The Pittsburgh Press (February 25, 1945)
MARINES CAPTURE HALF OF IWO
Invaders push to center of 2nd airfield
Offensive gains up to 600 yards
Fighting Marines hoist Stars and Stripes on the highest point of Mt. Suribachi Volcano, overlooking from the south the bloody battlefield on Iwo Island. (Navy Radiotelephoto)
GUAM – Marine shock troops, advancing as much as 600 yards in a general offensive, have captured approximately half of Iwo Island.
The invaders of Japan’s doorstep island have swept to the heart of Iwo’s central airfield.
Under cover of a land, air and sea bombardment, the Marines expanded their east coast beachhead about 600 yards, drove 300 to 500 yards through the center of the strong Jap defense lines and expanded their grip on the east coast by several hundred yards.
Jap death toll rises
Adm. Chester W. Nimitz’s war bulletin covering fighting through 6 p.m. Saturday, reported that Jap dead has now risen to 2,799. The last report on U.S. casualties listed 5,372 as of 6 p.m. Wednesday, of whom 644 were dead.
The latest advances which Adm. Nimitz called “substantial” increased the American grip on Iwo’s coast to five miles – three on the east and two on the west – and left the Japs in about seven miles of the coast. They also gave the American possession of about four of Iwo’s eight square miles and placed them well atop the 340-foot central plateau from which the Japs had been pouring withering fire into the ranks of the Devil Dogs.
Greatest U.S. gains
Although the Marines of the 3rd, 4th and 5th Divisions were slashing forward and scoring their greatest gains of a campaign that had been marked by yard-by-yard advances, Adm. Nimitz said:
In every zone of fighting, the enemy resisted our advance to the full extent of his armament. Weapons of the “Bazooka” type were employed against our tanks and the use of rocket bombs weighing about 500 kilograms (approximately 1,000 pounds) continued.
Testifying to the powerful defenses the remaining men of the Jap garrison of 20,000 were fighting from, Adm. Nimitz said that in a single area of approximately 200,00 square yards along the east coast, the Marines neutralized about 100 caves ranging from 30 to 40 feet deep.
Four-foot bulkheads
The Marines, rooting the Japs out of their defenses with bayonets, tommy guns and hand grenades, were encountering reinforced blockhouses and pillboxes having four-foot bulkheads.
One immediate result of the general advance was a “marked decrease of enemy artillery fire” into the rear areas of Southern Iwo won by the Americans in the opening days of the invasion which started last Monday, Adm. Nimitz said.
The bulletin issued early Sunday gave this picture of the flaming front from the east to west coasts:
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4TH MARINE DIVISION, commanded by Maj. Clifton B. Gates, opened a drive along the east coast which carried northward about 600 yards to extend the original invasion beachhead to a stretch of approximately three miles. Struck up the central plateau on the right flank of the 3rd Marine Division hitting the center of the Jap lines.
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3rd MARINE DIVISION, commanded by Maj. Gen. Graves B. Erskine, hammered 300 to 500 yards through a maze of interlocking pillboxes, blockhouses, fortified caves and thick minefields to burst across the center of the central or No. 2 Iwo airfield atop the central plains. This put the Yanks in the center of the island in an area where Jap military headquarters and governmental centers were located.
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5TH MARINE DIVISION, commanded by Maj. Gen. Keller E. Rockey, resumed its advance up the west coast after being pinned down by terrific Jap fire for 90 hours. It drove ahead several hundred yards to win a two-mile grip on the west coast.
Triple bombardment
The general attack was supported by Marine artillery, fire from heavy units of the fleet standing off the island and carrier aircraft.
Carrier planes also made an attack of Chichi Island in the Bonin Islands north of Iwo while Army Air Force Liberator bombers hammered the airfield and Omura Town of Chichi and Okamura Town on Haha Island last Thursday. On Friday, Marine fighters attacked targets in the Palau islands east of the Philippines.
Adm. Nimitz announced that on the southern tip of Iwo, Marines of the 28th Regiment of the 5th Marine Division had reached the crater of Mt. Suribachi and were mopping up Jap strongpoints on the mountain. Incomplete reports showed they had knocked out 115 Jap gun emplacements on the dormant volcano.
He said that the condition of the beaches, which had been under heavy Jap fire, showed marked improvement and that the unloading of supplies for the drive now in progress was accelerated.
Attack began Saturday
The general assault opened shortly after dawn Saturday when the weary Marines sprang from their foxholes and captured Jap trenches. By noon, Adm. Nimitz reported in an earlier communiqué, they were making slow but steady progress and during the afternoon hammered out their first sizeable one-day gains of the campaign.
Jap planes retire
Adm. Nimitz announced that Jap planes, conspicuous by their virtual absence, approached the island on Friday but retired without attacking.
Tokyo said the Americans had established two new beachheads on the southeastern coast. Other Tokyo broadcasts claimed a total of 17,000 American casualties were inflicted by Friday night, that eight more U.S. warships, including two battleships and four cruisers. had been sunk or damaged off Iwo.
Dispatches reported that although the situation was improving, the Marines faced many days of tough fighting before they won Iwo.
The longest of the two strips, Iwo central airfield – the Yanks already hold the southern field – runs from northeast to southwest. It is 5,525 feet long. The east west field is about 4,000 feet long and crosses the other strip about one-third of the way up from its southwestern tip.
Dispatches said that beyond the central airfield lay the flat-topped dome-shaped 360-foot Mt. Moto and several subsidiary peaks which mark the northern boundary of the central plateau.
‘Breaking their backs’
A dispatch from United Press war writer Mac Johnson aboard a fleet flagship said the Japs were “breaking their backs” with counterattacks and never before in the Central Pacific had the Marines had to throw back so many as on Iwo.
Mr. Johnson reported:
They serve to slow up and sometimes stall us, but the death toll for the enemy is unprofitably high. The Japs in groups of 50 to 200 smash against our lines just before evening and through the night. These onslaughts are welcomed for it is only by killing Japs that the enemy’s backbone of resistance can be broken. This is slowly being accomplished by whittling down the Jap garrison in a battle of annihilation.