CINCPAC Press Release No. 743
For Immediate Release
March 18, 1945
LtGen Holland M. Smith, USMC, returns from Iwo
Reiterating that the battle for Iwo Jima was “the toughest and hardest fight in Marine Corps history,” LtGen Holland M. Smith, USMC, Commanding General of Fleet Marine Force, Pacific, has returned to his Pearl Harbor headquarters with members of his staff.
The bloody conquest of Japan’s Gibraltar of the Pacific further evidenced that the fighting will “get tougher” as we close in on the Nipponese empire, Gen Smith said.