A Tomb Called Iwo Jima

by King, Dan

  (Signed) LtGen Kuribayashi, End.122

  The Japanese High Command released his statement to the public after revising it to "How regretful to fall." It seems those in charge didn't want the public to think that soldiers "felt sad" about dying for the Emperor, so they changed Kuribayashi's final message. The following day he was promoted, making the 53-year-old Japan's youngest full General.123

  Lieutenant Inada told Sergeant Kawai that the entire 109th Division staff was moving that night to link up with the remnants of the 145th Infantry Regiment. "You and your team will remain here under the command of Major (Kazumi) Oka to transmit messages so the enemy will think the Division is still in place," Inada said.[70] Major Oka was the officer in charge of preparing food for the men in Kuribayashi's bunker.

  The Division HQ officers would leave behind ninety wounded men and a squad of five radio operators. Those left behind, and those who were leaving, each received two Onshi Tabako cigarettes bearing the Imperial mum seal; these were gifts from the Emperor to be smoked with reverence. They were smoked with the golden printed mum seal facing upwards out of respect.

  The Olympian

  After the deaths of his friends Ensigns Nakamura and Yoshida, Satoru Ōmagari considered taking his small band of Navy survivors back to the Nanpō HQ bunker. However, Baron Nishi disbanded the tank-killer teams, so Ōmagari decided to stay for a while. Baron Nishi's group was running low on water. A week earlier, General Kuribayashi had ordered Captain Yoshinobu Hakuta and newly promoted 1st Lt Yasuhiko Murai to move their 314th Infantry Battalion from Higashiyama to reinforce Kuribayashi's 109th Division HQ in the north. Baron Nishi deduced that Captain Yoshinobu Hakuta couldn't have transported his remaining barrels of water and food supplies without the use of motorized vehicles. Captain Hakuta's bunker would be perfect for Baron Nishi's horseless cavalry and the mixed bag of stragglers.

  At 9:30 a.m. on March 14th, the Marine Corps conducted an official flag raising in the north at Kitano Point. With a great deal of handshaking and saluting, the American brass declared the island secure. Command and control was now to be transferred to the US Army. As a result, large numbers of US Army troops commenced landing on March 21st.124 As many Army veterans will attest, "No one told the Japanese the island was secure!" While the bulk of the Marines left the island, the 9th Marine Regiment stayed behind for two more weeks to help the US Army's 147th Infantry Regiment with their mopping up operations. The US Army fully took over from the Marines on April 4th.125

  Thanks to the hardworking Seabees, Iwo Jima's central and southern airfields were operational by the end of March.126 US Army P-51 fighter escorts arrived to give protection to the B-29s on their long missions to Japan. The US Navy Seabees and Army Pioneer units were often called upon to seal caves with their heavy equipment. Floodlights, trip flares, dogs, day patrols and night ambushes were effective, but it would take another two months to eradicate the stubborn Japanese.

  On the same day as Kuribayashi's farewell message, Baron Nishi's men headed for their new bunker at Higashiyama. Perhaps not impressed with Ōmagari's aircraft maintenance troops' lack of combat experience and recent desertions, Nishi ordered Ōmagari and twelve of his armed petty officers to the rear. Due to the effects of the American illumination flares and detours needed to avoid American positions, it took the entire night to move to the area where Captain Hakuta's abandoned bunker complex was supposed to be located. The bombing and naval shelling had changed the terrain dramatically, so much so that the exhausted troops were unable to locate any of the sealed entrances. Panic started to creep in; there wasn't time to make it back before the sunrise, and being caught in the open would mean a death sentence. Baron Nishi made the decision to move down to the rocky shoreline until dusk to avoid American patrols.

  At around 8:00 a.m., the Americans discovered Nishi's group and started a lop-sided firefight. Ōmagari was paralyzed with fear, and was unable to issue a single command. "I stayed hidden in the rocks. Every so often, one of our men would fire back at the Americans. It was a one-sided engagement. Our bolt action rifles made a pitiful ‘pop' sound, while the enemy had automatic weapons and plenty of ammunition," Ōmagari said. The rugged terrain prevented the Americans from advancing. The standoff sputtered when the Americans pulled back as night fell. In the darkness, Baron Nishi sent a squad to reconnoiter north towards Kuribayashi's Division HQ. The scouts returned three hours later reporting that there was no way to make it through. And with that, Baron Nishi led the unit back to the original bunker complex. As the Japanese trudged through the night, Ōmagari's spirits were lifted when he picked up a few cans of discarded American rations. "I could not imagine carelessly dropping food like the Americans did," he said.

  When the group returned to the 26th Tank Regiment bunker complex around 6:00 a.m., March 18th, they were shy about fifty men who had been either killed or inadvertently left behind on the rocky coastline. The Americans had blown the main entrance shut, but the soldiers quickly dug out a smaller side entrance. Inside were some of the wounded that were left behind. Baron Nishi believed the Americans would be back at first light, and told his men it is better to die out in the open than inside the tunnels. He posted skirmishers in foxholes around the area in preparation for a Japanese version of "Custer's Last Stand." As the sun climbed out of the sea, Ōmagari saw transport aircraft flying overhead bearing "big white stars." But for reasons unknown, there was no American activity around Baron Nishi's bunker. Ōmagari guessed that since the Americans had blown the bunker shut, they must have crossed it off their checklist. "They had no idea that we had reoccupied it so they left us alone," he said.

  Perhaps encouraged by a lack of aggressive enemy contact, Baron Nishi decided to head north to link up with Kuribayashi after dark. The group should have arrived before midnight, but Ōmagari said that the entire group went in circles until they came to a spot called Ginmeisui east of the 3rd airfield, at the cliff line near the shore.[71] At 3:00 a.m. or 4:00 a.m., the point guard walked into trip wires near a US machine gun nest. The Americans lit the area with flares and tracer fire. It became a grenade-duel as the Japanese conducted a fighting retreat to escape the kill zone. Ōmagari and his rear guard stayed with Baron Nishi's staff as they descended the cliffs, but became separated in the chaos.

  Ōmagari found himself alone, wedged into a tiny cave on the edge of the cliffs. The sun rose to the sound of waves pounding against the jagged shoreline below. Between 10:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m., Ōmagari heard machine gun fire from the area above him. Sometime after the firefight ended he heard dogs barking. Ōmagari was not afraid of dying, but was terrified of being ripped apart by dogs. He made the decision that if the dogs found him, he would take his own life with his pistol. Ōmagari drew his pistol and rotated the safety lever forward. He struggled to rack the semi-automatic pistol but it was frozen solid from months of neglect. He listened as the sound of the yelping dogs grew fainter, and then disappeared. "I had never once cleaned my pistol since coming to Iwo Jima," wrote Ōmagari.

  He waited until dark before climbing up from the cliff line where he encountered several friendly army and navy troops hiding in the little caves that dotted the cliffs. They grouped together and started for Baron Nishi's bunker complex. The survivors moved along the shoreline staying low in the water to avoid American patrols. It was too dangerous to head straight for the bunker, so it took them almost two days. He expected to meet up with LtCol Takeichi Nishi and the others, but neither he or anyone else had seen the Baron after the firefight. Ōmagari didn't actually witness Nishi's death, but is certain that he heard the firefight that ended his life.[72]

  On a historical note, Baron Takeichi Nishi wasn't the only Japanese Olympian to die on Iwo Jima. Thirty-three-year old Tatsugo Kawaishi was a swimmer who took the silver medal in the men's 100-meter freestyle at the Los Angeles Olympic games in 1932. Before the Pacific War, Kawaishi was an enlisted man who qualified for the Army's Officer C
andidate Course (like Shinjirō Nishi). After completing his tour of duty in the late 1930's, Kawaishi was discharged, got married and started a family. When the war worsened for Japan, Kawaishi was recalled and given a commission. And just like Corporal Tadashi Abe and Lieutenant Genichi Hattori, Tatsugo Kawaishi left his young family and headed to Iwo Jima. The silver medalist was in the 3rd Battalion, 17th Mixed Independent Regiment. Actual details of his death are vague.

  The Americans also had an Olympic medalist on Iwo Jima; 28th Marine Regimental commander LtCol Harry Liversedge (later BrigGen) won the Bronze Medal in the shot put competition at the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium.

  Buttoned up inside Baron Nishi's bunker, Ōmagari and the other stragglers remained in need of sustenance. US soldiers and Marines patrolling the area would fire at anything that moved, so the Japanese snuck out only late at night to forage for dropped boxes of American C and K rations. During one of these searches for food, Ōmagari found something glorious, a box hidden in a crevice. Inside were twenty slender, olive drab colored cans labeled "Beer." None of the men knew what exactly what to make of the cans of liquid because in Japan beer was only available in bottles. There was some discussion as to what the contents could be. It was decided the contents must be vegetables pickled in beer. The consensus was that since it was customary in Japan to make tsukemono (pickled vegetables) using sake rice wine, the Americans, who don't drink rice wine, must must use beer to pickle their vegetables.

  Using the tip of a bayonet, Ōmagari stabbed the top of one of the cans and sniffed cautiously at the contents. His nose told him all he needed to know. He held the can of liquid gold between trembling hands and pressed it to his lips. "The beer was fantastic! We all got drunk and had a wonderful time," Ōmagari said. He kept his eyes peeled for another windfall, but that was the only time they found any beer.[73]

  Inside the tanker bunker, the troops separated into army and navy groups that foraged independently and generally didn't mix with each other. The men obtained a few M-1 carbines, Thompson sub-machine guns, M-1 Garand rifles, BAR automatic rifles and various types of grenades. Some of the American weapons they discovered were damaged, but they were able to scavenge enough undamaged weapons to arm themselves. The M-1 Carbine and the Thompson sub-machine gun were the favorites due to their compact design and high-capacity magazines.

  Ōmagari warned his navy troops about growing careless and failing to cover their tracks. It didn't take long for the Americans to figure out there were stragglers in the area. The US Army's 147th Infantry Regiment systematically investigated the caves, making it dangerous to linger in any area for long. At the end of March, Ōmagari decided to take a handful of petty officers with him back to his original combat station at Captain Inoue's Nanpō HQ bunker. He reasoned there would be ample food and water, as well as friendlier naval personnel at the bunker.

  Ōmagari and his men moved quietly during the night. They lost their way time and time again. Many of the landmarks such as hills and terraces were leveled flat by the Seabees. He saw Motoyama Airfield at night. "It was illuminated and lined with countless shiny aircraft," Ōmagari said. His heart dropped into the pit of his stomach. The Iwo Jima he once knew was no more. He was amazed how quickly the Seabees had graded and enlarged the airfield. Ōmagari encountered Marsden matting, interlocking steel strips that could transform uneven fields into flat parking lots. The matting minimized enemy bomb damage and allowed for quick repair. "It would have taken us a year or more to do what the Seabees did in that single month," Ōmagari said. The Marsden matting would eventually be replaced by asphalt.

  No time for gawking - they needed to get underground before sunrise. The men located the bunker entrance area and crawled on their hands and knees, sniffing the ground like bloodhounds. They were searching for traces of human decay. "We could smell the tunnels, so knew we were in the right spot, but we had no tools so we couldn't dig out the entrance." The group reluctantly moved on in search of shelter.

  In the pre-dawn darkness, Ōmagari's men came across his former Naval Reserve classmate Ensign Kōhei Kikuta foraging along with two enlisted men. Both officers thought the other was killed when the invasion began. Ōmagari asked if his group could spend the night in Ensign Kikuta's bunker. Kikuta agreed, and took them to the bunker where an Army lieutenant in charge agreed to let Ōmagari's well-armed men enter the bunker. But upon entering, Ōmagari had second thoughts. Inside were about forty naked men and stacks of dead bodies.

  After a couple of days, the emotional and physical atmosphere of the bunker was deemed unhealthy, so Ōmagari suggested that Ensign Kikuta and his two sailors join his men in search of a new bunker. Ōmagari's group had canteens so they were able to negotiate admittance into another bunker by using sips of water as bargaining chips, "a sip was the price of admission," Ōmagari said. There were fifty or so men in the new bunker where the men formed tribes based on personal preference or home prefectures, and refused to acknowledge rank or protocol. Ōmagari described them as "undisciplined rabble." The troops were sloppy when they foraged for food and failed to properly cover their tracks. For safety reasons, Ōmagari and Kikuta decided to leave.127

  Ensign Satoru Ōmagari experienced several different bunkers and classified them into two categories; disciplined, and tribal. He concluded that one would live longer in a bunker ruled by discipline. During his time wandering, Ōmagari had witnessed unspeakable acts of violence as Japanese killed each other to survive. He said that without discipline and leadership, even good men reverted to a primeval state of kill-or-be-killed. Ōmagari witnessed men get strangled over something as trivial as a half-empty canteen of stale water, a cigarette or a few hardtack biscuits. Once, a lone straggler asked for permission to enter the bunker but gate guards demanded that the newcomer shake his canteen before they would let him in. The swishing sound proved the stranger's canteen was half full, so they invited him in and strangled him with a bootlace. The murdered man was a member of the Japanese military and a fellow human being, but it didn't matter. "I was numb. I did nothing to stop it, so I am just as guilty," Ōmagari said.

  "When men lose their minds, they turn into something much worse than animals," Ōmagari said. "A normal person would willing give a dying man a drink of water, but we wouldn't waste a drop of water on a dying man. We thought only of preserving our own lives." he said.128

  The US Marines, soldiers and seabees weren't the only enemy on the island. And it wasn't the age-old Japanese Army vs. Navy feud; it was "Japanese vs. Japanese." If one were inside the cave, one was a member of the "inside tribe," if one were trying to get into the cave, one was a member of the "outside tribe." Ōmagari said that water, food and, in particular, acts of mercy were in critically short supply. "My experiences changed me fundamentally. I lost faith in humanity. I tried to write about my experiences after the war but no publishers would work with me. They wanted uplifting tales of courage, not the shameful disgusting truth. I encountered no glory on Iwo Jima," he said.

  One night, Ōmagari's men happened upon one of Iwo Jima's rare freshwater puddles. They would sneak down at night to fill their canteens with the stagnant water. The Americans soon caught on and threw phosphorous grenades in the shallow water in order to make it unfit to drink. The stragglers had no choice but to choke down the bitter water. One night, the Americans set up an ambush at the watering hole but a few of the Japanese escaped the ensuing firefight and managed to make it back to the bunker to warn the others. A few nights later, Ōmagari and a few men investigated to see if the Americans were still guarding the water source. The ambush team was gone, but they had left behind the corpses of several Japanese soldiers that were rotting in the shallow water. Having no choice, the thirst-craved men knelt and filled their canteens with the foul slurry. One man took a swig and spat out a bit of human tissue, which quickly ended the use of the puddle as a source of drinking water.

  The Doctor's Dilemma

  At
one of the underground field hospitals, army doctor 1st Lt Kazuyoshi Morimoto wrestled with a moral dilemma. As a physician, he was sworn to protect human life, but the Japanese military code of ethics forbade surrender. He wrote that his hospital cave had three weeks worth of water when the Marines landed. But by the end of February, the steady flow of wounded who arrived at the hospital had depleted the water supply. Those in the hospital cave were reduced to a half-cup of stale water per day. Men were reduced to squeezing muddy water through a dirty cloth. The troops wanted to leave the field hospital in search of water but Dr. Morimoto refused to let anyone leave the cave, saying, "We are all going to die eventually, so why not die together?"129 Dr. Morimoto wrote, "We were taught that ‘Duty is heavier than a mountain, and that Life is lighter than a feather.'"130

  The US Army troops flooded the hospital cave with seawater, then with diesel fuel, which they set on fire. As a countermeasure, the Japanese erected a barrier, complete with blankets to keep grenades and smoke grenades from being thrown in. For a short time it worked.131 After a dozen more of his men lost their lives, Dr. Morimoto suggested surrendering to the survivors. Despite protests from three of his orderlies who worried about not being able to ever return to Japan, Dr. Morimoto surrendered his surviving patients and men.132

  In February 1985, Dr. Kazuyoshi Morimoto attended the first joint US-Japan "Reunion of Honor" held on Iwo Jima and is quoted as having said, "I survived and returned to Japan, but for forty years my heart has been here on Iwo Jima."133

  The Final Days

  On March 21st, Japanese Imperial General Headquarters announced that the defenders of Iwo Jima had perished on March 17th in a glorious general attack. Newspapers announced the selfless samurai-like end of the island's brave defenders.