Battle of Iwo Jima (1945)

42

Editorial: The summit of Suribachi

Capture of Mt. Suribachi by U.S. Marines should cut the American casualty rate in the Battle of Iwo Island – the highest so far in the history of the Pacific warfare. That mountain dominates the five-mile island. Its guns accounted for many of the American killed and wounded.

Now that Suribachi is in our hands, our artillery can pour it on the Japs below. Already their casualties are estimated at double our own.

This improved position on Iwo does not mean, of course, that victory will be easy. The second airfield, and virtually all of the central and northern parts of the island, are still mostly held by the enemy although we have a toehold on the airstrip. Literally every foot of the rocky advance will be contested from well-prepared defenses. There will be few prisoners.

But we at home, who wait and pray, can be thankful that American heroism in the first part of the battle has turned the tide. Because of this, and the foresight of the high command, our forces now apparently have numerical superiority ashore, as well as control of the sea and air. The result is not in doubt.

43

U.S. Navy Department (February 26, 1945)

CINCPOA Communiqué No. 280

Elements of the 3rd Marine Division constituting the center of our lines on Iwo Island advanced about 400 yards through extremely heavy enemy defenses on February 26 (East Longitude Date) seized the high ground of the central plateau and by nightfall brought most of the island’s second airfield into our possession. Fighting along the entire line was very heavy with enemy resistance mounting before our attack throughout the day. Our troops were subjected to artillery and rocket fire and a very heavy volume of small arms fire during the advance. The 4th Marine Division on the east and the 5th Marine Division on the west advanced during the day, the 4th Division capturing a commanding hill near the east coast. The attack by our forces was supported by Marine artillery, naval gunfire, and carrier aircraft.

Mopping-up operations continued in the south, around Mount Suribachi. Little enemy fire fell on the interior of our beachhead during the day.

On February 26, our forces counted 3,568 enemy dead and 9 enemy prisoners in eight days of fighting on Iwo Island.

Marine observation planes, the first U.S. aircraft to land, began operating on the southern Iwo airstrip during the morning while restoration of the runways to operational condition continued.

Supplies and equipment were landed in increasing quantities as road and beach conditions continued to improve.

Carrier aircraft strafed targets in and around Chichi Jima in the Bonins burning one plane on the ground, sinking a small merchant vessel and burning two medium merchant ships. Oil storage facilities were destroyed.

Planes of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing set a building supply dump and fuel storage area afire on Urukthapel in the Palaus on February 25.

Marine aircraft attacked targets on Yap in the western Carolines on the same date.

Army Thunderbolts strafed buildings and defenses on Pagan in the Marianas on February 26, starting two fires.

44

The Pittsburgh Press (February 26, 1945)

Marines clearing Iwo’s 2nd airfield

Savage fighting continues on island

GUAM (UP) – Shock troops of three Marine divisions were clearing the last few yards of Iwo’s central airfield today.

The battle-weary Marines seized all of the east-west runway and all but one third of the north-south runway of Motoyama Airfield No. 2 atop the central plateau yesterday.

Tanks and flamethrowers were again spearheading the attack, backed up by swarms of carrier planes and big Army Liberators. Fighting was savage, with many hand-to-hand combats reported.

Far from over

With the capture of Motoyama Airfield No. 2, the 3rd, 4th and 5th Marine Division will have all Iwo’s airstrips – within fighter-plane range of Tokyo – in their hands. Motoyama Airfield No. 1, farther south, fell to the Marines last week.

But the battle of Iwo was far from over. The Japs still hold Mt. Moto, a volcano dominating Northern Iwo, and a cluster of other peaks, all honeycombed with gun emplacements and defense tunnels from which they were raining shells and rockets on the American-held portion of the island.

May take weeks

U.S. Navy Secretary James V. Forrestal, who visited the beachhead four days after D-Day, told newsmen aboard Vice Adm. Richmond K. Turner’s flagship off the island that the cleanup would take many weeks.

Tokyo radio claimed today that Jap defenders on Mt. Suribachi counterattacked the Marines there and recaptured the summit.

Adm. Chester W. Nimitz reported in a communiqué yesterday that the number of Jap bodies counted had reached 2,827 by Sunday noon. Since the Japs usually recover most of their dead, the number of Japs killed actually may be nearer 6,000.

Japs killed 4 to 1

Mr. Forrestal said the Marines were killing four Japs for every American killed.

A Tokyo broadcast said U.S. casualties on Iwo had reached 22,000 – “three Marines a minute.” Tokyo also claimed that Jap planes had sunk an American submarine off Iwo.

A few Jap planes attacked U.S. forces on and around Iwo just before midnight Saturday, but caused no damage. Some of the raiders dropped their bombs on the Jap-held portion of Iwo.

Beach conditions on Iwo showed a “marked improvement,” Adm. Nimitz said, with supplies and reinforcements flowing ashore in a steady flood.

Army Liberators winged north of Iwo to bomb Chichi in the Bonin group Friday and Saturday.

45

War news costs lives on Iwo Island

Envelope of dispatch bloodstained

GUAM (UP) – The battle to get the war news back from bloody Iwo Island is a tough one too.

The hardships of civilian war correspondents, Marine combat correspondents, Navy, Marine and Army public relations personnel on Iwo were disclosed in a letter from United Press writer Mac Johnson, aboard an expeditionary flagship off Iwo.

The letter, dated February 23, said that the first story from Lisle Shoemaker, United Press writer on Iwo, arrived aboard ship “in a blood-saturated envelope.”

Holes in message

Mr. Johnson said:

It must have been the messenger that got it because there were holes in Lisle’s copy.

Press boats [to deliver copy from the beach to the flagship for transmission] have been wrecked, shot up and disabled. Sometimes when the press boat was available to go to the beach, the beachmaster wouldn’t let it in because of priority on ammunition, food and equipment in boats waiting to unload.

‘A rough campaign’

Many public relations officers, public relations helpers, and combat correspondents were wounded or killed.

Due to circumstances, there were no central gathering points for copy and the boats couldn’t make pickup schedules and many times they were able to meet schedules.

This has been a rough campaign.

46

Arms to save lives requested

Forrestal describes fighting on Iwo

GUAM (UP) – Secretary of the Navy James E. Forrestal appealed to the American people at home today for more and more munitions to save the lives of their men fighting on the far-flung battlefronts of the world.

Just back from a tour of the American beachhead on bloody Iwo, where he saw the Stars and Stripes raised triumphantly, Mr. Forrestal made his appeal in a radio broadcast from Adm. Chester W. Nimitz’s Advanced Pacific Fleet Headquarters.

The Marines are fighting valiantly on Iwo and have exacted a four-to-one toll in death from the Japs, he said, but they need an increasing flow of munitions to maintain their fighting edge.

Bombed for 70 days

Mr. Forrestal explained how the tiny island, only 750 miles from Tokyo, was bombed for 70 successive days, shelled for three straight days by battleships, cruisers and destroyers, and hit intermittently by carrier planes.

The Secretary said:

Let me stress here that the tremendous storm of metal thrown on Iwo Jima sharpens again the necessity for the continued output of munitions in our plants at home.

Only because of that rain of metal could the island be reduced at all. Because of it, our ratio of losses is far less than it otherwise would have been.

As Fleet Adm. Nimitz has said, it is our policy in the Pacific to have an unstoppable edge of power in these attacks. A steamroller, as he puts it. That steamroller saves us many lives.

It will take the output, however, of many factories and hard work by all hands in these factories for months to come, if we are to keep that edge of power.

Describes scene

Mr. Forrestal said he was halfway to shore with Lt. Gen. Holland Smith when the Marines reached the top of Mt. Suribachi – a volcano with sides so precipitous they seemed almost vertical.

47

The Pittsburgh Press (February 27, 1945)

3,568 bodies found –
Half of Japs on Iwo Island knocked out

Marines 1½ miles from north coast

GUAM (UP) – Field dispatches said today that U.S. Marines have knocked out half the Jap garrison of 20,000 in battling across both Iwo’s airfields to within a little more than a mile and a half of the north coast.

A Jap Domei dispatch said the Marines opened a “major offensive against our main positions” in Central and Northern Iwo Monday following an all-night bombardment by Nary guns. “Sanguinary battles” were said to be raging.

Marine planes were already operating from the southern airfield, captured a week ago. The northern up of the central airfield still was in Jap hands, but it was under artillery fire from a newly-captured hill dominating the area.

3,568 Japs slain

Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, commander of the Pacific Fleet, announced that 741 more Jap bodies had been counted on Iwo, bringing the number of known enemy dead to 3,568 for the first eight days of battle.

However, as many more enemy dead probably still remained behind enemy lines, United Press writer Mac R. Johnson, aboard the invasion flagship off Iwo, said 10,000 Japs were believed dead or seriously wounded.

Maj. Gen. Graves B. Erskine’s 3rd Marine Division advanced 400 yards – four times the length of a football field – at the center of the line in bloody fighting yesterday. By dusk, the Marines had seized high ground of the 342-foot-high central plateau and most of the central airfield, Motoyama No. 2.

May split Jap lines

The 4th Marine Division on the eastern flank and the 5th Division on the west also scored new gains. The 4th Division captured Hill 382 near the east coast, dominating a major portion of the remaining enemy-held territory to the north.

The 3rd Division was only a little more than a mile and a half from the north coast and was threatening to split the enemy defenses.

An advance of another half mile to the north would cut both remaining lateral roads between the east and west coasts. though both flanks still could communicate over mountain trails.

Enemy resistance was mounting as the Marines steadily compressed the territory remaining in Jap hands. The Japs stepped up their artillery and rocket fire and Adm. Nimitz reported a “very heavy volume” of small arms fire. Some of the Japs were fighting from concrete pillboxes with walls four feet thick.

The bitterness of the fighting was shown in part by the fact that only nine Jap prisoners have been taken.

Mop-up on Suribachi

Marine observation planes began operating from the southern airfield, Motoyama No. 1, yesterday while Seabees still were repairing the runways.

South of the airfield, mopping-up operations continued around Mt. Suribachi.

Little enemy fire fell on the interior of the American beachhead and supplies and equipment flowed ashore in increasing quantities as road and beach conditions improved.

Carrier planes strafed targets in and around Chichi in the Bonin Islands just north of Iwo. A small merchant vessel was sunk, two medium merchant ships were set afire, one plane on the ground was burned and oil storage facilities were destroyed.

48

Iwo’s fall predicted in few more days

ABOARD ADM. TURNER’S FLAGSHIP OFF IWO JIMA (UP) – Lt. Gen. Holland M. Smith, commanding general of Marine forces in the Pacific, predicted today that Iwo Island will fall in a matter of days.

“We expect to take this island in a few more days,” Gen. Smith said.

He was in high spirits after making a long tour of the American-held portion of Iwo Jima.

49

General’s bills arrive on Iwo

WITH THE 5TH MARINE DIVISION, IWO JIMA (UP) – A Marine runner dashed into the tented-foxhole of Maj. Gen. Keller E. Rockey three times with mail just in from ships offshore.

After the third delivery, the commanding general of the 5th Marine Division admitted his “big” mail haul had netted three bills, one business letter and invitations to two parties back in the States.

50

Editorial: Keep the blood coming

Blood plasma collected by the Red Cross is defeating death wherever our men are fighting. Its value is beyond price.

Now whole blood, as well as plasma, is being flown in iced containers even as far as Iwo Jima. On that bitter island our casualties are appalling, but our death rate is relatively low.

Says one surgeon on the scene:

I know five men whose lives definitely were saved by whole blood and plasma. Plasma replaces the blood fluid, but not the cells.

Tell the folks at home to keep it coming.

Please note that last sentence. The Red Cross will show you how. Just telephone GRant 1680 for an appointment. Or drop in at the Wabash Building Blood Bank without an appointment.

51

Völkischer Beobachter (February 28, 1945)

Schwere US-Verluste auf Iwojima

Stockholm, 27. Februar – Admiral Nimitz, Oberbefehlshaber der amerikanischen Pazifikflotte, gab in einem Bericht zu, dass die US-Verluste auf der Insel Iwojima bis zum vorigen Mittwoch schon mehr als 5.300 Mann betrügen.

In einer zusammenfassenden Darstellung der Kriegslage im Pazifikraum stellt UP nach einer Neuyorker Meldung fest, dass noch niemals seit 150 Jahren die Marinestreitkräfte der Vereinigten Staaten derartig, große Verluste erlitten hätten, wie in den ersten drei Tagen der amerikanischen Invasion auf Iwojima. Die Härte der Kämpfe werde dadurch gekennzeichnet, dass von der 20.000 Mann starken japanischen Garnison in Iwojima bisher nur ein einziger Japaner in amerikanische Kriegsgefangenschaft geraten sei. Die amerikanische Flotte, Luftwaffe und Armee seien hier auf ihre vielleicht stärkste Probe gestellt.

U.S. Navy Department (February 28, 1945)

CINCPOA Communiqué No. 282

During the night of February 26‑27 (East Longitude Date), several small-scale enemy attempts to infiltrate through our lines on Iwo Island were repulsed. In one sector a movement of tanks and troops was broken up by our artillery fire. A mortar support unit destroyed two enemy ammunition dumps during the night and gunfire from cruisers and destroyers offshore continued to harass the enemy.

Marines launched an attack on the morning of February 27 after preparation by Marine artillery, naval gunfire and carrier aircraft bombing. By nightfall limited advances had been made by the 3rd Marine Division in the center and the 4th Marine Division on the right flank. Enemy artillery and mortar fire was heavy throughout the day, some of it falling on our rear areas and on the beaches.

Carrier aircraft and naval guns continued to support the ground troops.

Seventh Army Air Force Liberators of the Strategic Air Force, Pacific Ocean Areas, bombed enemy positions on Iwo Island during the afternoon.

Improved beach conditions continued to facilitate unloading of supplies.

The extent of the enemy’s defense preparations on Iwo Island is indicated by the total of 800 pillboxes of various types which have been scouted in the Third Marine Division zone of action.

On February 25, 7th AAF Liberators, operating under StrAirPoa, bombed the airfield on Chichi Jima in the Bonins.

Fighters and torpedo planes of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing destroyed a bridge and other installations on Babelthuap in the Palaus and destroyed warehouses on Yap in the western Carolines on February 27.

CINCPOA Communiqué No. 283

The Marines on Iwo Island made an advance of several hundred yards in most sectors of the lines on February 28 (East Longitude Date). Driving through the center of the enemy’s main line of resistance, the 3rd Marine Division moved beyond the village of Motoyama on the island plateau. The 5th Division on the west, led by tanks and the 4th Division on the east, pushed forward several hundred yards against stiff opposition. The attack was supported by naval gunfire, Marine artillery and carrier aircraft. Some mortar fire fell on our northern beaches during the day but facilities for unloading continued to develop.

The attack was made after a night of light activity. The enemy attempted infiltration with small groups which were driven off and our mortar support units and fleet surface units maintained harassing fire and illumination fire throughout the night.

At 1800 on February 26, 4,784 enemy dead had been counted and 10 prisoners of war taken.

On February 27, carrier aircraft attacked the seaplane base on Chichi Jima in the Bonins causing an explosion.

Fighters and torpedo planes of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing made bombing and rocket attacks on enemy-held bases in the Palaus on February 27 and 28. Several fires were started, one bridge was destroyed, and a bridge and pier were damaged.

52

The Pittsburgh Press (February 28, 1945)

Yards measure U.S. gains on Iwo

Marines straighten lines across island

GUAM (UP) – U.S. Marines straightened their lines across Iwo’s central plateau in no-quarter battles today preparatory to a general assault toward the mountainous north coast.

A Tokyo broadcast heard by the Australian Information Department listening post said the Americans “at last are showing signs of victory on Iwo.”

Gains were measured in feet and yards at high cost. A front dispatch said the Marines were coming up against such heavy defenses as two-story cement blockhouses sunk so deep that they protrude only a couple of feet above the ground.

“There are no apparent exits to these mammoth vaults,” United Press writer Lisle Shoemaker reported from Iwo. “There may be underground tunnels, but it would not be surprising if the Japs had sealed themselves in for a death stand.”

The 3rd Marine Division alone has counted 800 pillboxes of all sizes and shapes in its zone of operations at the center of the American line. Mr. Shoemaker said Iwo was the most heavily defended spot “per square inch” ever assaulted in warfare,

“Even the most optimistic won’t surmise that this assault may be concluded in under 10 days,” Mr. Shoemaker said.

Make ‘limited gains’

Adm. Chester W. Nimitz announced in a communique that the Marines made “limited gains” in an attack yesterday after repulsing several small-scale enemy attempts to infiltrate the American lines the previous night.

Marine artillery, naval guns and carrier aircraft supported the attack. Best gains, though still measured only in yards, were made by 3rd Division veterans of Guam and Saipan on the central plateau and by the 4th Division on the east flank.

The 5th Division on the west flank made little progress.

Unloading speeded

Enemy artillery and mortar fire continued heavy throughout yesterday, some falling on rear areas and on the beaches. The newly-captured central plateau airfield was under particularly severe fire.

Beach conditions further improved, speeding the unloading of supplies.

Army Liberators bombed enemy positions on Iwo yesterday. The four-engined bombers went at 3,500 feet and even lower for pinpoint destruction on enemy installations with 6,500-pound bombs.

Jap artillery looks down throats of Marines on Iwo

Airfield technically ours, but foe on cliff makes life hell on ‘Hollywood battlefield’
By Lisle Shoemaker, United Press staff writer

ON THE EDGE OF MOTOYAMA AIRFIELD NO. 2, Iwo (Feb. 27, delayed) – The Jap mortars and artillery guns are looking right down our throats.

They are up on a cliff beyond the field, with perfect observation and firing positions. And they are making life a hell on this field.

There is no cover for the Marines – just shell holes and American-dug foxholes – from the steady blast of mortar and flat trajectory shells which scream onto this edge.

Technically ours

Technically, the airfield is ours. We have troops on the far side to the north, but it lies directly under the Jap high ground.

The 3rd Division Marines raced through a hail of mortar and artillery to reach the north side several days ago. But they have been unable to get any farther since because of the Jap guns on the cliff.

The field was one from which the Japs staged their medium bomber raids on B-29 bases in the Marianas. Now it was a desolate no-man’s-land, almost beyond imagination. It looks like a Hollywood battlefield.

We climbed up the slope to the southern edge this morning, but a young captain asked us not to go any farther.

Warning unnecessary

“It’s too hot now,” he said.

Mortar and big artillery shells crashed into the field and the warning wasn’t necessary.

Marines were carrying back their dead buddies, tiptoeing through minefields and winding through the shambles of wrecked equipment – ours and the enemy’s.

The 3rd Marines are veteran fighters, but all agree they never saw anything like this fierce and bloody struggle.

Marines protest Hearst editorial

Delegation calls at San Francisco paper

SAN FRANCISCO – The 12th Naval District reported today that the shore patrol was called last night to the San Francisco Examiner, a Hearst newspaper, to disperse 75 to 100 Marines who had gathered in protest against a front-page editorial yesterday.

The editorial, which was printed in the various Hearst papers, claimed that the high casualties on Iwo Jima were due to poor leadership and that Gen. Douglas MacArthur should have commanded the assault.

The shore patrol found the Marines were “peaceable,” the naval district reported. They had appointed two representatives to discuss the editorial with the editor. The Marines dispersed and left “quietly,” the district reported.

The editorial was headed “MacArthur Is Our Best Strategist.” It said in part that “American casualties (on Iwo) apparently run more than 10 percent of the original invading force… There is awesome evidence… that American forces are paying heavily for the island, perhaps too heavily.”

“Fortunately,” the editorial said, “it is not the sort of thing that occurs everywhere in the Pacific.” In MacArthur’s operations, it added, “there has been neither decimation nor exhaustion of American forces.”

The San Francisco Chronicle attacked the editorial Wednesday without mentioning the Examiner.

53

U.S. Navy Department (March 1, 1945)

CINCPOA Communiqué No. 284

U.S. Marines on Iwo Island advanced northward on March 1 (East Longitude Date) occupying the Western end of the Island’s northern airstrip moving our lines in the Western and Central sectors forward and making smaller gains on the Eastern side of the Island. The enemy continues to offer stiff opposition.

The attack was made after intense shelling by Marine artillery and naval guns. Carrier aircraft supported the ground troops during the day.

Seventeen prisoners of war were taken by Marines in the 3rd Division zone of action.

Occasional artillery fire fell on parts of the beaches but unloading proceeded.

During early morning hours of March 1, a small group of enemy aircraft entered the Iwo area and dropped bombs which caused no damage. One bomber was shot down by ships’ anti-aircraft fire.

Harassing attacks were carried out by carrier aircraft on enemy installations on Chichi Jima in the Bonins on the night of February 28‑March 1.

During the week of February 18 to February 24, mopping up operations continued in the Marianas and Palaus. Thirty-seven of the enemy were killed and 52 captured on Saipan. On Guam 35 were killed and 11 taken prisoner. Seven of the enemy were killed and two taken prisoner on Tinian. Two prisoners were taken on Peleliu.

Fighters and torpedo planes of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing started fires and destroyed a bridge in the Palaus on March 1.

Corsairs of the 4th MarAirWing bombed and strafed buildings, small craft and airfields at Ponape in the Carolines on February 28.

Marine aircraft continued neutralizing raids on enemy-held bases in the Marshalls on the same date.

54

The Pittsburgh Press (March 1, 1945)

Japs drive back into northern Iwo

U.S. Marines encircle largest town on isle

GUAM (UP) – Marines of the 3rd Division shoved desperately-resisting Japs back into rocky northern Iwo today in a fighting advance to within a mile and a quarter of the north coast.

The German Transocean Agency reported from Tokyo that the Marines had launched an all-out attack on Iwo and that shells from U.S. warships off shore were hitting the island at the rate of 500 an hour.

Encircle Motoyama

The Marines already had encircled and perhaps captured the village of Motoyama, Iwo’s administrative center and largest town. The Yanks were within a few yards of an uncompleted third airfield on the tiny island only 750 miles south of Tokyo.

Radio Tokyo said Jap planes made “violent attacks” today on a concentration of U.S. warships in the vicinity of Ivo and the Bonin Islands, immediately north of Iwo.

The 3rd Marine Division gained 700 to 800 yards – the biggest day’s advance since the start of the invasion 10 days ago – at the center of the American line yesterday in the initial phases of a general assault.

Airfield cleared

While the 3rd Division was wedging deeply into the center of the enemy line, the tank-led 5th Division on the western flank drove ahead several hundred yards against stiff opposition.

The 4th Division, on the eastern flank, also went over to the attack, but made only “limited gains” against Japs firmly entrenched in sharp ridges rising from the east coast.

The 3rd division’s advance removed the enemy threat to newly-captured Motoyama Airfield No. 2 – the central airfield – as well as threatrnerd Motoyama Airfield No. 3, the uncompleted northern airtstrip, Motoyama Airfield No. 1, in Southern Iwo, was already beinfg used by artillery observation planes.

Face pillboxes

Still ahead of the Marines were hundreds more concrete pillboxes, blockhouses and gun positions in the rocky ridges at the northern end of the island. Each one must be captured or neutralized in inevitably bloody fighting.

Marine casualties have not been announced beyond 5,372 for the first 58 hours of the invasion, but Adm. Chester W. Nimitz reported in a communiqué that 4,784 Jap bodies had been recovered by 6 p.m. Monday.

One additional Jap soldier has been captured, he said, bringing the number of prisoners for the bitter campaign to 10.

Radio Tokyo claimed that U.S. casualties had reached 13,500, but acknowledged that fighting had reached the “decisive stage with the launching of a major assault by the Marines.”

Carrier aircraft also attacked a seaplane base on Chichi in the adjacent Bonin Islands Tuesday, touching off an explosion.

‘Iwo situation well in hand,’ President says

WASHINGTON (UP) – U. S. Marines om Iwo Jima, as they invariably do sooner or later, “have the situation well in hand.”

So said President Roosevelt today in his speech to Congress.

He said the combined British and American chiefs of staff at Malta made plans to step up the attack on Japan. Japanese warlords have already felt the force of American B-29s and carrier planes, and, he added, they have felt our naval might and “do not appear very anxious to come out and try it again.”

He added:

The Japs know what it means to hear that “the United States Marines have landed.” And we can add, having Iwo Jima in mind: “The situation is well in hand.”

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55

Hey Japan! Yes, quick tip. You want Americans to be scared? To not land on your islands?

Post the following the words in HUGE placards

FREE HEALTHCARE HERE!

Where should you put it? Along the beaches, away from beaches, paint the whole Island with placards.

Watch them cover in fear.
image

1 Like
56

Pittsburgher and 60 men start across Iwo, 3 make it

Lieutenant crosses island in 90 minutes through maze of pillboxes, gun emplacements
By Sgt. Keyes Beech, USMC combat correspondent

IWO ISLAND (UP, delayed) – Out of countless tales of heroism there came today the story of a Marine lieutenant and two enlisted men who fought their way through pillboxes, bunkers, blockhouses and machine-gun nests to cross to the western shore of this island only 90 minutes after they landed on the east.

When he hit the beach at H-Hour, February 19, 2nd Lt. Frank J. Wright, 25, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, had a platoon of 60 men.

By the time he had crossed the island an hour and a half later, two of the 60 remained with him and instead of being a platoon leader, Lt. Wright was a company commander.

Four of his company’s officers, including the company commander, were killed or wounded as they attempted to follow him across.

The company was part of a 5th Marine Division assault battalion which was assigned to cut directly across the island to the western shore and then pivot toward Mortar Mountain, as it is now called, to the left.

The two men with whom Lt. Wright blazed a death-strewn trail for 800 yards from shore to shore were Pvt. Lee H. Zuck, 22, of Scranton, Arkansas, and Pvt. Remo A. Bechelli, 26, of Detroit.

Lt. Wright is a son of Mr. and Mrs. Martin Wright of 2324 Primrose Street. He formerly attended Duquesne University where he played football. He was a certified accountant when he joined the Marines more than three years ago. He was commissioned in November 1943.

Lt. Wright said:

We weren’t trying to run a foot race. But our orders were to get across the island as fast as possible, and that’s what we did.

The going was almost too easy at the beach. It was still easy coming up those terraces. But when we hit the crest of the ridge, everything changed.

What happened was that the Japs had withdrawn from the beach and the terraces and taken their positions on the ridge. Some of them had gone all the way down to Suribachi [Mortar Mountain].

I would move along ahead while Bechelli and Zuck kept me covered with their BARs [Browning automatic rifles]. As soon as I could see where we were going next I’d motion to them to come on up.

That way we made pretty good time. but we never would have gotten across as soon as we did if it hadn’t been for the help the tanks gave us. We blew up some pillboxes but it was the men behind us who had to do most of the fighting.

We were leading the way.

We saw some Japs, seven or eight of them, running along a hill. I guess they must have been a mortar crew, because they didn’t seem to be armed. I think we got all of them.

At one point the three men came to an enemy 20-mm gun emplacement. There didn’t seem to be a way around it, so Pvt. Zuck leaped to the top of the emplacement and sprayed its occupants with his BAR, killing or wounding all of them.

Later in those 90 dramatic minutes, Pvt. Bechelli did virtually the same thing.

It was the first time any of the three men had been in combat.

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57

Hope, pain and patience are heritage of wounded

Shot through throat, jaw by Jap on Iwo, Keith Wheeler writes from Saipan hospital
By Keith Wheeler, North American Newspaper Alliance

Keith Wheeler, severely wounded on Iwo, is now writing from the base hospital on Saipan. This is the first of a series.

AT AN ARMY STATION HOSPITAL, Saipan (Feb. 25, delayed) – It is now five days since I was wounded by a Jap bullet on the beach at Iwo Jima.

When I was first hit, I thought I was killed and I accepted my death without much inner protest. Sometime late in the first hour, I began to hope that I would survive. The hope has progressed gradually, until now I am convinced my eventful recovery is a reasonable certainty.

In these 120 hours since the bullet smashed through my throat and jaw, I have run the usual course of experiences of those wounded in battle. Twice men of great courage who were strangers to me saved my life at great risk of their own.

Becomes pincushion

My wounds have been dressed and probed and x-rayed and I have become a pincushion for needles carrying morphine, Novocain, penicillin, whole human blood, plasma, and probably several other specifics I did not feel at the time.

Now, at the end of five days, my crushed lower jaw has been hemstitched to the upper in a rigid embroidery of stainless-steel wire and rubber bands. The enormous swelling that once had my neck and head a great shapeless, julpy balloon has gone down by half. The surgeon’s next job is to dig some stray bone splinters out of my flesh and to force one triangular chunk of bone into an approximate plumb with what used to be my jawline.

Thereafter I will settle down to a minimum of two months of eating only such liquids as I can suck through by clenched teeth and restraining my conversation to grunts. It may need much longer than that.

Because I am still relieved to be alive, because I still am physically strong and mentally interested and because I am not yet as hungry as I expect to become, I approach this prospect still with a certain cheerfulness. But I doubt if it lasts long.

I am truly and humbly convinced that the fact and circumstances of my wound are important to very few people. As they are the experiences of an individual, they are worth far less than I intend to write about them.

There were 600 wounded on my hospital ship alone. There were thousands more on others nearby. Every hour on the beach adds to the harvest of pain and disfigurement. There are far too many of us for any one of us to unique.

‘Some of us die’

Some of us lose arms or legs or eyes and some of us die. Some are paralyzed and some few are crazy when it’s over. Some of us may return to duty in a few days. Some of us never will be whole again. But the road to health is long and dark through pain.

Each of us is different, but all of us are alike. We are the wounded. If I write overmuch about the wounded me, it is because I know most about my own wound. When I write about me, I am in some sense writing about us all. About the fear and courage, stink and misery, discouragement and hope and disappointment, pain and patience that are the heritage of all of us who are the wounded.

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58

Völkischer Beobachter (March 2, 1945)

Schwäre Feindverluste auf Iwojima

Tokio, 1. März – Die Invasionskämpfe auf der Schwefelinsel der Bonin-Gruppe konzentrierten sich, Frontberichten zufolge, immer mehr, um die japanischen Flugplätze. Starke amerikanische Einheiten, die im Schutz von über 60 Panzern auf das Motoyama-Flugfeld im Inneren der Insel gelangten, wurden von japanischer Infanterie in blutige Nahkämpfe verwickelt.

Die Stellungen auf dem vulkanischen Berg im Süden der Insel, die in die Hände des Feindes gefallen waren, wurden in erbitterten Kämpfen von zahlenmäßig unterlegenen japanischen Streitkräften zurückerobert. Japanische Flugzeuge unterstützten die Verteidiger.

Wie die Berichte weiter besagen, ließ der stürmische Seegang, der die Bewegungen der feindlichen Flottenkräfte an den Vortagen behindert hatte, am 24. Februar soweit nach, dass weitere Transporter Panzer, Geschütze und andere Materialien landen konnten. Obwohl die feindliche Schiffsartillerie täglich bis zu 5.000 Schuss auf die Insel abgab, gibt selbst der Gegner zu, dass die Kampfmoral der japanischen Verteidiger ungebrochen ist.

Die feindlichen Verluste sind so hoch, dass der Gegner jetzt bereits zehn Lazarettschiffe in den Gewässern der Schwefelinsel einsetzen musste. Allein bis zum Abend des 22. Februar waren von den ersten drei amerikanischen Divisionen auf der Insel 14.000 Mann gefallen oder verwundet; sie dürften inzwischen die Zahl von 20.000 weit überschritten haben.

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U.S. Navy Department (March 2, 1945)

CINCPOA Communiqué No. 285

Attacking in the center of the enemy lines, the 3rd Marine Division drove a salient seven hundred yards deep into enemy positions and captured Hill 362 on Iwo Island on March 2 (East Longitude Date). Smaller advances were made in other sectors. The attack was launched after bombardment of enemy areas by Marine artillery, naval guns and carrier aircraft, and it was met by intense small arms, automatic weapons and mortar fire. The 5th Division beat off a counterattack in its zone of action.

A total of 7,127 enemy dead had been counted by 1200 on March 2. Prisoners of war total 32.

Destruction of enemy caves and strongpoints on Iwo Island is continuing. Restoration of the southern Iwo airfield is proceeding.

During the night of March 1, carrier aircraft made bombing and rocket attacks on Omura town and on the airfield on Chichi Jima in the Bonins, causing an explosion and fire. Seventh Army Air Force Liberators operating under the Strategic Air Force, Pacific Ocean Areas, bombed targets on Chichi Jima and Haha Jima on March 1.

Navy Search Venturas of Fleet Air Wing Two bombed and strafed airfield installations on Wake Island on March 1.

Fourth Marine Aircraft Wing Corsair fighters continued neutralizing enemy-held bases in the Marshalls.

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The Pittsburgh Press (March 2, 1945)

Main defense belt on Iwo breached

Marines’ campaign near last phases

GUAM (UP) – U. S. Marines broke through the enemy’s main defense belt on Iwo in a hotly-contested advance to within 1,200 yards of the north coast today.

“The Iwo campaign is moving into its last phases,” United Press writer Mac R. Johnson reported from the invasion flagship off Japan’s tiny front doorstep island.

“The end of the campaign may come within three to four days if the Marine tempo of 400 to 600-yard daily average advance is maintained,” he said.

The 3rd Marine Division at the center of the front breached the enemy’s main defense line in an 800-yard advance that carried across the western end of Iwo’s third and last airfield.

The breakthrough at the center threatened to split the surviving garrison of probably fewer than 10,000 Japs in Iwo for piecemeal annihilation.

Both the eastern and western flanks of the enemy line were also under attack, but the 4th and 5th Marine Divisions in these sectors still have as much as 2,500 yards to go to reach the northern beaches.

In the west, however. Maj. Gen. Keller E. Rockey’s 5th Division seized Hill 362, one of the highest observation posts in the northern area.

Maj Gen. Greaves B. Erskine, commander of the 3rd Division, reported the central breakthrough to Lt. Gen. Holland M. Smith, invasion commander, aboard Vice Adm. Richmond K. Turner’s flagship.

Gen. Erskine said his veterans of the Guam and Saipan campaign, had battled through a belt of blockhouses and pillboxes on high ground from which the Japs swept the advancing Marines with murderous crossfire.

A Marine spokesman aboard Adm. Turner’s flagship said the fighting for the defense line was at the closest range of the entire 11-day campaign.

“When our men got into the enemy-held ground, they found the Japs still were there,” he said. “They had to fight it out and killed them in what could nearly be called ‘hand-to-hand’ fighting.”

It was believed the remaining enemy defenses guarding the north coast were not so strong as those which the Americans have just pierced.

Behind their lines, 3rd Division forces cleared encircled Motoyama village, administrative center and largest town on Iwo.

The northern airfield on Iwo – Motoyama Airfield No. 3 – now partly occupied by the 3rd Division, was never completed by the Japs. Their other two airfields are in American hands.

A Tokyo broadcast said Jap planes had spotted and attacked a “concentration of American convoys” off the Bonin Islands, just north of Iwo.

The Marines captured their largest one-day bag of prisoners of the 11-day campaign yesterday. Seventeen were rounded up by the 3rd Division, bringing the total since the invasion February 19 to 27.

U.S. carrier planes carried out harassing attacks on enemy installations on Chichi in the Bonin islands, north of Iwo, Wednesday night.

In the Marianas, 37 more Japs were killed and 52 captured in mopping-up operations on Saipan, 35 killed and 11 captured on Guam, and seven killed and two captured on Tinian.

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Beach on Iwo flaming hell, wounded say

100 victims flown to Pearl Harbor

NAVAL HOSPITAL, Pearl Harbor (UP) – Iwo’s beach was “a mess” … “a blazing blur” … “a flaming hell” …

Those impressions, along with unforgettable memories of American heroism, were carried today by first combat casualties from Iwo as they tested here en route home in flying Army ambulances.

More than 100 Marine, Navy and Seabee wounded, who were hurt in the first day and a half after the landing, arrived yesterday from Guam to where they first had been evacuated.

Torrent of Jap fire

A Marine public relations officer from Ohio grinned from his hospital cot as he told of the torrent of artillery, mortar, rocket and small arms fire that poured down on the first waves to hit the Iwo beaches.

Mortar fire had broken his leg. He stayed all night in a foxhole under heavy fire and finally was evacuated to Guam after one landing craft was sunk under him on the way to the hospital ship.

He said:

The beach was a mess when we landed. We could see that something was wrong. Tanks, barges and supplies were piled up on the shore and men were trying to dig in with their bare hands.

The Japs were raking the beach furiously from Mt. Suribachi and from a quarry to the north. Everybody was pinned down.

Cigar between teeth

The bravest man I saw was a young Marine about 19 with a carbine slung over his shoulder and a big cigar clamped between his teeth. He leaped out of his foxhole every time a barge landed to haul supplies forward with a tractor while hell whistled around him.

One 5th Division Marine from Staten Island, New York, had difficulty recalling his impression of the landing.

“I got mine from mortars within 10 minutes after landing. Iwo was just a blazing blur to me,” he said.

Another Staten Island Marine, veteran of the Tinian and Saipan invasions, said:

It was a Jap rocket that got me. You can’t hear them or see them coming your way like you can the mortars. Two 1,000-pound rocket bombs landed among a bunch of corpsmen and doctors and a third one got me five hours after the landings.

Japs from all sides

A Marine captain from Texas said:

Jap fire seemed to come from all sides – before, behind and above – as I moved up with the men.

I saw three Marines and three Japs pegging grenades back and forth from a foxhole just a few yards apart during one lull. The Marines must have won because I saw them move up later.