[SAMWolf]

The Heroes Of Iwo Jima

Three days after that (the flag raising), the war was over for Easy Company.

Easy's original total force on Iwo Jima was 310 young men, including replacements. On March 26, Captain Severance led his 50 survivors on a tour of the newly dedicated 5th Division cemetery. And then they traveled by a small boat to the transport, the Winged Arrow, for the trip back home. They had to climb a cargo net to get aboard. Many were so weak that they had to be pulled over the rail by sailors.

When I asked Severance, many years later, exactly how it finally ended, he thought for a moment and then replied: "We had all the real estate."

Severance was the only one of six Easy Company ofhcers to walk off the island. Of his 3rd Platoon, the one that first scaled Suribachi, only Harold Keller, Jim Michaels, Phil Ward, and Grady Dyce came through the battle untouched. Easy Company had suffered eighty-four percent casualties.

Of the eighteen triumphant boys in ]oe Rosenthal's "gung-ho" (1st) flag raising photograph, fourteen were casualties.

The hard statistics show the sacrifice made by Colonel Johnson's 2nd Battalion: 1,400 boys landed on D-Day; 288 replacements were provided as the battle went on, a total of 1,688. Of these, 1,511 had been killed or wounded. Only 177 walked off the island. And of the final 177, 91 had been wounded at least once and returned to battle.

It had taken twenty-two crowded transports to bring the 5th Division to the island. The survivors fit comfortably onto eight departing ships. The American boys had killed about 21,000 Japanese, but suffered more than 26,000 casualties doing so. This would be the only battle in the Pacific where the invaders suffered higher casualties than the defenders. The Marines fought in World War II for forty-three months. Yet in one month on Iwo ]ima, one third of their total deaths occurred. They left behind the Pacific's largest cemeteries: nearly 6,800 graves in all; mounds with their crosses and stars. Thousands of families would not have the solace of a body to bid farewell: just the abstract information that the Marine had "died in the performance of his duty" and was buried in a plot, aligned in a row with numbers on his grave. Mike lay in Plot 3, Row 5, Grave 694; Harlon in Plot 4, Row 6, Grave 912; Franklin in Plot 8, Row 7, Grave 2189.

When I think of Mike, Harlon, and Franklin there, I think of the message someone had chiseled outside the cemetery:

When you go home
Tell them for us and say
For your tomorrow
We gave our today

[SAMWolf]

Final Analysis of the Battle



The Naval bombardment of only 3 days leading up to the invasion was far short than what was required. The Marines had requested 13 days of prelanding bombardment but were denied this request because of commitments to MaCarthur's campaign in Luzon.
The U.S. had underestimated the Japanese strenght on the island by as much as 70 percent.
The change in Japanese tactics was not ever contemplated because of earlier invasions on Saipan, Tarawa and Peleliu. These all had early Banzai attacks that were easily defeated and turned the tide of each invasion. This would not be the case with Iwo Jima. The nature and the difficulty of the soil on the island was never examined before the invasion.
The estimates made on the U.S. casualties was underestimated by 80 percent. 23,000 Casualties out of 70,000 Marines. Over third of the total Marines who participated in the invasion were either Killed, Wounded or suffered from Battle Fatigue.
This would be a strong warning of what was to come with the invasion of Okinawa.


Total Losses

U.S. personnel 6,821 Killed 19,217 Wounded 2,648 Combat Fatigue Total 28,686
Marine Casualties 23,573
Japanese Troops 1,083 POW and 20,000 est. Killed

Q: I have a relative who served on Iwo Jima. How can I learn about his past?"

A:
1. Get his service record from:
Military Records Facility 9700 Page Avenue St. Louis, Missouri 63132-5100 NAVY and MARINE CORPS (314) 538-4141 NARA Facilities

2. From that record you can determine his unit. Just as your identity goes from general to specific--ie, Country, State, City, Street--your Marine or Corpsman was identified by his Division, Regiment, Battalion, Company and then Platoon designation.

3. Send that information to one of the following Divisions, asking for people who knew your relative:
Third Marine Division Association PO Box 297 Dumfries, VA 22026
Fourth Marine Division Association PO Box 595 Laurel, Fl. 34272
Fifth Marine Division Association Dean F. Keeley PO Box 44250 Lafayette, LA 70504-4250

Q: I am looking for a list of those KIA on Iwo Jima?

A: I know of no complete listing. The most complete I'm aware of is at: www.geocities.com/mbackstr2000/dead

[Sparta]

Good morning SAMWolf and thank you for posting the Battle of Iwo Jima. My grandfather was involved in the invasion and he was wounded in the foot in the battle.

[Sparta]

Iwo ping!!

If you want on or off the Western Civilization Military History ping list, let me know.

[Jen]

FALL IN to the FReeper Foxhole!

To be removed from this list, send me a private reply with "REMOVE" in the subject line. Thanks, Jen

[Protagoras]

Timing is everything. If only they had known that the bomb was coming soon, this carnage could have been avoided.

[gridlock]

I read that Iwo Jima was now a Japanese military installation and was nearly impossible to visit.

Our the graves of our soldiers still located on this island?

[skeeter]

Thanks... its hard for me to accept that the boys who fought on that hell on earth and the things which took to the streets last weekend were spawned by the same nation.

[RaceBannon]

This is my Mom on the left at the first display of a statue of the Iwo Flag Raising in late 1945 or 46. We believe it is near 8th and I street in DC, she cannot remember. This statue has been removed since, and I would like to know if anyone has ever seen it while in the Corps!

[RaceBannon]

Memorial in Newington Connecticut.

[RaceBannon]

[tictoc]

In gratitude and silence.

[aomagrat]

Wednesday's weird warship, HMS Furious

Courageous class large light cruiser/aircraft carrier
Displacement. 19,100 t.
Lenght. 786'3"
Beam. 88'
Draft. 21'6"
Speed. 31.5 kt.
Complement. 880
Armament. 1 18", 11 5.5", 4 3", 4 3 pdr. (as originally completed)

HMS Furious, a 19,513-ton aircraft carrier, was built at Newcastle-on-Tyne, England. Begun as a light battle cruiser (or "large light cruiser") of modified Courageous class (called the "Outrageous" class by the sailors of the day), she was modified in the latter stages of construction and completed in July 1917 with a single 18-inch gun aft and an aircraft launching platform forward. After several months' experience with the Grand Fleet, she was further modified, receiving an aircraft landing deck and hangar aft. With the completion of that work in March 1919, Furious returned to the North Sea, providing important experience in the operation of combat landplanes at sea. On 19 July 1918, she launched a historic air strike that destroyed two enemy airships and their support facilities at Tondern, in northern Germany. A month earlier, in another historic incident, she had used both anti-aircraft guns and fighter aircraft to thwart an attack by German seaplanes. Following the end of World War I, the carrier operated in the Baltic Sea.

Her wartime aircraft landing arrangements having proved very unsatisfactory (understandable, seeing as how the "island" was in the very center of the flight deck, with 11 foot wide ramps on each side of the funnel and bridgework to connect the aft flight deck with the forward flight deck), Furious was laid up in reserve in late 1919. After futher experience with other aircraft carriers, she was massively reconstructed, emerging in August 1925 as a 22,450-ton ship with upper and lower hangars, topped by a long flight deck clear of obstructions, with a shorter aircraft launching deck at the bow. This configuration established a pattern for other British and Japanese aircraft carriers of that era.

Furious operated actively through the inter-war years, continuing her pioneering work as a platform for developing seagoing aviation techniques and combat doctrine, as those applied to the situations confronting the Royal Navy. In the later 1930s, her small forward aircraft flying-off deck was converted to a gun platorm and she was refitted with a small "island" superstructure amidships on the starboard side of the upper flight deck.

Through the first five years of World War II, Furious served with the Home Fleet in the Atlantic area. By mid-war, she was quite elderly, limited in capabilities, and required continual maintenance. She took part in an attack on the German battleship Tirpitz in April 1944, but was placed in reserve later in that year. After post-war employment in target trials, HMS Furious was sold for scrapping in January 1948.

[SpookBrat]

Wonderful thread you guys. (I feel so guilty when I come in here. I'm immersed in school and odd jobs right now. I love you guys and these threads are wonderful. Wish I could spend more time with you).

[USNBandit]

I used to train a couple times a year on Iwo Jima, back in the late 90's as part of the Navy's forward deployed airwing. The only place that comes close to the eerie feeling I felt on Iwo is Gettysburg. You look at both of those battlefields and it is amazing so many Americans died for such a small (yet strategic) piece of land.
I brought back some sand for a family friend who fought there. I sent it to his wife because I didn't know how he would feel about it. He was very thankful for the gift and had a local trophy shop engrave a crystal container for it.
I still have a small bottle of sand left and would be happy to send it to any Iwo Vet who would like it.

[Coleus]

My uncle was shot on Iwo Jima and when he had cancer and Parkinsons a few yrs. ago and needed the VA he was told there was no room at the Inn.