The FReeper Foxhole Revisits Iwo Jima - February 18th, 2005

http://www.angelfire.com/wa/redwoodsigns/iwojima.html ^

[snippy_about_it]

Lord,

Keep our Troops forever in Your care

Give them victory over the enemy...

Grant them a safe and swift return...

Bless those who mourn the lost.
.

FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer
for all those serving their country at this time.


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The FReeper Foxhole Revisits

The Costliest Operation
in Marine Corps History

On Monday, February 19, 1945, U.S. Marines hit the sands of Iwo Jima.

The battle for Iwo Jima can be described in many ways.

Most simply, 70,000 Marines routed 22,000 Japanese in a 36 day battle. It bore little resemblance to today's modern warfare. It was a fight of gladiators. Gladiators in the catacombs of the Coliseum fighting among trap doors and hidden tunnels. Above ground gladiators using liquid gasoline to burn the underground gladiators out of their lethal hiding places.



The Marines had overwhelming force and controlled the sea and air. The Japanese had the most ingenious and deadly fortress in military history.

The Marines had Esprit de Corps and felt they could not lose. The Japanese fought for their god-Emperor and felt they had to die fighting.



The Marines were projecting American offensive power thousands of miles from home shores with a momentum that would carry on to create the Century of the Pacific. The Japanese were fighting a tenacious defensive battle protecting the front door to their ancient land.

The geography, topography and geology of the island guaranteed a deadly and bizarre battle. The large numbers of men and small size of the island ensured the fighting would be up close and vicious.

Almost one hundred thousand men would fight on a tiny island just eight square miles. Four miles by two miles. If you're driving 60 miles an hour in your car, it takes you four minutes to drive four miles. It took the Marines 36 days to slog that four miles. Iwo Jima would be the most densely populated battlefield of the war with one hundred thousand combatants embraced in a death dance over an area smaller than one third the size of Manhattan island.



From the air the island looked like a bald slice of black moonscape shaped like a porkchop. All its foliage had been blown off by bombs. The only "life" visible on the island were puffs of "rotten egg" stinking sulphur fumes coming from vents that seemed connected to hell. Correspondents in airplanes could see tens of thousands of Marines on one side of the island fighting against a completely barren side of stone.

On foot it was a morass of soft volcanic sand or a jumble of jagged rock. The Marines sought protection in shell holes blasted by the bombardment. Foxholes were impossible to dig, either the sand collapsed in on you or your shovel failed to dent the hard obsidian floor.

Bullets and mortars would come from nowhere to kill. The Marines would come across a cave or blockhouse and shoot and burn all its defenders to death. They would peer into the cavern and assure themselves no one was left there to hurt them. They'd move on only to be shocked when that "dead" position came alive again behind them. The Marines thought they were fighting men in isolated caves and had no idea of the extensive tunnels below.



A surgeon would establish an operating theater in a safe place. With sandbags and tarp he'd build a little hospital and treat his patients away from the battle. Then at night when he lay down exhausted to sleep he'd hear foreign voices below him. Only when his frantic fingers clawed through the sand and hit the wooden roof of an underground cavern would he realize he had been living atop the enemy all along.

The days were full of fear and nights offered terror. The Marines were sleeping on ground that the Japanese had practiced how to crawl over in the darkness, they knew every inch. Imagine sleeping in a haunted man- sion where the owner is a serial murderer who knows the rooms and stairways and trapdoors by touch and you are new. Then you can imagine the tortured sleep of the Marines.

Experienced naval doctors had never seen such carnage. Japanese tanks and high caliber anti-aircraft guns hidden behind walls of rock and concrete ensured that the Marines would not just be cut down, but cut in half or blown to bits.

A seventy five year old veteran of Iwo Jima would still reflexively open his bedroom window in 1999 after dreaming of the battle once again. Fifty four years after the battle the stench of death still filled his nostrils.



The bodies lay everywhere. Young boys who had never been to a funeral became accustomed to rolling another dead buddy aside. Kids full of life worked on burial duty unloading bodies from trucks stacked with death.

Mothers back home would tear open the ominous telegrams with trembling fingers. The survivors would remember sailing away and seeing the rows and rows of white crosses and stars of Davids. Almost seven thousand. Today there are still over six thousand Japanese dead still entombed under the island, dead where they fell in their tunnels and caves. Recently two hundred sixty were excavated, some mummified by the sulphur gases, their glasses sitting straight atop preserved noses, hair still on their heads.

Military geniuses predicted a three day battle, an "easy time." Some of the nicest boys America would ever produce slogged on for thirty six days in what would be the worst battle in the history of the US Marine Corps.

Generals conferred over maps while tanks, airplanes, naval bombs and artillery pounded the island. But it was the individual Marine on the ground with a gun that won the battle. Marines without gladiator's armor who would advance into withering fire. Marines who would not give up simply because they were Marines. A mint in Washington would cast more medals for these Iwo Jima heroes than for any group of fighters in America's history.



America would embrace these heroes, but they were enthralled by an image of heroism, by a photo. Millions of words would be written in the US about 1/400th of a second no one on Iwo Jima thought worthy of remark at the time. Thousands would seek autographs from three survivors who felt "we hadn't done much." Battles would be fought over that image, some dying early because of their inclusion, some living bitterly because of their exclusion.

But that would all come later. After two battles were fought on Iwo Jima, one for Mt. Suribachi and the southern part of the island the other for the northern part. And after one hundred thousand individual battles, personal battles of valor and fear, of determination and dirt.

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FReeper Foxhole Armed Services Links

[SAMWolf]

It was one of those "They have it, so we want it" pieces of ground. Like so many other places, it's main value was that the other side held it. Even though we wanted it as a bomber emergency landing field, it was where the enemy was, so we fought them there.

[SAMWolf]

Evening Victoria.

TGIF!! Big plans for the weekend?

[SAMWolf]

Is Darksheare starting trouble again?

[SAMWolf]

Being Evil Capitalists is a lot of work. ;-)

[SAMWolf]

History straight from the man who created it!

SOmetimes the best way to get it.

[SAMWolf]

Thanks for sharing, SaltyJoe.

It's amazing to hear the recollections of those who lived through the events in our history.

[Iris7]

I will agree that his story is unlikely. It is not impossible, though. A lot depends on what he says he did during the Japanese invasion of the Philippines. A lot of guys did get out before the surrender, and after, although the exact figures I do not believe are known.

The reason I think it possible to escape from the "death march" is that I have traveled much of the route, twice. The road from Clark AFB to Subic Bay runs along the death march route for quite a ways, 30-40 miles. Plenty of opportunity to escape. Some spots looks as if as many as 50% would still be free after 24 hours. The slow or uncrafty would be caught. Run like hell, as they say. The Devil will indeed take the hindmost. No evidence anyone tried it, though.

[SAMWolf]

Evening Phil Dragoo

Thanks for the excellent links and James Bradley's recollections.

Kuribayashi made sure that the US paid a steep price to get Iwo Jima. Knowing that there was no hope for relief for him and his men they sold their lives dearly, it's hard to not admire their dedication and courage, even if they were the enemy and fighting for an evil cause. Thank God we were just as dedicated and courageous in our just cause.

The Clintons and Kennedy make me want to puke everytime they open their traps to criticize the very military that protects their right to make their asinine comments.

[SAMWolf]

Thanks for the profile of Ira Hayes. He deserved a better end than that.

[Iris7]

We might like to do a "Frozen Chosin" thread.

The following site has the story, and well done, which is copyrighted by good people. I have asked permission to post part or all here at the Foxhole.

http://www.homeofheroes.com/brotherhood/chosin.html

I gave them a link to this thread.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!

[Professional Engineer]

I couldn't read it. :-(

I wouldn't have been able to either, except the link I followed told what it was.

I'm just about to the point of needing bi-focals to go along with my hard hat. ;-(

[Victoria Delsoul]

Thanks, Ken.

[stand watie]

HI snippy,et.al

free dixie HUGS,duckie/sw