parachute resupply drop that night. Sakuma was ordered to hold a light with a blue filter to mark the drop zone, but the only Japanese supplies that fell on Iwo Jima were bombs. Sakuma was disappointed, but told Nemoto he was grateful that the Marines' attention was directed upward, which took pressure off the Japanese troops for a little while.105
Akikusa and the Tank
While the Americans owned the island by day, the Japanese defenders took temporary possession of the island at night. Despite the constant illumination flares, Japanese troops would take advantage of the darkness to conduct kirikomi (small scale banzai) raids and forage for enemy supplies. One night, Akikusa left Tamana-yama looking for supplies. He came across one of LtCol Nishi's tanks. "It was buried up to the turret, but it didn't look damaged so I guessed the crew had abandoned it when they ran out of ammunition," he said. The hope of finding something he could eat or drink drove him to explore the interior of the vehicle. "I waited until the illumination flare went out, and then crawled up to open the commander's hatch." Being a navy man, he'd never seen the interior of a tank before. The inside of the hatch was covered in a coating of white asbestos. Akikusa peeked down into the turret, and he was greeted by the horrible smell of decay. The next flare that blossomed overhead illuminated the smeared and broken remains of the crew. Akikusa quickly scrambled away from the tank. "It looked like the crew had been through a blender," he said. He decided never to look inside a tank again.
Underwater Kamikaze
The Sixth Fleet commander, Admiral Shigeyoshi Miwa, had high hopes for his submarines and the kaiten pilots. But despite their best efforts, only the RO-43 was able to launch an attack using conventional torpedoes. On February 21st, the same day as the kamikaze attack, RO-43 damaged the destroyer USS Renshaw (DD-449), killing nineteen of her crew. On February 26th, aircraft from the escort carrier USS Anzio (CVE-57) sank RO-43 and I-368. That same day, the destroyer escort USS Finnegan (DE-307) located and sank I-370.
On March 1, a pair of kaiten laiden submarines, I-58 and I-36, were formed into the Shinbu-tai attack unit. They left Hikari submarine base for Iwo Jima to support the floundering Chihaya-tai attack unit.[63]
The submarine I-44, which also failed to launch any kaiten, was unable to maneuver for an attack due to aggressive US Navy anti-submarine warfare (ASW) forces. On March 6th, the I-44 and the newly arrived I-58 and I-36 were ordered to disengage.106
There were two other ocean-going Kamikaze units in the area; located 120 miles away at Haha Jima were the 3rd and 4th Shinyō-tai units. They were ordered to attack with their suicide speedboats loaded with 250 kg explosives. Haha Jima's keibitai commander stated that the fifteen-foot boats were intended for the defense of his own island, and besides, with a range of only 125 miles, Iwo Jima was too far away for them to operate effectively.[64]
Akikusa Wounded
On March 1, 1945, the Third and Fifth Marine Divisions moved up the center and west coast of the island. The Fourth Marine Division turned to the right to clear the area east of Motoyama Airfield and south of Hill 362C. Both Ōmagari and Akikusa found themselves located in a stout salient that included Nidan Iwa (Radar Hill or Hill 382), the Amphitheater, Charlie Dog Ridge, Tamana-yama Communications Bunker (Turkey Knob) and the destroyed former village of Minami. In this fantastically rugged area, the Japanese had strengthened the natural defenses by using cement, rebar, and boulders to transform the entire sector into a mighty fortress with interlocking fields of fire.
During the desperate fighting required for the Marines to seize and hold this strongpoint, those interlocking positions become known collectively as the "The Meat Grinder." Ōmagari said he could easily understand why the Marines called it that. He said, "Men didn't just die on Iwo Jima, they were ripped apart, torn to shreds and scattered. I saw torsos with no limbs, dismembered legs, arms and hands, and internal organs splashed onto the rocks."
Captain Fred Haynes (later MajGen), the Operations Officer for the 28th Combat Team, might have summed it up best when he said, "Each day we learned new ways to die."107
The shattered remains of a radar station, casemated field pieces and antitank weapons covered the top of Hill 382. Supporting machine-gun emplacements protected the concrete gun housings. In addition, LtCol Takeichi Nishi's light and medium tanks were dug in as pillboxes. From Hill 382, the land sloped to the south and east in a semicircular series of ridges and draws leading down from the plateau like giant steps. Roughly 600 yards to the south of Hill 382 rose a tough nut of a hill the Marines dubbed "Turkey Knob." It functioned as an observation post overlooking the entire southern end of the island. The high ground at Turkey Knob fell away to the southwest to form an exposed natural killing field known as "The Amphitheater." The Japanese strengthened the natural defenses in this area by constructing three tiers of heavy concrete emplacements in the south-sloping hill face. From these positions, 47 mm antitank guns and machine guns swept the southern approaches to Turkey Knob.108
Akikusa heard the rumbling of tanks and the terrifying whoosh of flames. "The flamethrower tanks were awful. I heard our troops screaming. The sounds combined to form a buzzing sound like radio static," said Akikusa. An officer told the men to be quiet because if they could hear the tanks, the Marines could hear them in the tunnels. "We talked in whispers," said Akikusa. "At night the Marines would pull back to consolidate and abandon their daytime fighting positions. We would crawl out to search those positions for discarded food," Akikusa said.
On the night of March 1st, with water and ammunition running low, the situation inside Tamana-yama was desperate. Akikusa explained, "Our orders were to defend our position to the death. But our communications equipment was down for lack of parts. Why did we have to protect broken equipment with our lives?"
An officer asked for volunteers to take a message to Captain Inoue's Nanpō HQ bunker. No one raised his hand. Akikusa felt he should set an example because unlike many of the others, he had volunteered for military service and was not a draftee. The officer asked again. Akikusa thrust his arm in the air. One by one, seven more hands went up. Akikusa was surprised to see his friend Shōji Kageyama's hand down at his side.
Each runner was given the same message orally and ordered to repeat it. They were to deliver the information to Captain Inoue's Nanpō bunker. As Akikusa moved towards the exit, Kageyama grabbed his arm and urged him to be extra cautious.
Akikusa said, "Don't worry, I'll be right back."
Akikusa recalled that the messengers' progress to the Nanpō bunker was hampered by the illumination rounds that made them freeze in their tracks countless times. They were almost to the bunker when Akikusa saw bright flashes of light. He dove to the ground as a shell screamed and exploded nearby. His ears were ringing. Akikusa and called out for the other messengers, but, if they responded, he
couldn't hear them. Were they all dead?
Akikusa waited a few moments then crawled forward on his stomach. Then came another flash, and what felt like a baseball bat to his chest. Everything went black and silent. He couldn't tell if his eyes were open or shut, or if he was breathing or not. "I was cold. It felt like large blocks of ice were crushing me. I didn't feel any pain. I wanted to make sure I was in one piece, so I ran my hands across my shoulders and arms, and then touched my chest and stomach. My shirt and trousers were wet." He felt a bloody mess on his left thigh. "I tried to sit up but my legs were trapped. I called out for help, but no one answered," he said.
Akikusa twisted onto his side to free himself from the rocks and sand that held him captive. His eyesight slowly returned as an illumination flare floated down to earth and went out with a fizzle. He felt seasick.
Akikusa tried to get to his feet but his left leg collapsed, sending him down into a pile of jagged rubble. He decided to crawl on his hands and knees. Slowly, his hearing began to return. "I heard small arms fire whizzing and cracking so I stayed low," he said. He came across a shallow zigzag trench and rolled over the lip down into it, knowing it would lead to a bunker entrance. He crawled forward and found a partially sealed cave entrance. He summoned his last ounce of strength and screamed for help. But after hearing no response he laid his head down and closed his eyes and surrendered to the sleep.
His next sensation was being dragged across cragged rocks by unseen hands that pulled him down through a small cave opening. He found himself inside a tunnel, when a voice ordered him to get on his feet but he couldn't move.
In the dimly light tunnel a familiar voice said, "Is that Akikusa?" It was his pipe-smoking friend Yasuo Kumakura.