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

[GATOR NAVY]

I think I've told you before I've been to Iwo Jima (offshore) a few times. I's an ugly little island and it's still hard to believe that so many men from both sides died fighting for it. I never made it ashore there myself, but before I left Japan, a friend of mine who had gave me vial of Iwo Jima sand.

[Victoria Delsoul]

Happy TGIF, all.

[ken5050]

Two numbers to remember, among others..27 and 13.....27 Congressional Medals of Honor were awarded to US Marines, and Navy Corpsmen, for their actions on Iwo Jima, 13 of them posthumously.

[alfa6]

Now look what ya done ya got the airgun thread pulled,he he Here is the pic for the denizens of the Foxhole.

It's a RWS Career 707 9mm air rifle. It fires a 60 grain slug at about 1000fps, aye carumba!!! Cabelas used to sell them for about $600 and another $300 for the special pump.

Regards

alfa6 ;>}

[Darksheare]

I didn't break it!
*chuckle*

[alfa6]

Hey y'all see #64

Regards

alfa6 :>}

[snippy_about_it]

Could he of been in both Iwo and Bataan?

I'm not one to question a Marine either. I see our Foxhole folks who know best have supplied their thoughts and it's good information.

Me, I'm an ametuer but I don't see him being a Bataan POW and in Iwo but it is possible if he escaped from Corrigidor before the death march I guess. Perhaps he was even at Bataan but shipped out before the fall and in that way he was able to be in Iwo also. Most of the troops on the death march were Army, not Marines. Those that were survived the death march wouldn't have been 'available' to fight at Iwo.

Whatever the complete story is we are greatful to that Marine for his service, wherever he was.

Thanks for posting today and sharing your story with us.

[snippy_about_it]

Thanks Iris7 for your excellent response today. We love it when our Foxholer's share their knowledge and comments with others. It proves we are just one big family here all to help and share with each other.

[snippy_about_it]

Bring us some pictures please!

[snippy_about_it]

Thanks for stopping by the Foxhole and thank you for serving!

[snippy_about_it]

... I'd even be proud to get arrested with for disorderly conduct.

Now that's a compliment! Hiya Lee.

[snippy_about_it]

Hi ms_68.

[snippy_about_it]

Max Klinger

LOL. You guys.....silly, silly, silly.

[snippy_about_it]

!!!!!

[snippy_about_it]

Thanks for the ping, SAI.

As always, you're welcome. ;-)

[snippy_about_it]

Today's MSM wouldn't have survived WWII. Wimps!

[snippy_about_it]

I couldn't read it. :-(

[snippy_about_it]

Very nice post ms, thanks.

[GATOR NAVY]

I agree with snippy, but maybe my opinion is a bit more forceful. The guy would be a hero if he was at either place, but to have been at both just sounds too fishy. At the risk of sounding like a know-it-all, I think the guy's full of b.s.

[snippy_about_it]

Hi Sailor. ;-)

Lots of sorry little islands and pieces of ground were fought over just to take it from the enemy when it seemed it could have just been passed over or perhaps we could have gone around it. I have always felt that way about the Hurtgen Forest, it just didn't make sense to me even with the military strategy explained.