Triumph to Tragedy : World War II Battle of Peleliu, Invasion of Iwo Jima, and Ultimate Victory on Okinawa in 1945 (WW2 Pacific Military History Series)

by Daniel Wrinn

  Allied intelligence, aided by documents captured in Saipan and by an almost daily flow of aerial surveillance, was puzzled by the Japanese garrison’s disappearing act. The photo interpreters, using stereoscopic lenses, listed 775 potential targets, but all were covered, hardened, and masked. Allied planners knew there was no fresh water available on the island. They saw the rainwater cisterns and knew what the average monthly rainfall would deliver. They determined the enemy garrison couldn’t survive under those conditions in numbers greater than 12,000 for long. But Kuribayashi’s force was twice that size. His troops had existed on half rations of water for months before the battle even began.

  Unlike the earlier amphibious assaults on Guadalcanal and Tarawa, Allies would not have a strategic surprise on Iwo. Japanese headquarters believed Iwo would be invaded after the loss of the Marianas. Six months before the battle, Kuribayashi wrote to his wife: “the Americans will most definitely invade Iwo Jima—do not look for my return.”

  Kuribayashi ruthlessly worked his men to complete the defensive and training preparations by February 11, 1945. The general met his objective. Kuribayashi had a mixed force of recruits and veterans, soldiers and sailors. His artillerymen and mortar crews were the best in the Empire. Still, he trained and disciplined them all. Each fighting position had the commander’s “Courageous Battle Vows” prominently posted above the firing apertures. Troops were cautioned to maintain their position and to take ten Marine lives for each Japanese death.

  General Schmidt issued the operational plan on December 23, 1944. This plan wasn’t fancy. Mount Suribachi towered over the potential landing beaches, but the 3,000 yards of black sand along the southeastern coast were more sheltered from the prevailing winds. It was here the V Amphibious Corps would land on D-Day. The 4th Marine Division on the right, the 5th on the left and the 3rd in reserve. The primary objectives were the lower airfield and Suribachi. Then, the assault force would swing into line and attack north shoulder to shoulder.

  Anticipating a significant enemy counterattack on the first night, General Holland Smith said: “We welcome their counterattack. That’s generally when we break their back.”

  Kuribayashi's Big Mistake

  The physical separation of the three Marine divisions from Hawaii to Guam had no apparent adverse effect on their training. The proficiency of small units in combined arms assaults on fortified positions and amphibious landing were where it counted most. Each division was well prepared for the invasion.

  The 3rd Marine Division had just completed their part in the liberation of Guam. Their field training often included active combat patrols to root out and destroy stubborn enemy survivors.

  On Maui, the 4th Marine Division prepared for their fourth assault landing in thirteen months with quiet confidence. According to Major Fred Karch: “We had a continuity of veterans that was unbeatable.”

  The 5th Marine Division prepared for their first combat experience on the big island of Hawaii. The unit’s newness would prove misleading. Over half of the officers and men were veterans, including several former Marine Raiders and Parachutists who’d fought in the Solomons. Colonel Don Robertson took command of the 3rd Battalion, 27th Marine Regiment with less than two weeks before embarkation and immediately ordered them into the field for sustained live-fire exercises. Their confidence and competence impressed and convinced Robertson that these Marines were professionals.

  Among the veterans preparing to deploy on Iwo Jima were two Medal of Honor recipients from Guadalcanal. Gunnery Sargent John Basilone and Colonel Robert Galer. The Marine Corps preferred to keep these distinguished veterans in the US for morale (bond raising) purposes, but both men wrangled their way back into the fight. Basilone led a machine gun platoon and Galer led a new radar unit for the Landing Force Air Support. The Guadalcanal veterans were amazed at the abundance of amphibious shipping available for Operation Detachment. Admiral Turner commanded 497 ships (140 of these were configured for amphib operations). This armada was ten times the size of the Guadalcanal task force.

  But there were still problems. Many of the ships and crews were so new that each rehearsal featured an embarrassing collision or other accident. New bulldozers (TD-18s) were an inch too wide for the LCMs. Newly modified M4A3 Sherman tanks were so heavy that the LCMs rode with a dangerously low freeboard. The 105mm howitzers overloaded the DUKWs (amphibious trucks) to the point of unseaworthiness. These factors would soon prove treacherous in Iwo Jima’s unpredictable surf.

  Still, the massive Allied armada embarked and began the familiar move westward in good shape, well-trained, well-equipped, and thoroughly supported.

  General Kuribayashi had benefited from the Allied delays of Operation Detachment due to the Philippines campaign. He felt as ready and prepared as possible. When the Allied armada sailed from the Marianas on February 13, he was warned. He deployed one infantry battalion into the lower airfield and ordered the bulk of his garrison into their assigned fighting holes—to await the inevitable storm.

  Two issues divided the Navy/Marine team as D-Day on Iwo approached. The first was Admiral Spruance’s decision to detach Task Force 58 (the fast attack carriers under Admiral Marc Mitscher) to attack strategic targets on Honshu (Main island of Japan) with the simultaneous bombardment of Iwo. Marine officers suspected a Navy/Air Force rivalry at work: Mitscher’s targets were aircraft factories that the B-29s had missed a few days earlier. Mitscher took all eight Marine Corps fighter squadrons assigned to the fast carriers, plus the new fast battleships with their 16-inch guns. While Task Force 58 returned in time to offer fire support on D-Day, they were off again for good, two days later.

  There was a continuing argument between senior Navy and Marine officers over the extent of the preliminary naval gunfire. Marines looked at their intelligence reports on Iwo Jima and requested ten days of preparatory fire. The Navy said it did not have the time nor the ammunition to spare; three days would have to suffice. Generals Smith and Schmidt pleaded their case to Admiral Spruance. Their request was denied. Admiral Spruance ruled that three days of preparatory fire along with the daily hammering administered by the Seventh Air Force would be good enough to get the job done.

  Lieutenant Colonel Don Weller was the Task Force 51 naval gunfire officer, and no man knew the business more thoroughly than him. Weller had absorbed the Pacific War’s lessons well. Especially the terrible failures at Tarawa. He argued the issue was not the weight of shells and other caliber but rather the time. The destruction of heavily fortified enemy targets took deliberate and pinpoint firing from close range. They had to be assessed and adjusted by aerial observers. His seven hundred plus hard targets would need time to knock out—a lot of time.

  Admiral Spruance did not have time to give for strategic, tactical, and logistical reasons. Three days of firing would deliver four times the shells than Tarawa and would be one and a half time as much delivered against the larger Saipan. It would have to do.

  Iwo’s notoriously foul weather and strong enemy fortifications dissipated the three-day bombardment. According to General William Rogers: “We got about 13 hours with the fire support during the 34 hours of available daylight.”

  General Kuribayashi committed his only known tactical error during this battle. On D minus 2, a force of one-hundred Navy and Marine frogmen approached the eastern beaches. They were escorted by a dozen rocket-firing LCI (Landing Craft Infantry). Kuribayashi believed this was the main assault and authorized the coastal batteries to open fire. This exchange was hot and heavy with the LCIs getting the worst of it, but the US battleships and cruisers hurried to blast the casement guns that were suddenly revealed on Suribachi’s right flank.

  That night, seriously concerned about the hundreds of Japanese targets untouched by two days of firing, Admiral Turner authorized a “war council” on his flagship and junked the original plan. He ordered the gunships to concentrate exclusively on beach areas. This was done with considerable effect on D minus 1 and D-Day morning.


  Kuribayashi noted most of the positions the Imperial Navy insisted on building along the beach were destroyed—just as he predicted. But his central defensive force that crisscrossed the Motoyama Plateau remained intact. “I pray for a heroic fight,” Kuribayashi told his staff.

  The press briefing held the night before D-Day on Admiral Turner’s flagship was uncommonly somber. General Holland Smith predicted heavy casualties: upwards of 15,000, which shocked everyone. A man clad in khakis without a rank insignia then stood and addressed the room. It was the Secretary of the Navy, James Forrestal: “Iwo Jima, like Tarawa, leaves very little choice. Except to take it by force of arms, by character, and by courage.”

  D-Day on Iwo Jima

  On D-Day morning, February 19, Iwo’s weather conditions were ideal. At 0645, Admiral Turner signaled: “Land the landing force.”

  Shore bombardments had engaged the enemy island at near point-blank range. Battleships and cruisers steamed in as close as 1,500 yards to level their guns against their island targets. Many of these older battleships had performed this dangerous mission in other theaters of the war. The Nevada, raised from the muck and ruin of Pearl Harbor, led the bombardment force. The battleship Arkansas, built in 1912, had joined the armada from the Atlantic where she’d battered German positions at Normandy during the Allied landing on June 6, 1944.

  Colonel “Bucky” Buchanan devised a modified form of the “rolling barrage” used by the bombarding gunships against beachfront targets. This concentration of naval gunfire advanced gradually as troops landed. Always 400 yards to the front. Air spotters would regulate the pace. This innovation was appealing to the division commanders who’d served in World War I France. In those days, a rolling barrage was often the only way to break a stalemate.

  The amount of shelling was shocking. Admiral Hill later wrote: “there were no proper targets for shore bombardment remaining on D-Day morning.” This was an overstatement. No one denied the fury of firepower delivered against the landing beaches and surrounding areas. General Kuribayashi admitted in an assessment report to Imperial headquarters: “we need to reconsider the power of bombardment from ships. The violence of enemy bombardments is far beyond description.”

  When the task force appeared over the horizon, troop ships crowded with combat-equipped Marines gazed at the stunning fireworks. The Guadalcanal veterans among them watched with grim satisfaction as battleships hammered the island. The world had come full circle from the dark days of October 1942: when the 1st Marines and the Cactus Air Force suffered a similar shelling from Japanese battleships.

  Sailors and Marines were eager to get their first glimpse of the objective. War correspondent John Marquand wrote of his first impressions on Iwo: “a silhouette like a sea monster, with a little dead volcano for a head and the beach area for the neck and a scrubby brown cliff for the body.”

  Navy Lieutenant David Susskind wrote his thoughts from the bridge of the troopship Mellette: “Iwo Jima was an ugly and rude sight. Only a geologist could look at it and not be disgusted.”

  A surgeon in the 25th Marines, Lieutenant Mike Keleher wrote: “the naval bombardment had already begun. I saw the orange-yellow flashes as the cruisers, battleships, and destroyers blasted away at the island with broadsides. We were close to Iwo, just like the pictures and models we’d been studying for weeks. A volcano was on our left and long flat beaches in a rough, rocky plateau was on our right.”

  General Clifton Cates studied the island through binoculars from his ship. Each division would land two reinforced regiments abreast. From left to right, the beaches were designated Green, Red, Yellow, and Blue. The 5th Division would land the 27th and 28th Marines on the left flank on Green and Red Beaches, While the 4th would land the 23rd and 25th Marines on the right flank at Blue Beach.

  General Schmidt reviewed the latest intelligence reports with growing anxiety and requested that General Holland Smith reassign the reserve forces. Schmidt wanted the 3/21 Marines to replace the 26th Marines as the core reserve and release them to the 5th Division. Schmidt envisioned the 28th Marines cutting the island in half before turning to capture Suribachi. The 25th would scale the rock quarry, serving as the hinge for the entire corps to swing north. The 23rd and 27th Marines would then capture the first airfield, before pivoting north into their assigned zones.

  General Cates was concerned about Blue Beach on the right flank. Blue Beach was directly under the observation and fire of suspected enemy positions in the rock quarry. Steep cliffs overshadowed their right flank, while Suribachi dominated the left. The 4th Division figured that the 25th Marines would have the most challenging objective to take on D-Day. General Cates said: “if I knew the name of the man on the extreme right of that squad, I’d recommend him for a medal before we even get there.”

  Iwo Jima was the pinnacle of a forced amphibious landing against a heavily fortified shore. A complex art mastered by the Fifth Fleet through many painstaking campaigns. B-24 bombers from the Seventh Air Force flew in to strike the smoking island. Rocket ships moved in to saturate shore targets. Fighter and attack squadrons from Mitscher’s Task Force 58 joined in. While Navy pilots showed their skills at bombing and strafing, the troops started cheering at the sight of F4U Corsairs flown in from Marine fighter squadron 213.

  Colonel Vernon McGee was the air officer for the Expeditionary Troops. He urged this special show for the men in the assault waves. “Drag your bellies on the beach,” McGee said to the Marine fighters. The F4U Corsairs made an aggressive approach parallel to the island. They streaked low over the beaches and savagely strafed enemy targets. The Pacific War geography since Bougainville kept ground Marines separated from their air support. According to McGee: “it was the first-time many troops had ever seen a Marine fighter plane, and they were not disappointed.”

  Not long after the planes left, naval gunfire resumed. Gunfire carpeted the beach with a crescendo of high explosive shells. Ship-to-shore movement was underway, an easy thirty-minute run for the LVTs. For Operation Detachment, there were enough LVTs to get the job done. Sixty-eight LVT (A)4 armored amtracs, with snub-nosed 75mm cannons, blasted the way forward with 385 troop laden LVTs following close behind. The assault waves crossed the line of departure on time and confidently chugged toward the smoking beaches.

  On Iwo, there was no coral reef or killer neap tides to worry about. Navy frogmen cleared the approaches of tetrahedrons and mines. There was no premature secession of fire. The modified rolling barrage was in effect, and no vehicles were lost from enemy fire. Assault waves hit the beaches within two minutes of H-hour. Enemy observers watching the drama unfold from a cave on the slopes of Suribachi reported: “At 9 am, several hundred landing craft with amphibious tanks rushed toward shore like an enormous tidal wave.”

  Colonel Robert Williams, XO of the 28th Marines, later wrote: “The landing was a magnificent sight to see—two divisions landing abreast—you could see the whole show from the deck of a ship. At this point, so far so good.”

  The first obstacle didn’t come from the Japanese, but from the beach and its parallel terraces. Iwo was a volcano with steep beaches that sharply dropped off into a narrow and violent surf zone. Soft black sand immobilized all wheeled vehicles and caused many tracked amphibious vehicles to belly down and get stuck.

  The following boat waves had even more trouble. When ramps dropped and a Jeep or truck would drive out, they got stuck too. Then, plunging waves would smash into the stalled craft before they could unload, filling their sterns with water and sand and broaching them broadside. The beach quickly became a salvage yard.

  Getting the Guns Ashore

  The heavily laden infantry was bogged down. According to Corporal Ed Hartman, a rifleman in the 4th Marine Division: “the sand was so soft, it was like trying to run in loose coffee grounds.” The 28th Marines’ first report after getting ashore: “resistance moderate, terrain awful.”

  The rolling barrage and carefully executed landing produced the desired effec
t: suppressing enemy fire while providing enough shock and awe to allow the first assault waves to clear the beach and advance inward. In less than fifteen minutes, 6,000 Marines were ashore. Many were hampered by increasing fire over the terraces and down from the highlands, but hundreds leaped forward and maintained their assault momentum.

  The 28th Marines on the left flank had rehearsed this landing on the volcanic terrain of Hawaii’s Big Island. Now, despite increasing casualties among company commanders and the usual landing disorganization, elements of the regiment used their initiative to advance across the narrow neck of the peninsula. This became much bloodier as enemy strong points along Suribachi’s base sprung to life.

  Ninety minutes after landing, elements of the 1/28 Marines reached the western shore—700 yards from Green Beach—Iwo had been severed. According to one Marine: “it was like we cut off the snake’s head.” This was the deepest penetration of what would become a costly and bloody day.

  The regiments had difficulty getting across the black-sand terraces toward the airfield. The terrain was like an open bowl in a shooting gallery. In full view of Suribachi on the left and a rising table to the right. Any thoughts of this operation being a cakewalk quickly vanished as registered machine gun fire whistled across the open ground and mortar rounds dropped along the terraces. Through this hardship, the 27th Marines made good initial gains and reached the southern and western edges of the first airfield by noon.