A Tomb Called Iwo Jima

by King, Dan

  After two months of constant contact with US Marines and Army troops, Ōmagari's little band of men had become experts at evading detection. Ōmagari had seen many things: beaches packed with landing craft; cranes, bulldozers and steam shovels that chewed away at the earth like hungry termites; floodlit airfields lined with aircraft; and floodlights mountains of supplies. He was in awe of the transformation. Although Ōmagari's small group was well-armed with American weapons, their purpose was not to kill, but to survive. On the second or third night of May, Ensign Satoru Ōmagari led Ensign Kikuta and a handful of armed men through barbed wire and trip flares to the Nanpō bunker.[77] In order to detect the trip wires in the dark, the Japanese walked slowly bent over with their hands out in front of them like crawdads. There were American tents, machine gun nests, and vehicles on the roads to avoid.

  Ōmagari and the others reached the bunker area but couldn't find the entrance so they crawled on their hands and knees, sniffing at the ground like bloodhounds. They happened upon a man huddled up in a small space in the rocks and asked if he was from the Nanpō bunker. The man pointed to an area in the dark and quickly scampered away. Ōmagari and his men spent the next several hours trying to find an entrance.

  Finally, one of them happened upon a small opening to the Navy Accounting Storekeeper bunker, which was connect by a tunnel to the Nanpō bunker. After some digging, Ōmagari approached the tiny opening and was met with bayonet points. He figured that once he officially announced himself, he would be recognized and welcomed back into the bunker complex. After all, there should still be a few men inside that he had previously commanded during the airfield work.

  He said, "This is Ensign Ōmagari of the Nanpō bunker. I am returning to my combat post." He was met with silence. Several of Ōmagari's men shouted confirmation to those inside guarding the entrance with fixed bayonets. The guards refused to allow him in but instead sent for a runner who listened to Ōmagari's story, and then disappeared for quite some time. The runner returned to relay a message from Commander Tachikawa who not only denied the request, but ordered the intruders to leave. Ōmagari asked the runner to speak with the commander again, but the runner refused saying, "I am sorry, sir. These are his direct orders." Ōmagari looked at the faces of the guards aiming their rifles at him and made the decision to take his party back to the small bunker to talk things over.

  Over the next two days, the men in Ōmagari's group discussed the situation. There had to be food and water in the Nanpō bunker, or else why would the occupants defend it? The occupants had no right to hoard the supplies that were intended for fellow naval personnel. One of the petty officers suggested barging their way past the guards and if there was violence and shooting, so be it. "Either they die, or we die," the man said. The others agreed.

  Ōmagari's eight armed men returned to the entrance determined to enter or die in the attempt. An armed sentry tried to stop the group but they brushed him aside. Another guard raised his rifle and warned them to halt. In response, one of Ōmagari's men fired a burst from his Thompson sub-machine gun into the ceiling and shouted, "How dare you aim your weapon at a naval officer!" Thinking the Americans were assaulting the entrance, more armed guards appeared with rifles at the ready.

  Ōmagari demanded to be readmitted into the bunker, but the guards countered saying that Commander Tachikawa had ordered that those who left the bunker were forbidden to re-enter. Ōmagari refused to back down, stating he had the legal right to return to his original battle station. The guards claimed that the island's military command structure was disbanded after the general attack, so Ōmagari was not recognized as a member of the late Captain Inoue's former Nanpō unit. Captain Inoue was dead and the bunker was under the control of Tachikawa, therefore Ōmagari was no longer part of the Nanpō Shotō Naval Air Group command structure. As a result, Ōmagari and his men would not be permitted to enter. Ōmagari's men continued to declare themselves to be lawful occupants, and held their ground. As neither side would back down, the men were on the brink of a friendly-fire disaster.

  In the midst of the shouting, a runner from deep inside the tunnel arrived with a message from Commander Tachikawa stating that he had granted Ōmagari's request to re-enter the bunker.

  Ōmagari said there were some men inside the Nanpō bunker who warmly welcomed him, but there were others who did not. One of those unhappy with the forced entry was radioman Tsuruji Akikusa, who hadn't heard of Ōmagari until the day he bullied his way into the bunker. Akikusa commented, "The outsiders were heavily armed, and threatened to shoot anyone who opposed them. They had no right to enter our bunker, but did so by force."

  Ōmagari soon found a flight suit to replace his filthy uniform. He was satisfied with getting a daily ration of food and water without having to risk his life stealing it.

  Surprise in the Tunnel

  Ivan Prall was a US Army combat photographer who landed on Iwo Jima on March 4, 1945, and stayed until October 1945. When the war broke out, Prall was a student at Northern Illinois University. He had studied photography as an elective. He enlisted in the US Army on August 7, 1942. Prall went through boot camp at Camp Roberts in California, before serving in the 78th Infantry Regiment in North Carolina. He volunteered for duty overseas and traveled through California's Port of Chicago (north of San Francisco), then to the Dutch East Indies, to New Caledonia, and then to Fiji. It was on Fiji that he learned that aerial photographers were in high demand. Ivan Prall volunteered, and found himself in Hawaii taking a photography course. He was then sent to Saipan where he was assigned to VII Fighter Command as a flying photographer. He was then sent to Iwo Jima.

  On Iwo Jima, Ivan Prall spent much of his time with the Seabees "because they had better chow," he said. Ivan exchanged his Army-issued uniform for the more comfortable cotton shirts worn by the Seabees. The Seabees built Prall a small water tower so he could take showers, and a dark room to develop his negatives. Ivan was an admitted souvenir hunter and brought back an assortment of trophies; rifles, helmets, fans, a pistol, ammo pouches, flags and a sword. He traveled around the island, documenting Japanese fortifications, bunkers and weapons. He took photos of heavy mortars, AA guns, tanks and other vehicles.

  Prall experienced a couple of close calls with Japanese combatants in April and May, 1945. One of his missions was to photograph Japanese installations. He once looked down a nearly vertical cave shaft and spotted a sword. Despite being duly warned about booby traps, he tied a rope around his waist and scampered down the incline. Further down the tunnel he saw a barricade of rocks and sandbags. As Prall picked up the sword, he heard snoring from inside the cave and scrambled out as fast as he could. One of his buddies begged him for the sword saying he could sell it for $10, which would get him into "the big poker game." Prall gave the man the sword and warned the others about the dozing enemy inside. A few days later, a Seabee spotted a rifle down in the same hole and climbed down to retrieve it. He was shot and died the next day. "That incident made me a lot more cautious," wrote Prall.146

  While most Marines and soldiers on Iwo Jima never saw a living, breathing enemy soldier, Ivan Prall encountered three of them. On one occasion, Prall and another man went to photograph what was classified as a headquarters cave. They discovered it was not a simple cave, but a maze of tunnels and connected chambers. Prall found an army enlisted pith helmet resting on a shelf carved out of the wall. Prall pushed the flexible cloth-covered split-bamboo pith helmet into his pack.[78] He also found some photographs in an officer's trunk. He and the other man continued to explore the cave. They shined their flashlights down the passageway and were startled by a rustling sound. The explorers doused their lights and made a beeline through the pitch darkness for the exit. Prall said that a souvenir-hunter was between him and the exit. In a panic, Prall punched and shoved the man ahead of him, all the while the other photographer was pushing Prall from behind. "We wanted nothing more than to get out of that tunnel!
" said Prall.

  At the sunlit entrance, the three men piled on top of each other under a chorus of shouts and gunfire as American soldiers fired their M-1 rifles down into the cave and tossed in grenades. Prall untangled himself from the dog pile to discover the "souvenir-hunter" was an emaciated Japanese soldier. "I don't know who was more surprised, me or him!" said Prall. The sickly Japanese straggler offered no resistance and was turned over to the MPs.

  The second incident occurred while Prall was photographing caves on the western shore of the island. He had a few men with him and was carrying two cameras and a .45 pistol. "A Jap came running out of a small cave with a rifle. He was pointing that bayonet right at me so I turned and ran. I yelled, ‘shoot him, somebody shoot him'. One guy's carbine jammed so he scattered, too. Someone else got the Jap in the top of the helmet," said Prall. The Japanese soldier dropped his weapon and ripped off his helmet before scrambling back into the cave. Other Americans rushed to the entrance to toss in grenades. Prall crawled up to the Japanese helmet and picked it up. It had a net on it with bits of dried leaves and grass woven in. The bullet had grazed the top of the Japanese soldier's head and exited the back of the helmet, leaving a blood splatter inside the crown. If the Japanese soldier didn't die immediately, it is doubtful he lasted long with such a horrific head wound.[79]

  The third incident occurred during a card game in one of the Seabee six-man tents about a mile north of Suribachi. Without warning, the center tent pole and the ground around it collapsed, revealing a tunnel. Exposed in the hole at their feet were a thin Japanese man and another who retreated back into the tunnel. The Japanese soldier was hauled out and taken to the field hospital. Eager to get the tent set back up and the game going, the Seabees trucked in a load of gravel and dumped it in the hole.

  Prall said that the Japanese would sometimes hide in wrecked ships along the western shore. Prall explained that during the search for stragglers he observed a Japanese LST with some tanks still on deck. The Japanese couldn't get them unloaded because the ships were too badly damaged or had listed too far.

  The Great Escape

  One day, an enlisted man approached Ensign Ōmagari with a request. The man said that LtCdr Sosonosuke Tachikawa had announced a plan to steal an American plane and fly back to Japan. The man reasoned that Ōmagari knew the outside terrain and could help Tachikawa achieve his goal. Ōmagari was stunned at the absurdity of this idea, but understood the underlying message, Help us get rid of this madman. Ōmagari agreed to do what he could.

  Radioman Akikusa heard about the plan as well and recalled how foolish it seemed.

  Several days later, Ōmagari had almost forgotten about the harebrained scheme when Commander Tachikawa called for him. Tachikawa asked Ōmagari what he knew about the status of the island's Japanese defenses. Without letting on that he already knew of Tachikawa's plan, Ōmagari explained truthfully that the surviving troops were scattered into disorganized pockets, and the Americans had built a small city above them. The airfields were filled with transport and fighter aircraft. The runways were lined with trucks, jeeps, earthmovers, rows of tents, and pallets of supplies.

  This sounded preposterous to Tachikawa, who had not exited the bunker since the battle began. Tachikawa had been sending his men out on one-way kirikomi attacks, but denied himself any intelligence they could have provided by refusing to let them back in. Ōmagari was able to finally convince Tachikawa that the airfield was indeed occupied. This seems to have further watered the seedling that grew into a plan. Ōmagari claimed he didn't talk Tachikawa into believing there were aircraft just for the taking, but merely told him what he wanted to hear.

  Ōmagari and Akikusa independently described another half-baked plan to escape. A group of petty officers talked of sneaking to the rocky shoreline north of the landing beaches. There they would rip wooden planks from the decks of wrecked Japanese ships to construct crude single-man rafts onto which they could cling to as they swam out to sea. One of the local residents, who had been drafted into the defense of the island, had shared with them details about the unique ocean currents that ran counter-clockwise around the island.

  The men thought they could paddle out at night to thread the American ships. Then drift north on the current to Kitano Point. The ocean currents would then carry them safely to Minami Iwo Jima Island by morning. The challenge was getting to the coastline without being turned into a bloody smudge. It was desperate men that dreamed up this "Kon Tiki" plan. Men who had never exited the bunker so had no clue as to what awaited them aboveground.

  On May 5th, Commander Tachikawa shared the details of his own "Great Escape" plan with Ensign Ōmagari. Despite having never seen the airfield since the invasion began, nor (unlike Ōmagari) having never personally witnessed the transformation of the island, Tachikawa said that under cover of darkness he would lead a group of seven men to the airfield to steal a cargo plane and return to Japan. It was an audacious stunt that would have made Steve McQueen blush with envy. In essence, Tachikawa was talking about committing a court martial offense by abandoning his post in the face of the enemy. This was the same crime for which he had threatened to personally execute the surviving members of the destroyed Kamiyama 5-inch naval gun.

  Despite the overwhelming odds, if Commander Tachikawa did somehow sneak his team inside a C-47 transport aircraft, he faced more than a few obstacles: Would the plane be gassed and ready?; Would he know how to start it, let alone fly it?; Would the American AA gunners not shoot him down as he flew away?; Would the P-61 Black Widow radar-equipped night fighters not pursue him in the air?; Could he navigate all the way back to Japan in the dark with no charts?; Would he be shot down by friendly AA gun crews if he actually reached Japan?; Tachikawa couldn't expect that any plane he managed to commandeer would be stocked with seven parachutes, so he would have to locate and land on a friendly airfield in the dark. But could he do so unmolested?

  On top of those challenges, if the band of optimists did somehow make it back to Japan, they could expect a court martial followed by a short walk to a firing squad. Ōmagari wondered if Tachikawa was a madman, or was his daring scheme merely a cunning ploy to arrange for him and his followers to fall into American hands with honor.

  On the night of May 8th, dive-bomber pilot Tachikawa left the bunker with six men in tow; a naval physician, a naval reconnaissance pilot, an army 2nd Lieutenant, a naval reserve officer named Lt (jg) Morinaka, and a pair of naval enlisted orderlies. After Tachikawa and his group crawled out of the narrow tunnel into the night, the armed gate guards quickly sealed it behind them with rocks and sandbags. This left Ensign Satoru Ōmagari as the senior ranking officer in the bunker.

  Two hours later, a ruckus echoed through the normally silent tunnels, which drew Ōmagari to the sealed entrance. Commander Tachikawa and his band of dreamers had returned and were demanding to be allowed back in. The same stone-hearted officer who sent others on one-way suicidal kirikomi attacks, had the gall to order the guards to let him back in. The enraged gate guards pointed their weapons at the entrance and swore to shoot anyone who tried to push through. Ōmagari heard Tachikawa asking him to come out and talk. Ōmagari instructed the guards to open the seal so he could listen to what Tachikawa had to say. However, as Ōmagari stepped towards the entrance, the guards pointed their weapons at him. The iron-fisted rule of Tachikawa had created a pressure cooker that was about to explode.

  Thinking quickly, Ōmagari reminded the guards of a samurai expression, "The warrior must show mercy." But it didn't work. Ōmagari then tried a different approach saying, "The longer they are out there, the higher the risk of them being spotted. Then the enemy will be coming for all of us." With that, an agreement was reached where Ensign Ōmagari promised to take full responsibility for the "deserters" who would be permitted access for one night only. If they refused to leave the next night they would be forced out along with Ōmagari. On these conditions, Tachikawa and
the others were allowed to re-enter.

  The following night, Commander Sosonosuke Tachikawa and his band of followers quietly left as promised. Neither Ōmagari nor Akikusa has any idea of what became of the group.

  Tachikawa's departure created a power vacuum. Ōmagari knew what would happen if the troops in the bunker were allowed to fall into tribal law. So he assumed command and made a 180-degree policy change. There would be no more kirikomi attacks, and foraging for food was now permitted. Ōmagari and his men shared their experiences with the hermits who had been sealed in the tunnels. Ōmagari's men held informal lectures: US landmines; defeating trip flares; how to locate water; and how to cover one's tracks when stealing from the enemy, etc. Ōmagari stressed three important rules on foraging; only two to a team, cover your tracks, and never take so much that the Americans would notice it.

  Akikusa said that in his opinion, Ōmagari was an outsider who bossed the survivors around, but he admitted that Ōmagari's petty officers shared valuable tips on scrounging that helped keep him alive.

  Scrounging for Food

  By now, Akikusa's leg had healed to the point where he could join the scavenging efforts. One of Ōmagari's petty officers gave Akikusa the lower half of a rusted, broken sword. The man had removed the tiny bamboo peg in the middle of the cloth-wrapped handle in order to remove the handle and hand guard. As he rotated the blade in his hands, Akikusa noted it resembled more of a tool than a weapon. It could be used to pry open wooden crates, or cut through cardboard boxes or canvas tents. The older sailor warned Akikusa about empty ration cans with rocks in them that the Americans strung on strands of wire. The man was specific, "The Americans start shooting the moment they hear a sound so be careful." It was risky, but Ōmagari's men were living proof that the foraging could be done. Akikusa said, "If I was going to die I wanted to do so on a full belly."