History Pgs.67-101
10/9/06
6:05 PM
Page 96
THE MARINES
A brigade commander who had successfully withstood the assaults of the 4th Marine Division in the “Meat Grinder” for weeks gave in to despair one night and launched a traditional banzai attack. The 4th Division, glad to have live targets in the open for a change, reacted calmly, set the stage with illuminating rounds from the ships offshore, laced the approaches with artillery and mortars, shredded the attacking columns with well-sited machine guns, then rose up with a vengeance to greet the survivors at bayonet point. The Japanese brigade commander and 700 of his troops lay lifeless among the rocks at daybreak. Given this windfall, the 4th Marine Division accelerated its advance to clear the east coast, finishing the job with a flourish two days later. The 3d Marine Division reached the north coast on March 16, the advance patrol leader sending a canteen of seawater back to General Schmidt marked “For inspection – not consumption.” On that date the top brass declared the island secured, a communique received with snorts and hoots by the 5th Marine Division, still fighting desperately against a wellarmed, intractable enemy near Kuribayashi’s final cave in what was now being called “The Bloody Gorge.” Using time-proven but costly “blowtorch and corkscrew” tactics to clear the final gorge took the division another ten days of bitter fighting. [Major General Graves] Erskine’s 3d Division took over part of the sector for the final knockout blows. Abruptly the great battle was over. Admiral Chester Nimitz’s accolade would endure longest, now chiseled into the granite base of the enormous bronze statue of the Suribachi Marines and their faithful corpsman at Arlington Cemetery: “Uncommon valor was a common virtue …”
Eight of these tanks had been field-modified to mount an experimental flamethrower that could spout napalmthickened fuel at a range of 150 yards through a look-alike tube in place of its main turret gun. The “Zippo Tanks” became the weapon of choice of the landing force – and the target of most urgent priority for the Japanese 109th Division. General Kuribayashi had exhorted each of his troops to kill at least ten Americans in exchange for their own lives. While few achieved this distinction, the ratio of 1.25 Marine casualties (killed, wounded, missing) for every Japanese killed was the highest in the war. It was the first and only time a Marine landing force suffered greater casualties than they inflicted on the defending garrison. The Battle of Iwo Jima also featured the largest concentration of Navajo Code Talkers in the war to date. The Navajos spoke one of the most unique dialects in the world. They drove Japanese cryptologists crazy in their repeated attempts to break or translate U.S. tactical communications. African-American Marines made their mark at Iwo Jima as well. Black Marines at Iwo served as ammo humpers and stevedores by day – keeping the vital flow of combat cargo moving north into the lines – and fought the Prowling Wolves at night. Privates James Whitlock and James Davis received Bronze Stars for their valor in derailing a violent Japanese counterattack with unerring carbine fire at great personal risk. Once the Marines forced General Kuribayashi to evacuate his headquarters in the central highlands for the northwest coast, the discipline of his principal subordinates began to crumble.
Amphibious Capstones (Okinawa to V-J Day) The Marines had seized Iwo Jima to
Like Tarawa and so many other Central Pacific islands, Okinawa enjoyed the protection of a barrier coral reef. Unlike Tarawa, the reef made no difference to the Marines. Fourteen hundred new-model LVTs were on hand to land the assault elements of the Tenth Army – four divisions landing abreast, Marines to the north, Army to the south – covering eight miles of the Hagushi beaches. Leading the way were hundreds of LVT-As, armored amphibians, the developmental grand-progeny of the long-ago Christie tank, firing on the move from their snub-nosed 75mm turrets. And behind all the LVT-As and LVTs could be seen waves of 700 DUKWs bearing the first of the direct support artillery battalions. The amphibious assault plan was clicking on all cylinders.
enhance the strategic air campaign against Japan. But Okinawa would provide the essential springboard for the final invasion of the Home Islands. Except for the kamikazes, Okinawa would be the only major “unopposed” landing of the war for the Marines – but it was a dubious distinction. Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima, commanding the 100,000-man Thirty-Second Army, intended to wage the bloodiest possible defensive battle to buy time for the massed kamikazes to savage the American fleet. Given seven months to prepare his defenses, Ushijima wisely forfeited the upper two thirds of the island, the obvious landing beaches at Hagushi, and the nearby airfields at Kadena and Yontan. The American landing would be unopposed only temporarily.
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