Battle of Iwo Jima (1945)

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Stretcher-bearers walk upright through heavy Jap shellfire

Wounded reporter knows only fear when told he will live – rain impedes Iwo evacuation
By Keith Wheeler, North American Newspaper Alliance

Last of a series.

176TH ARMY STATION HOSPITAL, Saipan (Feb. 26, delayed) – I don’t know exactly when I began to believe I had a chance to live, but anyway when I did, it made a coward of me.

Probably it was when Lt. Cmdr. Howard S. Eccleston, the regimental surgeon on Iwo, succeeded in keeping a clamp on the artery the Jap bullet had severed in my throat. He pressed a dressing down on the oozing wound and, his face bent intently over me, counted my pulse while someone else I couldn’t see drove a needle into my arm and started plasma pouring into me.

I was still conscious and my mind was clear. It occurred to me dimly that I had a chance.

So long as I had thought I was dying, I was unafraid. Now gradually fear and nervousness grew in me.

Had pitied wounded men

I always had pitied wounded men who stared at their doctors with terrible intentness, asking whether they would live. And I always had thought if I were wounded, I wouldn’t ask – knowing that if it were a near thing one way or the other, the doctor would try to make it easy for me.

But anxious hope and resolution don’t mix. My right eye was drowned in blood but I stared at him with the other and croaked through my blood-filled throat, demanding what chance I had.

“You’re going to be all right now,” he said. It was what I wanted him to say, of course, but I didn’t really believe him. Nor fully disbelieve him either. I wished I hadn’t asked.

Starts to rain

“If you had to get hit, you couldn’t pick a better spot than this – five feet from the two best docs in the division,” Maj. John R. Jones’ voice said above me.

I lay and watched the clear amber level of the plasma going down in the jar somebody was holding above me, and I heard Maj. Jones telephoning for stretcher bearers. It began to rain and somebody folded a poncho around me and held a flap of it over my face.

And the earth still trembled and sand dribbled down the sides of the hole with the cadenced thudding of Jap shells.

Carried gently

I was feverishly impatient by the time the stretcher-bearers came, but I don’t really thing they took long. They lifted me out of the hole, holding my body gently all along its length, put me down on the stretcher and wrapped the poncho around me. The rain was heavier now, dismal and cold.

It was 500 yards to the beach through sand so soft and pitted with shell holes that it was practically a wading job all the way. The stretcher-bearers made it in three stages, stopping twice to change hands.

As we neared the beach, the shelling grew heavier and closer and by the time I saw the blackened prow of a wrecked Jap looming above me, we were moving through a roaring hell of sound.

Waits for boat

Upright, helpless, burdened by my inert weight, the stretcher-bearers trudged through the storm-like fury. A shell exploded so near that my upward-staring eyes saw the top of its plume of smoke and dirt.

Near the water’s edge, the shelling was so intense that we had to wait 20 minutes for a boat to come in. Cold and wet and sick, and by now nearly indifferent, I lay and listened to the shells, wondering whether I would lose now, having come so far.

While the shells crashed all around us, the stretcher-bearers lay close on either side of me, using their bodies to build a human foxhole for mine. They were strangers also; I’ll never know their names and if I did, there’s nothing I could do to thank them. It’s more than likely they’re dead or wounded by now.

The boat came at last and got out again safely through the barrage.

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66

The Pittsburgh Press (March 4, 1945)

Yanks hem in Japs on Iwo

Marines push foe back to sea

GUAM (UP) – U.S. Marines pushed the bitterly-resisting Jap defenders of Iwo Island back toward the sea Saturday as the 3rd and 5th Divisions advanced 200 to 400 yards through intense enemy fire, Fleet Adm. Chester W. Nimitz announced today.

The American troops were now within 500 yards of the northern tip of the island.

The Marines drove the Japs into a long narrow arc-like sector – an area so small that carrier aircraft were unable to strike effectively at the decimated enemy garrison.

U.S. ships now are unloading on both eastern and western coasts of the tiny embattled island. only 750 miles from Tokyo. Land-based aircraft are using the southern airfield to evacuate wounded men.

The 5th Division on the left flank and the 3rd Division in the center of the front line hacked out bloody gains through the main Jap defenses. But the 4th Division on the right flank made slow progress against heavy resistance.

Although within 500 yards of splitting the enemy forces, the Marines were still meeting fierce opposition. Marine artillery supported the American drive all along the line.

Between one-half and three-fourths of the 20,000 Jap troops on the island when the Marines landed were estimated to have been killed or severely wounded. For the remainder death was not far away.

Front dispatches disclosed that enemy planes were dropping water to the trapped and thirst-crazed Jap troops.

A 700-yard Marine advance Friday, one of the longest of the campaign, was made after a terrific barrage by artillery, naval guns and carrier aircraft. Now the Marines are nearing the craggy northeast coast and when they reach it, they will have split Lt. Gen. Tadamichi Kuribayashi’s fanatical garrison.

The American Leathernecks held all three airfields on the island after occupation of the Motoyama Airfield No. 3, an 800-yard fighter strip still in construction.

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U.S. Navy Department (March 5, 1945)

CINCPOA Communiqué No. 289

During the night of March 4-5 (East Longitude Dates), the enemy made a number of attempts to infiltrate into our lines on Iwo Island and subjected the Marines to substantial small arms and artillery fire. All enemy efforts to move into our positions were broken up. No appreciable change was made in the lines of the opposing forces on March 5. Improved wind and weather conditions facilitated unloading of supplies on both Eastern and Western beaches.

Seventh Army Air Force Liberators operating under the Strategic Air Force, Pacific Ocean Areas, bombed the airfield on Chichi Jima in the Bonins on March 4.

Corsair and Hellcat fighters and Avenger torpedo planes of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing set an ammunition dump and a supply area afire and damaged a pier by bombing and rocket attacks in the Palaus on March 4. Two of our aircraft were lost.

Navy search planes of Fleet Air Wing Two strafed targets on Ponape in the Eastern Carolines on the same date.

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The Pittsburgh Press (March 5, 1945)

Four-fifths of Iwo in American hands

Three-fourths of Japs on isle knocked out

GUAM (UP) – U.S. Marines completed the capture of four-fifths of Iwo today as the bloodiest battle of the Pacific war went into its third week on a rising note of fury.

More than 15,000 of the original enemy garrison of 20,000 troops have already been knocked out. But the remainder were fighting to the death for the shrinking strip of the north and east coasts still in their hands.

Stiffened enemy resistance reduced Marine gains to 100 yards yesterday. Hand-to-hand fighting with bayonets, grenades and even knives swirled through clouds of sulfurous steam rising from crevices in the volcanic terrain as the battle entered its final stage.

B-29 lands on Iwo

The Japs appeared to have chosen to fight from cave to cave and pillbox to pillbox until they finally have been thrown over the high cliffs of Northern Iwo into the Pacific. But a last “Banzai” suicide charge such as has marked the collapse of organized resistance on other islands is still a possibility.

Even as Marines continued their yard-by-yard advance to the north, Seabees repaired captured Motoyama Airfield No. 1 in Southern Iwo – first of three captured airfields – sufficiently for hospital planes to land and evacuate the wounded.

A Superfortress made an emergency landing for refueling on the airstrip yesterday after bombing Tokyo and took off four hours later. Eventually, Iwo’s airfields will be used regularly for refueling the B-29s and as a base for escorting fighters.

Find 12,846 bodies

Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, commander of the Pacific Fleet, announced that 12,846 Jap dead had been counted by 6 p.m. Saturday, an increase of more than 5,700 over the toll announced only 24 hours later.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands more enemy dead were believed behind the Jap lines.

Eighty-one prisoners had been taken by 6 p.m. Saturday, comprising 45 Koreans and 36 Japs, Adm. Nimitz said.

The 3rd Marine Division at the center of the front hacked out limited gains yesterday in its drive toward the northeast coast, a quarter mile away, in an attempt to split the enemy garrison.

Japs counterattack

The 4th Division, fighting through a ravine in the eastern sector, liquidated a troublesome Jap strongpoint near the town of Minami.

The 5th Division was engaged in hand-to-hand combat for enemy strongpoints on the northwest coast.

The Japs counterattacked the 5th Division in daylight yesterday and were repulsed with the loss of several hundred enemy troops.

Behind the front, other Marines were mopping up enemy stragglers and bypassed strongpoints. The Marines blew up the entrances to many fortified caves whose occupants refused to surrender.

Carrier planes teamed with Army Liberators in an attack on Chichi in the Bonin Islands, just north of Iwo.

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Devil’s cauldron seethes on Iwo

Sulfur fumes stem from crevices
By Lisle Shoemaker, United Press staff writer

WITH U.S. MARINE ASSAULT TROOPS ON IWO (March 3, delayed) – This volcanic terrain in Iwo’s mining district is the most horrible, grotesque and devilish ever imagined. It is what one would think the entrance to Hell looked like.

White clouds of sulfur fumes steam up from every crevice in the twisted crags and depressions of the nightmarish landscape.

Setting for ‘Macbeth’

This northern end of Iwo would make a perfect setting for the witches’ scene in Macbeth. It makes you think that all the witches in the world are crouched over a pot of devil’s brew on the other side of the next hill.

Half-obscured figures of Marines creeping through the evil-smelling clouds of sulfur fumes look like weird figures in a bad dream.

There are many dead Japs scattered around this fantastic spot just past captured airfield No. 2. Only a few sticks of charred, shattered wood mark the site of the house and sulfur mines of Motoyama.

Earth is warm

The earth is warm because of the sulfur boiling and bubbling underground. The troops who fight here merely dig down a little deeper when they are cold during the night.

There are a few dead Marines in sight, too. It takes only a glance at their bodies to realize that this hellhole is real and not a ghastly nightmare.

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70

Marine commandant’s son wounded on Iwo

WASHINGTON (UP) – The son of Lt. Gen. A. A. Vandegrift, commandant of the Marine Corps, was wounded in both legs in the invasion of Iwo.

He is Lt. Col. A. A. Vandegrift Jr., commander of an infantry battalion of the 24th Marine Regiment. He was hit by enemy mortar fire on the fifth day of the campaign.

Young Vandegrift received a leg wound during the invasion of Saipan last year. He is also a veteran of the Marshall Islands invasion and holds the Legion of Merit.

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71

U.S. Navy Department (March 6, 1945)

CINCPOA Communiqué No. 290

After the most intense artillery bombardment of enemy positions since the operation on Iwo Island began, elements of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Marine Divisions resumed the attack on the morning of March 6 (East Longitude Date). Fighting was heavy throughout the day with the enemy offering very stiff resistance and subjecting our forces to a heavy volume of small arms and mortar fire. By 1730 on March 6, the Marines had made small local gains on the left flank and in the center of the lines. Carrier aircraft supported the attack and naval guns were in action throughout the day.

The Marines had counted 14,456 enemy dead at 1800 on March 5.

Army fighters are using the southern Iwo airfield and air evacuation of wounded by transport plane continues. Unloading conditions continue to be favorable.

Army Liberators of the Strategic Air Force, Pacific Ocean Areas, bombed the airfield on Chichi Jima in the Bonins on March 5.

On the same date fighters of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing bombed and set afire an oil dump, a supply dump and a house in the Palaus. Marine Corsair and Avenger torpedo planes attacked targets in the Palaus and on Yap in the Western Carolines on March 6.

Marine fighters strafed targets on Rota in the Marianas on March 6.

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Where they forced to fight for Japan, did they volunteering-ly signup for the empire?

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A Little From Column A A Little From Column B GIF - A Little From Column A A Little From Column B The Simpsons - Discover & Share GIFs

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74

The Pittsburgh Press (March 6, 1945)

Showdown drive imminent on Iwo

Leathernecks mass to annihilate Japs

GUAM (UP) – U.S. Marines were massing strength today for an all-out assault to split and annihilate the last thousands of Japs in Northern Iwo.

How many Japs remained to oppose the American push was not known definitely. A total of 12,864 enemy dead had been counted by 6 p.m. Saturday, but field dispatches estimated that at least three-quarters of the original garrison of 20,000 had been wiped out.

2,050 Yanks killed

American dead for the first 13 days – through Saturday – of the bloodiest campaign of the Pacific war totaled 2,050 (A Jap communiqué claimed “about” 20,000 Marines had been killed or wounded and 250 American tanks “either stranded or set afire” in the battle of Iwo).

The fighting front has remained virtually unchanged for more than 48 hours while the 3rd, 4th and 5th Marine Divisions brought up munitions and supplies for the attack. The 3rd Division, in the center, has only a quarter mile to go to the northeast coast to split the decimated enemy garrison.

Japs attack

The Japs tried time and again to infiltrate the American lines Sunday night and early Monday, only to be broken up and thrown back. Hundreds of the enemy were killed, but the infiltration parties did bring the Marines under “substantial” artillery and small arms fire.

Army Liberators bombed Chichi, in the Bonin Islands just north of Iwo, Sunday.

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Forrestal: Iwo battle points to long Jap war

Enemy force totals five million men

WASHINGTON (UP) – Secretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal, just back from a three-week tour of the Pacific, has dimmed any budding hopes of an early end to the war with Japan.

He told a press conference late yesterday that the battle on Iwo Island demonstrated clearly the stiffening resistance that the Japs will put up as the war nears their homeland. Up to last Saturday, he said, American dead on Iwo numbered 2,050 Marines – more than twice the number killed on Tarawa.

Despite “severe and costly casualties,” Mr. Forrestal said, overall results of the battle have been highly successful. And once the island is conquered, the United States can send fighter-escorted bomber fleets over the Jap homeland.

The lean, 53-year-old Navy Secretary drove home these facts about Japan:

That despite the enemy’s heavy losses, he still has an estimated five million men under arms in his far-flung conquests, while the Americans have never had more than 12 divisions – about 180,000 men – in action at any one time.

That “the task still ahead of us is obviously immense.”

That Allied forces must be prepared to deal with the Japanese “in whatever theater the final death struggle of Japanese militarism occurs.”

“Japan is still a formidable and fanatical foe,” Mr. Forrestal concluded.

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116,875 words sent from Iwo

ABOARD ADM. TURNER’S FLAGSHIP OFF IWO ISLAND (UP) – Correspondents covering the Iwo Island operation have been given the best press and radio transmission facilities of any amphibious campaign in the Central Pacific.

From the day of landing February 18 through March 1, the flagship communications office transmitted 116,875 words from wire service and special correspondents, exclusive of stories broadcast from the flagship by pool network correspondents.

United Press writers filed 154,092 words of this total.

Three censors worked aboard the flagship and stories were expedited to the United States via Guam and Honolulu.

Capt. Charles F. Horne of New York City, communications officer for Vice Adm. Richmond Kelley Turner, was credited with providing the excellent facilities.

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Völkischer Beobachter (March 7, 1945)

US-Verluste auf dar Schwefelinsel

Tokio, 6 März – Zu den Kämpfen auf der Schwefelinsel meldet das Kaiserliche Hauptquartier am Dienstag, dass die japanische Garnison von ihren Hügelstellungen im Nordosten der Insel aus ihrem erbitterten Abwehrkampf gegen eine Reihe von feindlichen Einbrüchen fortsetzte. Wie das Hauptquartier hinzufügte, belaufen sich die feindlichen Verluste an Toten und Verwundeten seit dem Beginn der Landungsoperation auf 20.000 Mann. In der gleichen Zeit schoss die japanische Verteidigung 250 Panzer ab.

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U.S. Navy Department (March 7, 1945)

CINCPOA Communiqué No. 291

Attacking in all sectors of the line the Marines on Iwo Island advanced against heavy enemy resistance on March 7 (East Longitude Date). In the 5th Marine Division sector on the west flank, our forces moved forward about 500 yards on the left with lesser gains in the center and right. The 3rd Division in the center advanced about 588 yards at one point after engaging the enemy in hand-to-hand fighting. Advances of 100 to 200 yards were reported in local areas of the 4th Division sector on the east. The enemy continued to resist with intense small arms and machine gun fire throughout the day.

Carrier aircraft made bombing and rocket attacks on targets on Chichi Jima and Haha Jima in the Bonins on March 6 and 7.

Favorable weather conditions continue and unloading of supplies is pro­gressing satisfactorily.

A Navy Search Liberator of Fleet Air Wing One bombed and strafed two enemy cargo ships north of the Bonins on March 6.

Corsair and Hellcat fighters and Avenger torpedo planes of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing destroyed a bridge and set buildings afire with bomb and rocket attacks on the Palaus on March 6. On the same date Marine aircraft bombed installations on Yap in the Western Carolines.

Strafing and bombing attacks were made on Ponape in the Eastern Carolines on March 6 by planes of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing. Moderate anti-aircraft fire was encountered.

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The Pittsburgh Press (March 7, 1945)

Victory nears in Iwo battle

Leathernecks gain in close-quarters fighting

GUAM (UP) – Assault units of three U.S. Marine divisions hacked out local gains in close-quarter fighting on Iwo today.

A late dispatch said they appeared confident they would crush the final Jap defenses soon.

The Marine onslaught was described as a general offensive to break up the last organized resistance on the island 750 miles south of Tokyo.

Attack pillboxes

A report from a warship off Iwo said desperately fighting Japs stalled the Marine push in some sectors, but in others small gains were made.

The Marines were fighting through a maze of interlocking defenses and pillboxes. The enemy toehold on Iwo was lashed yesterday with “staggering amounts” of grenades, small arms and artillery fire, the late report said.

Gains were measured in feet and yards. The end may come suddenly under unremitting Marine pressure, or the last thirst-crazed Japs may expend their remaining strength in a bloody “Banzai” suicide charge.

Hold four-fifths of Iwo

A total of 14,456 Jap dead had been counted by 6 p.m. yesterday for the 16-day campaign. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, more enemy dead remained behind the Jap lines. Though the garrison originally was estimated at 20,000, officers now believed the number was actually closer to 25,000.

The 3rd, 4th and 5th Marine Divisions, already firmly holding four-fifths of Iwo, launched their general offensive against the remaining enemy positions yesterday morning after the most intense American artillery bombardment of the entire campaign.

Naval guns and carrier planes also supported the attack.

Army fighters have begun using the southernmost of the three captured airfields on Iwo.

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U.S. Navy Department (March 8, 1945)

CINCPOA Communiqué No. 292

Attacking resolutely in the face of heavy resistance the Marines on Iwo Island made small advances in all sectors of the lines on March 8 (East Longitude Date). Defending every prepared position desperately, the enemy used light and heavy machine guns and intense small arms fire to slow the movement of our forces. Operating over extremely difficult terrain our tanks knocked out a number of enemy pillboxes. The attack was supported by carrier aircraft and the guns of surface units of the fleet.

Carrier aircraft made rocket and strafing attacks on the naval base and airfield at Chichi Jima in the Bonins on March 8.

Seventh Army Air Force Liberators operating under the Strategic Air Force, Pacific Ocean Areas, bombed Chichi Jima and Haha Jima on March 7.

On the same date, Corsairs and Hellcats of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing bombed targets in the Palaus setting buildings afire.

Navy search Privateers of Fleet Air Wing Two bombed and strafed installations on Wake Island on March 7.

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The Pittsburgh Press (March 8, 1945)

Marines nearing north tip of Iwo

Strong Jap defenses still to be overcome

GUAM (UP) – The 3rd Marine Division drove to the northern edge of the central plateau of Iwo Island and plunged down toward the northern beaches, only a few hundred yards away, in savage fighting today.

A breakthrough to the coast would split the last few thousand Japs holding out in pillboxes and gun emplacements studding the north and northeast coasts.

But those last few hundred yards were as the crow flies. It was considerably farther over the rocky ground, laced with steep crevasses and bristling with defenses.

Gain along coasts

The 4th and 5th Marine Divisions, fighting north along the east and west coasts, also hammered out new gains in what had literally become a battle to the death with the remnants of the enemy garrison.

Maj. Gen. Harry Schmidt, commander of the Marine invasion corps, said the campaign had been “even tougher than we figured, and we figured it tough from the very start.” He described the island as the most heavily-defended spot in the history of warfare and said the remaining Japs would have to be “crowded out of their holes and killed one by one.”

Drive 500 yards

The veteran 3rd Division at the center of the line reached the northern rim of the 300-foot central plateau after an advance of some 500 yards in hand-to-hand combat yesterday.

The 5th Division, on the west flank, also advanced up to 500 yards, but the 4th Division was able to push ahead only 100 to 200 yards on the east flank against bitter enemy resistance.

Carrier planes continued their daily attacks on Chichi and Haha in the Bonin Islands, just north of Iwo. A Navy Liberator bombed and strafed two enemy cargo ships north of the Bonins.

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Hit by Jap shell burst –
Hero of Guadalcanal killed in first wave of Iwo attack

Sgt. Basilone held Medal of Honor
By Lisle Shoemaker, United Press staff writer

basilonedead
Sgt. John F. Basilone

WITH THE 5TH MARINE DIVISION, Iwo Jima (Feb. 21, delayed) – Marine Gunnery Sgt. John Basilone, who won the Congressional Medal of Honor for heroism on Guadalcanal, was killed early on the first day of the assault on Iwo.

Sgt. Basilone, a handsome, dark-haired boy from Raritan, New Jersey, was in one of the early D-Day waves which swarmed ashore on this bloody, volcanic fortress island. He was, then, one of the handful of living holders of the Congressional Medal.

Sgt. Basilone led his machine-gun platoon to Iwo’s deadly beach. He was directing the platoon’s progress inland when a Jap artillery burst killed him instantly. He had been leading his men toward a spot where they could set up their guns. His last words before the shell burst were, “All right, you guys, let’s go on in there and set up these guns for firing.”

Modest, almost shy

Except under the stress of combat, Sgt. Basilone was quiet, modest, almost shy. He was extremely embarrassed whenever anyone asked him about his Medal of Honor.

Everybody who knew him said he was a tremendous asset to the newly-formed 5th Marine Division. This division, as such, went into action for the first time here. Among its personnel, however, were many veterans of other Pacific island campaigns.

Sgt. Basilone, 28, was the son of an Italian-born father. He won the Medal of Honor for action with the 1st Marine Division in the Lunga area of Guadalcanal on October 24-25, 1942.

Kills 38 Japs

The Japs made a savage and determined assault on the Marines’ defensive positions. With all but two of his men out of action firing a machine-gun and a pistol, Sgt. Basilone piled up 38 Jap bodies in front of his emplacement. He was credited with a major part in the near annihilation of an enemy regiment.

With his ammunition critically low, Sgt. Basilone fought his way through enemy lines to get and bring back bullets for his gunners.

Sgt. Basilone was born in Buffalo, New York. He served in the Army before joining the Marines. At the time of his death, he had been in the Armed Forces about eight years. In July 1944, he was married to Sgt. Lena Riggi of Oakland, California, a member of the Marine Women’s Reserve.

He was the first enlisted Marine to win the nation’s highest award for valor.

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83

The Pittsburgh Press (March 9, 1945)

Yanks within sight of Iwo north coast

GUAM (UP) – U.S. Marines virtually split in two the last desperately-resisting Japs on Iwo today with a drive to a 100-foot cliff overlooking the northeast coast.

“It won’t be long before this thing is over,” Vice Adm. Richmond Kelley Turner, commander of the Pacific amphibious forces, said after a tour of the tiny island on Japan’s front doorstep.

Enemy hard hit

Front reports indicated that a 3rd Marine Division spearhead at the center of the line had gained the cliff commanding the steep northeastern beach after ramming through the last defenses in the area.

The push all but severed enemy forces on the north coast from those along the northeast shore.

The 5th Division advanced along the northern tip of Iwo in a frontal drive against the enemy’s northern pocket.

In rugged terrain

The 4th Division was still encountering difficulty in rugged terrain along the east coast, but the 3rd Division’s breakthrough to the north threatened the rear of enemy’s northeastern pocket.

A Pacific Fleet communiqué said the surviving Japs, believed fewer than 4,000, were defending every prepared position desperately with heavy and light machine guns and intense small arms fire.

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Great Summary thanks!

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