Part 7

In The Gorge, the 5th Marine Division kept clawing forward. The division reported that the average battalion, which had landed with 36 officers and 885 men on D-day, now mustered 16 officers and 300 men, including the hundreds of replacements funneled in during the fighting. The remnants of the 1st Battalion, 26th Marines, and the 1st Battalion, 28th Marines, squeezed the Japanese into a final pocket, then overwhelmed them.

It was the evening of 25 March, D+34, and the amphibious assault on the rocky fortress of Iwo Jima finally appeared over. The island grew strangely quiet. There were far fewer illumination shells. In the flickering false light, some saw shadowy figures, moving south, towards the airfield.

General Schmidt received the good news that the 5th Marine Division had snuffed out the final enemy cave in The Gorge on the evening of D+34. But even as the corps commander prepared his announcement declaring the end of organized resistance on Iwo Jima, a very well-organized enemy force emerged from northern caves and infiltrated down the length of the island. This final spasm of Japanese opposition still reflected the influence of Kuribayashi’s tactical discipline. The 300-man force took all night to move into position around the island’s now vulnerable rear base area, the tents occupied by freshly arrived Army pilots of VII Fighter Command, adjacent to Airfield No. 1. The counterattacking force achieved total surprise, falling on the sleeping pilots out of the darkness with swords, grenades, and automatic weapons. The fighting was as vicious and bloody as any that occurred in Iwo Jima’s many arenas.

The surviving pilots and members of the 5th Pioneer Battalion improvised a skirmish line and launched a counterattack of their own. Seabees and elements of the redeploying 28th Marines joined the fray. There were few suicides among the Japanese; most died in place, grateful to strike one final blow for the Emperor. Sunrise revealed the awful carnage: 300 dead Japanese; more than 100 slain pilots, Seabees, and pioneers; and another 200 American wounded. It was a grotesque closing chapter to five continuous weeks of savagery.

The 5th Marine Division and the 21st Marines wasted no time in backloading on board amphibious ships. The 9th Marines, last of the VAC maneuver units to land, became the last to leave, conducting two more weeks of ambushes and combat patrols. The 147th Infantry inherited more of the same. In the first two months after the Marines left, the Army troops killed 1,602 Japanese and captured 867 more.

[Sidebar (page 37): The Marines’ Zippo Tanks

To the Marines on the ground, the Sherman M4A3 medium tank equipped with the Navy Mark I flame thrower seemed to be the most valuable weapon employed in the battle of Iwo Jima.

The Marines had come a long way in the tactical use of fire in the 15 months since Tarawa, when only a handful of backpack flame throwers were available to combat the island’s hundreds of fortifications. While the landing force still relied on portable flame throwers, most Marines could see the value of marrying the technology with armored vehicles for use against the toughest targets. In the Marianas, the Marines modified M3A1 light tanks with the Canadian Ronson flame system to good effect; the problems came from the vulnerability of the small vehicles. At Peleliu, the 1st Marine Division mounted the improvised Mark I system on a thin-skinned LVT-4; again, vehicle vulnerability limited the system’s effectiveness. The obvious solution seemed to be to mount the flame thrower in a medium tank.

The first modification to Sherman tanks involved the installation of the small E4-5 mechanized flame thrower in place of the bow machine gun. This was only a marginal improvement; the system’s short range, modest fuel supply, and awkward aiming process hardly offset the loss of the machine gun. Even so, each of the three tank battalions employed E4-5-equipped Shermans during Iwo Jima.

The best solution to marrying effective flame projection with mechanized mobility resulted from an unlikely inter-service task force of Seabees, Army Chemical Warfare Service technicians, and Fleet Marine Force tankers in Hawaii before the invasion. According to Lieutenant Colonel William R. Collins, commanding the 5th Tank Battalion, this inspired group of field-expedient tinkerers modified the Mark I flame thrower to operate from within the Sherman’s turret, replacing the 75mm main gun with a look-alike launch tube. The modified system could thus be trained and pointed like any conventional turret gun. Using napalm-thickened fuel, the “Zippo Tanks” could spew flame up to 150 yards for a duration of 55-80 seconds, both quantum tactical improvements.

Unfortunately, the _ad hoc_ modification team had only sufficient time and components to modify eight M4A3 tanks with the Mark I flame system; four each went to the 4th and 5th Tank Battalions. The 3d Tank Battalion, then staging in Guam, received neither the M4A3 Shermans nor the field modifications in time for Iwo Jima, although a number of their “A2” tanks retained the E4-5 system mounted in the bow.

The eight modified Sherman flame tanks proved ideal against Iwo Jima’s rugged caves and concrete fortifications. The Japanese feared this weapon greatly; time and again suicide squads of “human bullets” would assail the flame tanks directly, only to be shot down by covering forces or scorched by the main weapon. Enemy fire and the rough terrain took their toll on the eight flame tanks, but maintenance crews worked around the clock to keep them functional.

In the words of Captain Frank C. Caldwell, a company commander in the 26th Marines: “In my view it was the flame tank more than any other supporting arm that won this battle.” Tactical demands for the flame tanks never diminished. Late in the battle, as the 5th Marine Division cornered the last Japanese defenders in “The Gorge,” the 5th Tank Battalion expended napalm-thickened fuel at the rate of 10,000 gallons per day. The division’s final action report stated that the flame tank was “the one weapon that caused the Japs to leave their caves and rock crevices and run.”

[Sidebar (page 42): Iwo’s Fire Brigades: The Rocket Detachments

Attached to the assault divisions of the landing force at Iwo Jima were provisional rocket detachments. The infantry had a love-hate relationship with the forward-deploying little rocket trucks and their plucky crews. The “system” was an International one-ton 4×4 truck modified to carry three box-shaped launchers, each containing a dozen 4.5-inch rockets. A good crew could launch a “ripple” of 36 rockets within a matter of seconds, providing a blanket of high explosives on the target. This the infantry loved--but each launching always drew heavy return fire from the Japanese who feared the “automatic artillery.”

The Marines formed an Experimental Rocket Unit in June 1943 and first deployed rail-launched barrage rockets during the fighting in the upper Solomons. There the heavily canopied jungles limited their effectiveness. Once mounted on trucks and deployed to the Central Pacific, however, the weapons proved much more useful, particularly during the battle of Saipan. The Marines modified the small trucks by reinforcing the tail gate to serve as a blast shield, installing a hydraulic jack to raise and lower the launchers, and applying gravity quadrants and elevation safety chains. Crude steel rods welded to the bumper and dashboard helped the driver align the vehicle with aiming stakes.

Treeless, hilly Iwo Jima proved an ideal battleground for these so-called “Buck Rogers Men.” At Iwo, the 1st Provisional Rocket Detachment supported the 4th Marine Division and the 3d Detachment supported the 5th Division throughout the operation (the 3d Division did not have such a unit in this battle). Between them, the two detachments fired more than 30,000 rockets in support of the landing force.

The 3d Detachment landed over Red Beach on D-day, losing one vehicle to the surf, others to the loose sand or heavy enemy fire. One vehicle reached its firing position intact and launched a salvo of rockets against Japanese fortifications along the slopes of Suribachi, detonating an enemy ammunition dump. The detachment subsequently supported the 1st Battalion, 28th Marines’ advance to the summit, often launching single rockets to clear suspected enemy positions along the route.

As the fighting moved north, the short range, steep angle of fire, and saturation effect of the rocket launchers kept them in high demand. They were particularly valuable in defilade-to-defilade bombardments marking the final punctuation of pre-assault prep fires. But their distinctive flash and telltale blast also caught the attention of Japanese artillery spotters. The rocket trucks rarely remained in one place long enough to fire more than two salvos. “Speedy displacement” was the key to their survival. The nearby infantry knew better than to stand around and wave goodbye; this was the time to seek deep shelter from the counterbattery fire sure to follow.

[Sidebar (page 44): Amphibious Logistical Support at Iwo Jima

The logistical effort required to sustain the seizure of Iwo Jima was enormous, complex, largely improvised on lessons learned in earlier Marine Corps operations in the Pacific, and highly successful. Clearly, no other element of the emerging art of amphibious warfare had improved so greatly by the winter of 1945. Marines may have had the heart and firepower to tackle a fortress-like Iwo Jima earlier in the war, but they would have been crippled in the doing of it by limitations in amphibious logistical support capabilities. These concepts, procedures, organizations, and special materials took years to develop; once in place they fully enabled such large-scale conquests as Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

For the Iwo Jima operation, VAC had the 8th Field Depot, commanded by Colonel Leland S. Swindler. The depot was designed to serve as the nucleus of the shore party operation; the depot commander was dual-hatted as the Shore Party Commander of the Landing Force, in which capacity he was responsible for coordinating the activities of the division shore parties. The timing of the logistics support at Iwo Jima proved to be well conceived and executed. Liaison teams from the 8th Field Depot accompanied the 4th and 5th Divisions ashore. On D+3, units of the field depot came ashore, and two days after this, when VAC assumed control on shore, the field depot took over and the unloading continued without interruption.

The V Amphibious Corps at Iwo Jima used every conceivable means of delivering combat cargo ashore when and where needed by the landing force. These means sequentially involved the prescribed loads and units of fire carried by the assault waves; “hot cargo” preloaded in on-call waves or floating dumps; experimental use of “one-shot” preloaded amphibious trailers and Wilson drums; general unloading; administrative unloading of what later generations of amphibians would call an “assault follow-on echelon”; and aerial delivery of critically short items, first by parachute, then by transports landing on the captured runways. In the process, the Navy-Marine Corps team successfully experimented with the use of armored bulldozers and sleds loaded with hinged Marston matting delivered in the assault waves to help clear wheeled vehicles stuck in the soft volcanic sand. In spite of formidable early obstacles--foul weather, heavy surf, dangerous undertows, and fearsome enemy fire--the system worked. Combat cargo flowed in; casualties and salvaged equipment flowed out.

Shortages appeared from time to time, largely the result of the Marines on shore meeting a stronger and larger defense garrison than estimated. Hence, urgent calls soon came for more demolitions, grenades, mortar illumination rounds, flame-thrower recharging units, and whole blood. Transport squadrons delivered many of these critical items directly from fleet bases in the Marianas.

Field medical support at Iwo Jima was a model of exhaustive planning and flexible application. The Marines had always enjoyed the finest immediate medical attention from their organic surgeons and corpsmen, but the backup system ashore at Iwo Jima, from field hospitals to graves registration, was mind-boggling to the older veterans. Moderately wounded Marines received full hospital treatment and rehabilitation; many returned directly to their units, thus preserving at least some of the rapidly decreasing levels of combat experience in frontline outfits. The more seriously wounded were treated, stabilized, and evacuated, either to offshore hospital ships or by air transport to Guam.

The Marines fired an unprecedented half million artillery rounds in direct and general support of the assault units. More rounds were lost when the 5th Marine Division dump blew up. The flow never stopped. The Shore Party used DUKWs, LVTs, and larger craft for rapid offloading of ammunition ships dangerously exposed to Iwo Jima’s enemy gunners. Marine Corps ammunition and depot companies hustled the fresh munitions ashore and into the neediest hands.

Lieutenant Colonel James D. Hittle, USMC, served as D-4 of the 3d Marine Division throughout the battle of Iwo Jima. While shaking his head at the “crazy-quilt” logistic adaptations dictated by Iwo’s geography, Hittle saw creative staff management at all levels. The 3d Division, earmarked as the reserve for the landing, found it difficult to undertake combat loading of their ships in the absence of a scheme of maneuver on shore, but the staff made valid assumptions based on their earlier experiences. This paid huge dividends when the corps commander had to commit the 21st Marines as a separate tactical unit well in advance of the division. Thanks to foresightful combat loading, the regiment landed fully equipped and supported, ready for immediate deployment in the fighting.

To augment the supplies coming across the beach, the 3d Division staff air officer “appropriated” a transport plane and made regular runs to the division’s base in Guam, bringing back fresh beef, mail, and cases of beer. The 3d Division G-4 also sent his transport quartermaster (today’s embarkation officer) out to sea with an LVT-full of war souvenirs; these were bartered with ship’s crews for donations of fresh fruit, eggs, bread--“we’d take anything.” General Erskine distributed these treats personally to the men in the lines.

Retired Brigadier General Hittle marveled at the density of troops funnelled into the small island. “At one point we had 60,000 men occupying less than three-and-a-half square miles of broken terrain.” These produced startling neighbors: a 105mm battery firing from the middle of the shore party cantonment; the division command post sited 1,000 yards from Japanese lines; “giant B-29s taking off and landing forward of the CP of an assault regiment.”

In the effort to establish a fresh-water distilling plant, Marine engineers dug a “well” near the beach. Instead of a source of salt water the crew discovered steaming mineral water, heated by Suribachi’s supposedly dormant volcano. Hittle moved the 3d Division distilling site elsewhere; this spot became a hot shower facility, soon one of the most popular places on the island.

_Iwo Jima’s Costs, Gains, and Legacies_

In its 36 days of combat on Iwo Jima, the V Amphibious Corps killed approximately 22,000 Japanese soldiers and sailors. The cost was staggering. The assault units of the corps--Marines and organic Navy personnel--sustained 24,053 casualties, by far the highest single-action losses in Marine Corps history. Of these, a total of 6,140 died. Roughly one Marine or corpsman became a casualty for every three who landed on Iwo Jima.

According to a subsequent analysis by military historian Dr. Norman Cooper, “Nearly seven hundred Americans gave their lives for every square mile. For every plot of ground the size of a football field, an average of more than one American and five Japanese were killed and five Americans wounded.”

The assault infantry units bore the brunt of these losses. Captain William T. Ketcham’s Company I, 3d Battalion, 24th Marines, landed on D-day with 133 Marines in the three rifle platoons. Only nine of these men remained when the remnants of the company reembarked on D+35. Captain Frank C. Caldwell reported the loss of 221 men from Company F, 1st Battalion, 26th Marines. At the end, a private first class served as platoon commander for Caldwell’s merged first and second platoons. Elsewhere in the 1st Battalion, 26th Marines, Captain Tom Fields relinquished command of Company D on the eighth day to replace the battalion executive officer. Rejoining his company at the end of the battle, Fields was sickened to find only 17 of the original 250 men still in the ranks. Company B, 1st Battalion, 28th Marines, went through nine company commanders in the fighting; 12 different Marines served as platoon leader of the second platoon, including two buck privates. Each division, each regiment, reported similar conditions.

As the extent of the losses became known in the press, the American public reacted with shock and dismay as they had 14 months earlier at Tarawa. This time, however, the debate about the high cost of forcibly seizing an enemy island raged in the press while the battle was still being fought.

The Marine Corps released only one official communique about specific battle losses during the battle, reporting casualties of nearly 5,000 men on 22 February. Five days later, at the insistence of press baron William Randolph Hearst, an early supporter of the MacArthur-for-President claque, the _San Francisco Examiner_ ran a front page editorial bewailing the Marines’ tactics and losses. “It’s the same thing that happened at Tarawa and Saipan,” the editorial stated, urging the elevation of General MacArthur to supreme command in the Pacific, because “HE SAVES THE LIVES OF HIS OWN MEN.” With that, 100 off-duty Marines stormed the offices of the _Examiner_ demanding an apology. Unfortunately, the Hearst editorial received wide play; many families of Marines fighting at Iwo Jima forwarded the clippings. Marines received these in the mail while the fighting still continued, an unwelcome blow to morale.

President Roosevelt, long a master of public opinion, managed to keep the lid on the outcry by emphasizing the sacrifice of the troops as epitomized by the Joe Rosenthal photograph of the second Suribachi flag-raising. The photograph was already widely renowned. FDR made it the official logo of the Seventh War Bond Drive and demanded the six flag-raisers be reassigned home to enhance popular morale. Regrettably, three of the six men had already been killed in subsequent fighting in the drive north on Iwo Jima.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff looked appraisingly at Iwo Jima’s losses. No one questioned the objective; Iwo Jima was an island that categorically had to be seized if the strategic bombing campaign was ever going to be effective. The island could therefore not be bypassed or “leap-frogged.” There is considerable evidence that the Joint Chiefs considered the use of poison gas during the Iwo Jima planning phase. Neither Japan nor the United States had signed the international moratorium, there were no civilians on the island, the Americans had stockpiles of mustard gas shells in the Pacific theater. But President Roosevelt scotched these considerations quickly. America, he declared, would never make first use of poison gas. In any case, the use of poison gas on an area as relatively small as Iwo Jima, whose prevailing winds would quickly dissipate the gas fumes, became moot. This left the landing force with no option but a frontal amphibious assault against the most heavily fortified island America ever faced in the war.

On the other hand, seizure of Iwo Jima provided significant strategic benefits. Symbolically, the Marines raised the flag over Mount Suribachi on the same day that General MacArthur entered Manila. The parallel capture of the Philippines and Iwo Jima, followed immediately by the invasion of Okinawa, accelerated the pace of the war, bringing it at long last to Japan’s doorstep. The three campaigns convincingly demonstrated to the Japanese high command that the Americans now had the capability--and the will--to overwhelm even the most stoutly defended islands. Kyushu and Honshu would be next.

Iwo Jima in American hands produced immediate and highly visible benefits to the strategic bombing campaign. Marines fighting on the island were reminded of this mission time and again as crippled B-29 Superforts flew in from Honshu. The capture of Iwo Jima served to increase the operating range, payload, and survival rate of the big bombers. The monthly tonnage of high explosives dropped on Imperial Japan by B-29s based in the Marianas increased eleven-fold in March alone. As early as 7 April a force of 80 P-51 Mustangs of VII Fighter Command took off from Iwo Jima to escort B-29s striking the Nakajima aircraft engine plant in Tokyo. But the Army Air Force valued Iwo Jima most of all as an emergency landing field. By war’s end, a total of 2,251 B-29s made forced landings on the island. This figure represented 24,761 flight crewmen, many of whom would have perished at sea without the availability of Iwo Jima as a safe haven. Said one B-29 pilot, “whenever I land on this island I thank God for the men who fought for it.”

General Tadamichi Kuribayashi proved to be one of the most competent field commanders the Marines ever faced. He displayed a masterful grasp of the principles of simplicity and economy of force, made maximum use of Iwo’s forbidding terrain, employed his artillery and mortars with great skill, and exercised command with an iron will virtually to the end. He was also a realist. Without hope of even temporary naval or air superiority he knew he was doomed from the start. In five weeks of unremitting pressure, the Americans breached every strongpoint, exterminated his forces, and seized the island.