_As D-day on Iwo Jima comes to a close, the landing beaches are scenes
of death and destruction with LVTs and landing craft wallowing in the
waves and tracked and wheeled vehicles kept out of action, unable to go
forward._]
Late in the afternoon, Lieutenant Colonel Donn J. Robertson led his
3d Battalion, 27th Marines, ashore over Blue Beach, disturbed at the
intensity of fire still being directed on the reserve forces this late
on D-day. “They were really ready for us,” he recalled. He watched with
pride and wonderment as his Marines landed under fire, took casualties,
stumbled forward to clear the beach. “What impels a young guy landing
on a beach in the face of fire?” he asked himself. Then it was
Robertson’s turn. His boat hit the beach too hard; the ramp wouldn’t
drop. Robertson and his command group had to roll over the gunwales
into the churning surf and crawl ashore, an inauspicious start.
The bitter battle to capture the Rock Quarry cliffs on the right flank
raged all day. The beachhead remained completely vulnerable to enemy
direct-fire weapons from these heights; the Marines had to storm them
before many more troops or supplies could be landed. In the end, it
was the strength of character of Captain James Headley and Lieutenant
Colonel “Jumping Joe” Chambers who led the survivors of the 3d
Battalion, 25th Marines, onto the top of the cliffs. The battalion paid
an exorbitant price for this achievement, losing 22 officers and 500
troops by nightfall.
The two assistant division commanders, Brigadier Generals Franklin
A. Hart and Leo D. Hermle, of the 4th and 5th Marine Divisions
respectively, spent much of D-day on board the control vessels marking
both ends of the Line of Departure, 4,000 yards off shore. This
reflected yet another lesson in amphibious techniques learned from
Tarawa. Having senior officers that close to the ship-to-shore movement
provided landing force decision-making from the most forward vantage
point. By dusk General Hermle opted to come ashore. At Tarawa he had
spent the night of D-day essentially out of contact at the fire-swept
pierhead. This time he intended to be on the ground. Hermle had the
larger operational picture in mind, knowing the corps commander’s
desire to force the reserves and artillery units on shore despite the
carnage in order to build credible combat power. Hermle knew that
whatever the night might bring, the Americans now had more troops on
the island than Kuribayashi could ever muster. His presence helped his
division forget about the day’s disasters and focus on preparations for
the expected counterattacks.
Japanese artillery and mortar fire continued to rake the beachhead.
The enormous spigot mortar shells (called “flying ashcans” by the
troops) and rocket-boosted aerial bombs were particularly scary--loud,
whistling projectiles, tumbling end over end. Many sailed completely
over the island; those that hit along the beaches or the south runways
invariably caused dozens of casualties with each impact. Few Marines
could dig a proper foxhole in the granular sand (“like trying to dig a
hole in a barrel of wheat”). Among urgent calls to the control ship for
plasma, stretchers, and mortar shells came repeated cries for sand bags.
Veteran Marine combat correspondent Lieutenant Cyril P. Zurlinden, soon
to become a casualty himself, described that first night ashore:
At Tarawa, Saipan, and Tinian, I saw Marines killed and wounded
in a shocking manner, but I saw nothing like the ghastliness that
hung over the Iwo beachhead. Nothing any of us had ever known could
compare with the utter anguish, frustration, and constant inner
battle to maintain some semblance of sanity.
Personnel accounting was a nightmare under those conditions, but the
assault divisions eventually reported the combined loss of 2,420 men
to General Schmidt (501 killed, 1,755 wounded, 47 dead of wounds, 18
missing, and 99 combat fatigue). These were sobering statistics, but
Schmidt now had 30,000 Marines ashore. The casualty rate of eight
percent left the landing force in relatively better condition than at
the first days at Tarawa or Saipan. The miracle was that the casualties
had not been twice as high. General Kuribayashi had possibly waited a
little too long to open up with his big guns.
The first night on Iwo was ghostly. Sulfuric mists spiraled out of
the earth. The Marines, used to the tropics, shivered in the cold,
waiting for Kuribayashi’s warriors to come screaming down from the
hills. They would learn that this Japanese commander was different.
There would be no wasteful, vainglorious _Banzai_ attack, this night
or any other. Instead, small teams of infiltrators, which Kuribayashi
termed “Prowling Wolves,” probed the lines, gathering intelligence.
A barge-full of Japanese _Special Landing Forces_ tried a small
counterlanding on the western beaches and died to the man under the
alert guns of the 28th Marines and its supporting LVT crews. Otherwise
the night was one of continuing waves of indirect fire from the
highlands. One high velocity round landed directly in the hole occupied
by the 1st Battalion, 23d Marines’ commander, Lieutenant Colonel Ralph
Haas, killing him instantly. The Marines took casualties throughout the
night. But with the first streaks of dawn, the veteran landing force
stirred. Five infantry regiments looked north; a sixth turned to the
business at hand in the south: Mount Suribachi.
[Sidebar (page 10): The Assault Commanders at Iwo Jima
Four veteran Marine major generals led the sustained assault on Iwo
Jima: Harry Schmidt, Commanding General, V Amphibious Corps; Graves
B. Erskine, CG, 3d Marine Division; Clifton B. Cates, CG, 4th Marine
Division; and Keller E. Rockey, CG, 5th Marine Division. Each would
receive the Distinguished Service Medal for inspired combat leadership
in this epic battle.
[Illustration: _MajGen Harry Schmidt, USMC_
Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 11180
]
General Schmidt was 58 at Iwo Jima and had served the Corps for 36
years. He was a native of Holdrege, Nebraska, and attended Nebraska
Normal College. Expeditionary assignments kept him from service in
World War I, but Schmidt saw considerable small unit action in Guam,
China, the Philippines, Mexico, Cuba, and Nicaragua, plus four years
at sea. He attended the Army Command and General Staff College and
the Marine Corps Field Officers’ Course. In World War II, General
Schmidt commanded the 4th Marine Division in the Roi-Namur and Saipan
operations, then assumed command of V Amphibious Corps for the Tinian
landing. At Iwo Jima he would command the largest force of Marines ever
committed to a single battle. “It was the highest honor of my life,” he
said.
[Illustration: _MajGen Graves B. Erskine, USMC_
Marine Corps Historical Collection
]
General Erskine was 47 at Iwo Jima, one of the youngest major generals
in the Corps. He had served 28 years on active duty by that time.
A native of Columbia, Louisiana, he graduated from Louisiana State
University, received a Marine Corps commission, and immediately
deployed overseas for duty in World War I. As a platoon commander in
the 6th Marines, Erskine saw combat at Belleau Wood, Chateau-Thierry,
Soissons, and St. Mihiel, during which he was twice wounded and awarded
the Silver Star. In the inter-war years he served in Haiti, Santo
Domingo, Nicaragua, Cuba, and China. He attended the Army Infantry
School and the Army Command and General Staff College. In World War II,
Erskine was chief of staff to General Holland M. Smith during campaigns
in the Aleutians, Gilberts, Marshalls, and Marianas. He assumed command
of the 3d Marine Division in October 1944.
[Illustration: _MajGen Clifton B. Cates, USMC_
Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 38595
]
General Cates, 51 at Iwo, had also served the Corps during the previous
28 years. He was one of the few Marine Corps general officers who
held combat command at the platoon, company, battalion, regiment,
and division levels in his career. Cates was born in Tiptonville,
Tennessee, and attended the University of Tennessee. In World War I,
he served as a junior officer in the 6th Marines at Belleau Wood,
Soissons, St. Mihiel, and Blanc Mont, and was awarded the Navy Cross,
two Silver Stars, and two Purple Hearts for his service and his wounds.
Between wars, he served at sea and twice in China. He attended the Army
Industrial College, the Senior Course at Marine Corps Schools, and
the Army War College. In World War II he commanded the 1st Marines at
Guadalcanal and the 4th Marine Division at Tinian. Three years after
Iwo Jima, General Cates became the 19th Commandant of the Marine Corps.
[Illustration: _MajGen Keller E. Rockey, USMC_
Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A32295
]
General Rockey was 56 at Iwo Jima and a veteran of 31 years of service
to the Corps. He was born in Columbia City, Indiana, graduated from
Gettysburg College, and studied at Yale. Like his fellow division
commanders, Rockey served in France in World War I. He was awarded the
Navy Cross as a junior officer in the 5th Marines at Chateau-Thierry. A
second Navy Cross came later for heroic service in Nicaragua. He also
served in Haiti and two years at sea. He attended the Field Officers’
Course at Quantico and the Army Command and General Staff Course. He
spent the first years of World War II at Headquarters Marine Corps in
Washington, first as Director, Division of Plans and Policies, then as
Assistant Commandant. In February 1944 General Rockey assumed command
of the 5th Marine Division and began preparing the new organization for
its first, and last, great battle of the war.
Three Marine brigadier generals also played significant roles in the
amphibious seizure of Iwo Jima: William W. Rogers, corps chief of
staff; Franklin A. Hart, assistant division commander, 4th Marine
Division; and Leo D. Hermle, assistant division commander, 5th Marine
Division.
]
_Suribachi_
The Japanese called the dormant volcano Suribachi-yama; the Marines
dubbed it “Hotrocks.” From the start the Marines knew their drive north
would never succeed without first seizing that hulking rock dominating
the southern plain. “Suribachi seemed to take on a life of its own,
to be watching these men, looming over them,” recalled one observer,
adding “the mountain represented to these Marines a thing more evil
than the Japanese.”
Colonel Kanehiko Atsuchi commanded the 2,000 soldiers and sailors of
the Suribachi garrison. The Japanese had honeycombed the mountain with
gun positions, machine-gun nests, observation sites, and tunnels, but
Atsuchi had lost many of his large-caliber guns in the direct naval
bombardment of the preceding three days. General Kuribayashi considered
Atsuchi’s command to be semiautonomous, realizing the invaders would
soon cut communications across the island’s narrow southern tip.
Kuribayashi nevertheless hoped Suribachi could hold out for 10 days,
maybe two weeks.
Some of Suribachi’s stoutest defenses existed down low, around the
rubble-strewn base. Here nearly 70 camouflaged concrete blockhouses
protected the approaches to the mountain; another 50 bulged from the
slopes within the first hundred feet of elevation. Then came the caves,
the first of hundreds the Marines would face on Iwo Jima.
The 28th Marines had suffered nearly 400 casualties in cutting
across the neck of the island on D-day. On D+1, in a cold rain, they
prepared to assault the mountain. Lieutenant Colonel Chandler Johnson,
commanding the 2d Battalion, 28th Marines, set the tone for the morning
as he deployed his tired troops forward: “It’s going to be a hell of a
day in a hell of a place to fight the damned war!” Some of the 105mm
batteries of the 13th Marines opened up in support, firing directly
overhead. Gun crews fired from positions hastily dug in the black sand
directly next to the 28th Marines command post. Regimental Executive
Officer Lieutenant Colonel Robert H. Williams watched the cannoneers
fire at Suribachi “eight hundred yards away over open sights.”
[Illustration: _A dug-in Marine 81mm mortar crew places continuous fire
on Japanese positions around the slopes of Mount Suribachi preparatory
to the attack of the 28th Marines._
Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 109861
]
As the Marines would learn during their drive north, even 105mm
howitzers would hardly shiver the concrete pillboxes of the enemy.
As the prep fire lifted, the infantry leapt forward, only to run
immediately into very heavy machine-gun and mortar fire. Colonel
Harry B. “Harry the Horse” Liversedge bellowed for his tanks. But
the 5th Tank Battalion was already having a frustrating morning. The
tankers sought a defilade spot in which to rearm and refuel for the
day’s assault. Such a location did not exist on Iwo Jima those first
days. Every time the tanks congregated to service their vehicles they
were hit hard by Japanese mortar and artillery fire from virtually the
entire island. Getting sufficient vehicles serviced to join the assault
took most of the morning. Hereafter the tankers would maintain and
re-equip their vehicles at night.
[Illustration: