Handful of Japs left on Iwo
GUAM (UP) – Marines of the 5th Division today squeezed the last fanatically-resisting Japs on Iwo into a pocket less than a quarter mile square on the north coast.
Only a handful of the enemy remained, but they were well organized and were fighting to the death with mortars and small arms from a maze of heavy defenses. Their backs were against a precipitous cliff and the sea.
Jap fire was still taking a toll of Marines Front dispatches indicated that American dead in the campaign would total fewer than 4,000 against more than 20,000 enemy troops killed.
Lt. Gen. Holland M. Smith, commander of fleet Marine forces, told United Press writer Lisle Shoemaker aboard the invasion flagship off Iwo that the Marine motto of Semper Fidelis – always faithful – never before had been challenged or tried as it was in the attack on that island.