We certainly were. My late father-in-law was 4th. Marines, 27th. Regiment. I believe their objective was one of the islands airfields. He wasn’t on the island long, I think about four days and then he got that ‘’million dollar wound’’ a leg wound and that got him the heck out of there. Prior to Iwo he saw combat on Saipan, that was where he was first wounded, grenade shrapnel in the face, nothing too serious, just a cut lip and a few scrapes and he also saw combat on Tinian. He described watching in absolute horror as civilians on Saipan, convinced by Japanese propaganda that the Marines would rape the women , kill them and eat their bodies, flung themselves off cliffs to their deaths. That deeply affected him and he rarely talked about it. He also couldn’t eat spare ribs, couldn’t stand the sight of them and I think I know why. He sometimes had to provide cover for a flame thrower team. Think about about it. The human lungs inside the rib cage are really two bladders filled with air. When a jet of super heated flame at least four or five hundred degrees hits that,the air is super heated and a human rib cage explodes. God Almighty but war is awful.
my dad also seldom talked about it. Some time later, after my mother died, he would talk a little about it, and I met a man that was his foxhole partner,on saipan for a few weeks. I think they were in front of the massive banzai charge at night, and he was concerned he would be judged for how many japanese he killed. Mr Gentry sent me “the green book”, about the 4th in WW2 .