Posted on 02/18/2005 4:38:52 AM PST by LavaDog
After 60 years, the Iwo Jima veterans need only close their eyes to imagine themselves face-down again in the black volcanic sand, shells exploding around them, body parts flying through the air.
Marine Cpl. Edward Perry of Lakewood, N.J., remembers an explosion that tore through his lower back and threw him into the air, where he was hit by Japanese gunfire.
Pvt. William Myers of South Philadelphia recalls being wounded in the back by mortar shrapnel and nearly killed by a bullet that passed through his helmet.
And Pvt. Edward Szostek of King of Prussia has nightmarish memories of mangled comrades, including a lieutenant and staff sergeant, both cut in two by a high-velocity shell.
Myers, Szostek, and about 150 other Iwo Jima veterans are to mark the 60th anniversary of the 36-day battle during ceremonies today at the site of the National Museum of the Marine Corps, scheduled to open in 2006 in Quantico, Va.
Yesterday, Perry canceled his plans to attend when he developed back problems related to his war injuries.
The Marines began the battle - immortalized by the flag-raising on Mount Suribachi - with a beach landing on Feb. 19, 1945. About 6,000 Marines and 20,000 Japanese were dead by the time it ended March 16.
The capture of the island and its airfields put American warplanes within striking distance of the main islands of Japan.
"One of the things that stood out for me was the hundreds of ships," said Szostek, 81, a retired machinist tool-and-die maker. "An armada was bombarding the island for three days, and the bombers hit it for 72 days straight... . You'd swear the whole island would sink."
U.S. military planners thought the battle would be over within a few days - and their theory would be tested by the first wave of Marines, including Perry.
In the early morning, the troops clambered over the side of troop ships for amphibious tractors (amtracs) stored on landing craft. The amtracs were released close to the beach for the final dash to land.
"I couldn't believe we wanted to take the island; I thought, 'This is crazier than hell,' " said Perry, 79, a retired bank officer.
Perry stepped out of an amtrac and sank knee-deep into black sand while mortar shells rained down and machine gun fire raked the beach.
Coming in behind him was a second wave, including Szostek, who saw the first Marines "getting all shot up. They couldn't get off the beach."
Other troops followed. Myers, part of the fourth wave, recalled the tension in the landing craft.
"We were only kids - 18 and 19 - and there was no cutting up, no carrying on," said Myers, 79, a retired Pennsylvania welfare caseworker. "I remember a sailor hollering insults at us. We said, 'What the hell is the matter with this guy?' I think he was trying to make us angry so we would take it out on the Japanese."
Myers saw an amtrac next to his take a direct hit from a mortar shell. "I saw four or five Marines floating," he said. "The rest went down with the amtrac. After that, the guys were praying."
Jumping from his amtrac, Szostek said, he immediately saw "five or six dead Marines lying in the sand" and was soon shooting back at the Japanese, including four - all on fire - as they charged from a pillbox. One, an officer, was "waving a sword and hollering, 'Banzai!,' " Szostek said.
By the end of the first day, 30,000 Marines had landed. Part of an airfield was captured, and Mount Suribachi was isolated.
"It was 40 or 50 degrees in the day, and cold and damp at night," Perry said, also recalling a heavy rain on the second day that added to the misery. "I started to cry because it was so disheartening, and this fellow with me hit me with a helmet and told me, 'You son of a bitch. You better not crack up on me.' That saved me."
The Marines began moving forward on the second day. During a mortar attack, Myers jumped into a "big ditch" with other Marines.
One put his head up, and "his face was blown in. Another guy had his hand separated from his wrist, and I got shrapnel in my back," Myers said.
Marines moved north and south on the island and captured Mount Suribachi by Feb. 23. A small flag was raised at 10:20 a.m. and was replaced by the larger one shown being raised in the famous photo by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal.
"I was about 500 yards away and could see the flag go up," Myers said. "The ships were blasting their horns. We said, 'Look at that! Man alive!' We were elated as anything. We thought the battle was over, but we still had three-quarters of the island left."
Perry saw the flag-raising from farther away but was no less excited. "Everybody cheered," he said. "It seemed impossible."
By the sixth day, Perry was in a place the Marines would call Death Valley when a shell blew up behind him and ripped through his back and neck. He was tossed in the air and hit in the left shoulder by Japanese machine-gun fire.
"If not for the grace of the good God, I would be dead," said Perry, whom some call the "metallic Marine" because of the slivers of shrapnel still filling his body. "I came down on my back still conscious.
"A corpsman put some sulfur in my wound and gave me a shot of morphine. All the stretchers were gone, so eight guys used a poncho to carry me to a first-aid station."
Myers also ran into problems in Death Valley. The Japanese mounted a counterattack and ran into about 20 Marine riflemen.
"I felt something burn my ear," he said. "A bullet had gone through my helmet and drove a piece of it in my shoulder. I later brought the helmet home; the government charged me $2.87, but that sucker was a prize."
The grinding combat took an increasingly heavy toll on the troops, physically and mentally. More than 2,000, including Szostek, would suffer battle fatigue.
"On the 12th day, I got into a shell hole at an airfield on the north side of the island, and a mortar landed behind us," Szostek said. "It caused shell shock. You're 19, and you think you're strong. But you see your best friends die, mangled Marines everywhere. You walk through trenches on top of bloated Japanese... . It's blood and guts all day long."
Sixty years later, the three veterans still live with memories of the battle.
"I'm a survivor, not a hero," said Perry, a 100 percent disabled veteran, expressing the feelings of many Iwo Jima veterans.
"The ones who didn't make it, I call them heroes."
The Photograph
The photograph on Page B1 is perhaps the most famous image from World War II: five Marines and a Navy corpsman raising an American flag on top of Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima.
Taken by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal on Feb. 23, 1945, the photo was dogged for years by rumors that it was staged.
It wasn't.
What it was - and no one tried to hide this - was a picture captured, at the right instant and from the right angle, of the second flag to be raised atop Suribachi. After the first had been raised (pictured above), Marine brass ordered a bigger one put up.
First or second, the image struck an enduring chord.
It won the Pulitzer Prize, was used on a postage stamp, and served as the model for the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Va.
None of the men who raised the flag is alive; three died on Iwo Jima. Rosenthal, 93, lives in California.
The corpsman's name was Bradley. He saved the lives of many injured Marines that day, always at great risk of his own. He never spoke of Iowa Jima to his family and friends. For years, when reporters or journalists would call to talk to him his family was told to them, "Dad went fishing."
Bradley's son wrote a book about the lives and deaths of the flag raisers, before and after. "The Flags of Our Fathers." I'll never have a what I think is a difficult day again.
Memorial ping.
One more thing. I know these men were there. All accounts of Iwo Jima relates that the Japanese allowed the marines to land on the beach before they opened up on them.
Maybe they were not in the initial landing.
Ping!
There's a show currently running on the Military Channel about the carnage that would have occurred if we had had to invade the Japanese mainland, and of course it uses footage from Iwo Jima.
The thing that struck me most about the anticipated horror of what was to come was the bit about the Purple Hearts. In preparation for the the invasion the military ordered a large number of Purple Hearts. How large? A stockpile so large that we're still using the medals from that order in 1945!
My dad, may he rest in peace, saw the raising of the flag on Mount Suribachi. Our WWII vets are truly America's greatest generation.
BTTT
Unfortunately, the greater sacrifices of the Sixth and First Marine and 77th and 96th Infantry Divisions during April - June of the same year are often over looked.
http://www.angelfire.com/ny5/ItisPeke/VDay.html
To Our Veterans ...
Great article! I'd like expand a bit on the role Iwo Jima was to play in our air campaign against the Japanese home islands. The long range B-29 bombers already could fly to Japan and back from the Marianas (Saipan, Guam, Tinian) that the Marines, Navy, and Army had liberated and converted to massive bomber bases in the summer and fall of 1944. Trouble was, the P-47 and P-51 fighter escorts that were by then providing escort to B-17s flying from England against Germany didn't have the range to accompany the longer range B-29s to Japan and back. Also, the flight home from Japan was tough for all B-29s, and with any battle damage, a number of the big planes, with their crew of ten men had to ditch at sea, short of their Marianas airfields. USN submarines, flying boats, and USAAF bombers (Dumbos) specially equipped to drop lifeboats rescued many, but not all of these aircrews, and the planes, of course were lost at sea. Iwo was approximately halfway betweem the Marianas and Japan, and once taken (at great cost) Iwo Jima was rapidly converted to a base for fighter escorts and emergency B-29 landings and emergency first-aid and repair. The first crippled B-29s were recorded landing at Iwo before the Seabees had even finished building the landing strips. In the calculus of war, an estimated 25,000 US airmen and their planes were saved by having a safe haven at Iwo Jima, thanks to the 6,000 GI's who died taking the island. These were all some pretty special people, and we owe them a great debt of gratitude. The ABC documentary series AIR POWER and NBC's VICTORY AT SEA both have excellent episodes that tell this story.
You are referring to Okinawa? Okinawa was a tough battle, but I think per capita and per square mile, Iwo Jima was more hellish than Okinawa, at least on land. The types of battle wounds and casualties caused by large-caliber weaponry were of a kind never seen in the war. The Japanese tactic of waiting until the Marines had crowded the LZs and then opening up with artillery was devastating. But, the kamikazes made Okinawa hell on water for the Navy.
In all of WW II, one seventh of all US Navy casualties came at the battle for Okinawa.
I do believe that present day military personnel will someday be spoken of as the next great generation.
I thought I knew a thing or two about WWII, but I didn't know this. Can you give us more information on why so many Navy casualties occurred in the Okinawa operation? Was it due to the kamikazes? My father was there, and he had vivid memories of the attacking Japanese planes and the AA fire from the fleet.
Minor point, but the airfield on Iwo Jima was actually useful because the island rests about half way between Saipan, Tinian, and the other islands in the Marianas Archipelago which were already within flying distance of Tokyo for B29's.
We needed the Iwo Jima airfield to provide a place where damaged or low on fuel bombers, that couldn't get back to Saipan or Tinian, could safely land. Otherwise those planes and crews had to ditch at sea, in most cases resulting in the loss of both. In fact, shortly after the capture of the airfield, with the battle still raging around it, a crippled B29 came in for a landing.
They waited for the beaches to be filled with men, that way, the maximum effect of the shrapnel would hit more men because they were all closer together relatively, not spread out where one shell might hit only 2 or 3 men.
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