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.