A Tomb Called Iwo Jima

by King, Dan

  The scavengers exited the bunkers late at night to carefully pick through trash dumps or steal directly from the massive stockpiles of American supplies. Akikusa said, "I didn't want to hurt anyone. I just wanted something to eat." During one of his foraging expeditions Akikusa was surprised to see Black troops. "We were encouraged by this because we thought it meant that the enemy was getting desperate enough to send in his second-tier troops," said Akikusa. It is possible that Akikusa saw African-Americans of the 8th Field Depot (8th Ammunition Company, 33rd, 34th, and 36th Marine Depot Companies), the 43rd Amphibian Truck Battalion, or the 476th Amphibian Truck Company.

  Akikusa's confidence grew with each successful foraging trip. One night, he ventured out with his bamboo stick and makeshift sword-tool. He made steady progress as he crawled towards a row of pallets that were covered with canvas tarps. He froze when he heard slight metallic clinking sound. He moved and heard the sound again. His realized his sleeve was caught on some barbed wire. Akikusa was a victim of the American's cheap but effective early-warning system. As he struggled to free himself, a loud pop went off overhead bringing the midnight sun. As a steady stream of tracers buzzed overhead, sounding like a flock of angry bees. Another illumination round lit the entire area. Akikusa pressed his body against the earth knowing his only chance was to remain perfectly still. A flare landed about fifty feet away and sputtered out.

  Perhaps because there was no return fire, the machine gun fire waned and stopped. Akikusa gingerly slid on his belly and tried to turn around, but his right sleeve was still hooked. He gently twisted his arm, which caused a chain reaction of rustling barbed wire. He couldn't make any sudden moves or it might set off the cans again. He remained still while he tried to figure out what to do, he then remembered the parable of a pheasant that had escaped a trapper's snare by plucking out its own tail feathers. With his left hand he slowly unbuttoned his shirt and then carefully wriggled free.

  He crawled forward, playing a deadly version of the children's game "red-light, green-light." Just as the second flare died, a bullet struck the tip of Akikusa's bamboo crutch with a distinct thrang. The pole flew out of his grip and bounced across the rocks. "My stick!" he almost shouted as he reached forward. The sound of the bamboo dancing across the rocks confirmed the gunners' suspicions and they began firing again. Akikusa remained motionless through a third and fourth flare, hoping the gunners would think they had got him.

  After the gunners grew bored, Akikusa slowly slithered back to the bunker entrance leaving his shirt hanging on the barbed wire.

  As he crawled down into the bunker, he heard Americans shouting in the direction from which he had come. He thinks that a patrol sent out to examine the wire must have discovered his uniform. It had been his closest call yet.

  Several nights later, Akikusa, along with a sailor named Andō, and two others worked their way south along the shore. They spotted stacks of unguarded supplies under tarpaulin sheets. Akikusa ducked under one of the canvas sheets and found crates of ammunition, which was something useless to him. He crawled under another tarpaulin and found crates and cardboard boxes. He used his pry bar to open a crate of what turned out to be bottles of soda pop. Careful not to make a sound, he pulled one out, pried off the cap, and took a sip. He said, "The sweet, carbonated beverage was the most delicious thing I have ever tasted in my life."[80] He quickly gulped the rest of the contents of the bottle, and although tempted to grab as many bottles as he could carry, he recalled the petty officer's advice about not taking too much at once. He took just one soda bottle and two cans of food, then started back to the bunker in the darkness.

  After twenty minutes of trying to find his way, Akikusa realized he was lost. The sky was turning from dark to gray. If I don't get underground by the time the sun comes up I'm a dead man, he said to himself. He was unable to find the Nanpō bunker so he crawled into a shallow crevice for the time being. The sun rose to the sound of barking dogs. His heart skipped a beat as he heard shouting in English. Akikusa tucked himself into a tight ball and squeezed his eyes shut. He was startled by a voice speaking in his native tongue booming from a bullhorn, "To the officers and men in the bunkers. The war is over. The Americans have control over the entire island." They must know about the tunnel. It wasn't a trick; the voice was definitely that of a Japanese. The unknown man using the bullhorn continued, "The Americans mean you no harm. I am proof they will guarantee your safety and give you food and water. Those who are wounded will received medical treatment. I will be back tomorrow, but after that, they will flatten this entire area with heavy machinery and the tunnels and caves will be sealed forever."

  The group of dogs and soldiers moved on to another spot and repeated the same speech. It was the end of the first week of May. When Akikusa made it back to the bunker that night, he discovered that Andō and the two others hadn't returned. After Akikusa was captured in May, he learned that Andō had been caught that night while hiding under a tarp. Andō wouldn't admit it, but Akikusa thinks it was Andō who spilled the beans about the bunker, which sent the dogs and American soldiers out to look for it.

  The defenders knew the battle was lost, but talk of surrender was illegal under military law, and instigators risked having their skulls cracked, or worse, ventilated by a pistol round. The goal was to hold out until the tides of war turned and the Japanese Navy could retake the island. One survivor, Harunori Okoshi, claimed that a POW entered his cave bearing American chocolate bars, cigarettes, a canteen of fresh water and food. "He tried to convince us to surrender. Without warning, someone shot him in the back," Okoshi said. A man with a pistol justified the murder by claiming, "It was for his own good, and for the honor of his family."147

  Calls to Surrender

  The US Army's 147th Infantry Regiment and 724th Military Police Battalion were enjoying success using dog patrols to sniff out the Japanese, but were having difficulty in getting the holdouts to surrender. In hopes of talking the Japanese stragglers into giving up, the Americans used a combination of Caucasian and Nisei soldiers that had received Japanese language training that was conducted by the Military Intelligence Service (MIS).

  They also utilized POWs who were often enthusiastic participants in identifying bunkers and convincing their comrades to surrender. Ensign Satoru Ōmagari said that he and the other holdouts viewed the POWs as traitors who could not be trusted.148

  US Army Corporal Edward Mervich said that the POWs tried hard to get their comrades to surrender, and some even went down into the caves with cigarettes, water and chocolate bars. Sometimes the POWs were killed by those they were trying to rescue. Mervich explained that one time as a POW were calling out to the stragglers to surrender, a grenade came hurtling out of the small cave entrance and struck Mervich in the leg. "I thought it was a rock. Lucky for me it was a dud," said Mervich. The stragglers didn't appreciate the US Army's sincere attempts to get them to surrender.

  Mervich said that on another occasion, a pair of POWs volunteered to climb down into a tunnel to talk their friends into surrendering. The two men emerged from the cave unharmed saying that there were twenty-two die hards inside. Following repeated calls to surrender, Mervich heard muffled gunfire coming from inside the cave. "We backed up a weasel weapons carrier with a couple of 55-gallon drums full of diesel fuel, and poured them into the cave. Well, then we set it on fire with a phosphorus grenade. And that was the end of that," said Mervich.

  While patrolling the northern end of the island, Mervich said that he observed dozens of corpses floating in the ocean below the cliffs. "The Japanese jumped off the cliffs rather than surrender," said Mervich.

  One of the US Army Caucasian language officers that worked hard to get the Japanese to surrender was Second Lieutenant Manny Goldberg. Goldberg had spent two years in Japan as a teenager and commanded a detachment of Nisei interpreters on Iwo Jima. One of Goldberg's Nisei soldiers, TechSgt Terry Doi, would take off his shirt to s
how he was unarmed, and carrying only a flashlight, would enter cave after cave convincing many to surrender. Perhaps several dozen Japanese were saved due to his daring actions that earned him the Silver Star.[81]

  One of the Japanese who surrendered to Lt Goldberg's team on April 9, 1945, was First Lieutenant Yasuhiko Murai, the army infantry school instructor who had been hastily sent to Iwo Jima. Goldberg and Murai met again long after the war and became good friends.

  A day or so after the "raft group" left the Nanpō bunker, there was a commotion at one of the guarded entrances. Someone was calling out to Ensign Satoru Ōmagari by name. Ōmagari went to the entrance and listened; a shiver ran down his spine as he recognized the voice of his friend Ensign Yamamoto. Ōmagari surmised that Yamamoto must have been captured earlier, because he was not with the raft group. Although Ōmagari wanted to meet with Yamamoto, the sentries refused to let anyone in or out, so the call to surrender went unanswered.

  The following day, the Americans presented another chance to surrender, or risk being flooded. Ōmagari was one of the few who had survived a flooding attack and was deeply concerned. Like before, Ōmagari heard the sound of jazz music coming over a loudspeaker before the attack began.

  Radioman Akikusa heard men shouting "Gas!" as a fog resembling dry ice rolled in from the southern entrance. As Akikusa hobbled away from the smoke, his hand struck a gas mask hanging on the wall. What a stroke of good luck. He donned the mask but after only a few breaths his eyes began to sting. Damn, it's broken. He dashed it to the ground. He pressed his face into his sleeve and continued past the morgue pit to the eastern entrance. He crawled up a steep narrow stairway into an observation post to get above the creeping fog.

  Akikusa heard shouting near the central entrance as canisters dropped in from ventilation shafts. The canisters popped and hissed, producing yellow smoke that rose to the ceiling. Akikusa panicked, It's poison gas. I'm trapped. He saw a wisp of yellow smoke rush past him up into the ceiling behind his head. It escaped through a finger-sized hole that had not been sealed when the lookout-post had been closed. Akikusa clawed at the dirt to scratch out a space large enough to press his face up against the hole and pressed his lips into the small hole. While he sucked in fresh cool air from the outside, men below him on the tunnel floor coughed and wheezed. Like a goldfish stuck in a dirty fish tank, Akikusa found himself gulping air through a tiny hole in the ceiling as screams echoed through the tunnel. The gas eventually dissipated and Akikusa slid down from his perch. Others had survived too, so he reasoned it wasn't poison gas.

  Akikusa hoped the Americans had given up but he was wrong. The US Army called upon the Seabees to help with the straggler problem. The Seabees flooded the underground bunkers with a mixture of seawater and gasoline, and then ignited the mixture to force the Japanese out or kill them in the process. The Seabees has access to gasoline-powered pumps, hoses and the know-how to draw water from the shore to flood the caves and tunnels. It was organized and methodical. If the water didn't drown the Japanese, the fire would burn them to death. If the fire didn't burn them, the ensuing lack of oxygen would result in death by asphyxiation.

  Ōmagari said the US Army never lied about their intentions, "They offered us many chances to surrender." He heard the familiar sound of water splashing down like a waterfall as it entered the cave entrance. Oh no, not again. The water seeped and moved to the lowest points picking up human waste and debris as it traveled.

  Radioman Akikusa noticed men emerging from the various side rooms and tunnels to see what was going on. He was startled at how many people were still alive. It took a couple of hours for the water to reach waist-high. Some men splashed around like kids in the cool refreshing water. Akikusa climbed to a higher point away from the water because it smelled like the sewage water used to irrigate the fields back home. The water created a rancid outhouse smell.

  Ōmagari and the others who had been through a flooding attack needed no encouragement to move further into the complex to escape the water. What Akikusa didn't notice was that the Americans had also pumped fuel or oil into the complex. It floated on the surface of the water coating anything and anyone it touched. Then the waterfall stopped. It was except for the sound of men splashing through the water.

  Akikusa moved back up into his cubbyhole to get closer to the "goldfish hole." As he crawled up and away from the water he heard an explosion; flames raced across the surface of the water engulfing those who had moments before been reveling in its cool touch. Screams reverberated through the tunnels, which were momentarily brightened by the fire. The skin on the faces of some of the burn victims peeled and hung down like old wallpaper. Those on fire would drop down into the water to put out the flames, only to come up and catch fire again. Akikusa said it was like seeing ghosts bobbing up and down in the water. The wounded were screaming, thrashing and splashing around crying out, "Help me, Help me!" Others yelled at them to be quiet. "Don't scream! They'll know we are in here!" Some of the injured who screeched in agony and were shot by their comrades. Akikusa said, "Bam, Bam. One after another, the burning men where killed." He recalled one man who was yelling, "Help me, Mother, Help me!" and was quickly shot in the head.

  Another survivor claims, "We killed the wounded out of mercy. They were badly burned; we had no way of caring for them. The men were going to die anyways so we helped them," said Harunori Okoshi as he gestured putting a gun to his own temple.149 Ensign Ōmagari admitted to killing some of those who were severely injured, saying it was done out of mercy.150

  After the flames died out there were still a few oil-soaked bits of rubbish that burned like torches floating on the water; it created a ghoulish glow inside the smoky tunnels. The smoke began to escape through the ventilation holes, and Akikusa observed charred bodies slowly bobbing along a watery hallway. One man splashed towards Akikusa and climbed up into the cubbyhole with him. He didn't recognize the man who was badly burned, but whispered to him, "Shhh, stay quiet and don't draw attention to yourself." He gently patted the man's arm to reassure him but the man winced in pain. After some time, Akikusa gently tapped the man's hand for a response but he was dead.

  Captured

  It seems the Americans assumed the flooding had done the trick since there was no follow-up attack. Akikusa, Kumakura, Okoshi, Ōmagari and the others were trapped in the flooded, smoky cave system. They were waist deep in dead bodies, filth and excrement. It was perhaps one or two days later that a POW approached the bunker entrance and began to shout his own name. "It is I, Chief Petty Officer Mizawa." He had previously been in the Nanpō bunker and wanted permission to re-enter to talk. Was it a trick? No one inside the bunker responded. A figure wearing an American uniform and shining a flashlight scrambled down into the bunker. The holdouts raised their rifles to shoot, but Mizawa quickly shined the flashlight in his own face so they could confirm his identity. Mizawa handed over several packs of American cigarettes, chocolate bars, and a canteen filled with fresh water to prove that the Americans meant no harm.

  "The act of surrender was not the problem. The worry was being executed once the Americans sent us home," said Ōmagari. Although Mizawa assured the holdouts that they wouldn't be killed by the Americans, he could not guarantee they wouldn't be given court martial trials when they returned to Japan.

  CPO Mizawa was allowed to exit the cave, and promised to return the following day.

  Late that night, Ensign Satoru Ōmagari led his small group of men through a connecting tunnel to an outlying air raid shelter. Akikusa, Kumakura and several others stayed behind. Akikusa remembers Ōmagari and his men exiting the Nanpō HQ bunker and believed they were giving up.

  Without warning, Yasuo Kumakura moved down the tunnel to the radio communications room where he and Akikusa had worked. Akikusa tried to follow, but Kumakura moved too quickly. As Akikusa turned the corner he heard a blast. Kumakura had taken his own life with a hand grenade. Akikusa's last mem
ory of Iwo Jima was crawling up a carved rock stairway to a ventilation hole.

  100 Bullets

  Another man who was in the Nanpō bunker was Seaman 1/c Haruji Mita, a naval aircraft armorer with the 316th Fighter Squadron (301st Naval Air Group). Half of his unit's fighters were dispatched to Truk Lagoon, but were caught up and destroyed in the Marianas Turkey Shoot when they reached Saipan to refuel.

  The remaining half of the Zero fighters were then sent to Iwo Jima. Seaman Mita was among the support troops that were scheduled to follow the Zeros to Truk Lagoon aboard the transport vessel Shozui Maru. After the Turkey Shoot, the Shozui Maru was diverted to Chichi Jima.[82] Mita's unit spent ten days on Chichi Jima before being shuttled via four small wooden boats to Iwo Jima. He discovered that the remaining Zeros from the 316th Fighter Squadron had been destroyed in the July 4th US naval barrage. "There were no aircraft left to work on, so I was assigned to Captain Inoue's Nanpō Naval Air Group," he wrote.151 Seaman 1/c Mita spent the next six months armed with only a pair of binoculars on the western shoreline at "Brown Beach 2" as part of an 8-man squad tasked with scanning the horizon for friendly and enemy vessels.152

  Two days before the Marines landed, Seaman 1/c Haruji Mita was issued a Type-99 Arisaka rifle and 100 rounds of 7.7 mm ammunition, and was told there would be no resupply. "I was a terrible marksman. I had only been to the firing range once during basic training at Suzaki (Suzaki Naval Air Group Ordinance Maintenance School)," wrote Mita.

  After the Marines landed, Seaman 1/c Haruji Mita hid in various bunkers surviving by taking water and rations from the dead. By the end of April 1945, Mita found himself in a bunker at Tamana-yama. Haruji Mita said that he heard US Army Nisei soldiers calling out over loudspeakers saying, "Think of your parents. Think of your wives and children back home. We won't harm you. Please come out so you can return safely to your families." Mita said that the call to surrender had an effect on the older men who had wives and children.