Battle for Iwo Jima

At 2 A.M. on February 19, 1945, battleship guns signaled the beginning of the invasion. The Navy used nearly everything available in their arsenal to bombard the island. Soon thereafter, 100 bombers attacked the island, followed by another volley from the naval guns. Although the first bombing attack was strong enough to wipe out a German force from the Atlantic, it had no effect on the Japanese hiding in their tunnels.

At 8:59, one minute ahead of schedule, the first landing force arrived. Seeing no enemy soldiers, they assumed that they were just there to defend the island. They began unpacking supplies and spreading them on the beach. Unaware to the location of the Japanese, the soldiers cautiously moved forward.

Kuribayashi’s plan was working so far. He had planned to hold fire until all American supplies and soldiers had reached the beach, making it easy to pick them off.

Only after the front wave of Marines reached a line of Japanese bunkers defended by machine gunners did they take hostile fire. Many cleverly concealed Japanese bunkers and firing positions suddenly lit up and the first wave of Marines took devastating losses from machine guns. Chaos began to reign on the beach as the death toll began to rise.

Bodies and body parts were everywhere. Wesley Kuhn of Black Creek, Wisconsin recalled, “My worst memory is of the first time I saw a man with his chest blown open and dirt trickling in on hid vital organs.”

There were many more moments of unbearable sorrow. Nineteen-year-old Corpsman Danny Thomas hit the beach at 10:15 A.M., several paces behind his best buddy, Chick Harris. In training camp, Thomas and Harris were called “the Buttermilk Boys” because they were too young to buy drinks on liberty. “I was charging ahead and saw Chick on the beach, facing out to sea, his back against the battle,” Thomas recalled. His buddy was in a strange posture: His head and torso were erect, as though he’d let himself be buried in the sand from the waist down in some bizarre prank. Thomas rushed past him, he yelled a greeting and saw Chick’s hand and eyes move, acknowledging him.

Then Thomas glimpsed something else that made him fall to his knees in the sand, vomiting. The “something else” was blood and entrails. “I vomited my toenails out,” Thomas remembered. “I realized that Chick had been cut in two. The lower half of his body was gone.” He added, “He was the first person I ever saw dead. “Buttermilk Chick” was fifteen. He had lied about his age to get into the Marines.

As the days passed, the Marines began to inch their way across the island. One of the main causes of death on Iwo was after a pillbox was thought to be cleared by the soldiers, the Japanese tunnel system would allow for reinforcements to re-enter the bunkers and open fire on passing troops.

The Marines soon found that arms fire was ineffective against the enemy. Instead, they discovered that grenades and flamethrowers were highly efficient in clearing out enemy forces.

With the landing area secure, more troops and heavy equipment came ashore and the invasion proceeded north to capture the airfields and the remainder of the island. Most Japanese soldiers fought to the death.

On March 27, the Marines finally reached the opposite tip of the island, relieved that after a month of fighting, it was over. The Japanese Bushido code of honor, coupled with effective propaganda which portrayed American soldiers as ruthless animals, prevented surrender for many Japanese soldiers. Those who could not bring themselves to commit suicide hid in the caves during the day and came out at night to prowl for provisions. Some did eventually surrender and were surprised that the Americans often received them with compassion, offering water, cigarettes, or coffee.

In 36 days of fighting there were 25,851 US casualties (1 in 3 were killed or wounded). Of these, 6,825 American boys were killed. Virtually all 22,000 Japanese perished. The Marines’ effort provided a crucial link in the U.S. string of bomber bases. By war’s end, 2,400 B-29 bombers carrying 27,000 crewman had made emergency landings on Iwo Jima.

More US Marines earned the Medal of Honor on Iwo Jima than in any other battle in US History.