The Iwo Jima Campaign

This turned out to be as horrible as any action in Marine Corps history. You could train until doomsday for a place like Iwo and you would still suffer tremendous casualties before the end of that battle.

- Irving Schechter, 1982 interview.

It is hard to write about Iwo Jima. It was a grind. Every day was a big battle. No matter where you were on the island you were constantly exposed. The only way we could take this island was to kill the Japs in their caves. We did that with flame throwers, satchel charges and hand grenades. We literally buried them alive. This lasted 36 days. Every day it was as if we were on a big beachhead, the whole island was like landing, the enemy was in a perfect position to kill you. I became a squad leader soon after we landed - all the other squad leaders had been casualties. One day I got nine new men for my thirteen-man squad. These were young guys with no combat training and looked as if they had just got out of boot camp. The first morning I got them, I found them all in a hole together. I chewed them out and told them never to bunch up again. One of them apologized to me and said they were just praying together before we had to saddle up. I never learned their names but all of them were killed or wounded before the day was over. This was the way it was every day. Collecting dog tags of kids who followed you but you never knew their names.

- Al Perry, The Fighting Fourth

 

 

Daily pushes netted scant yardage and always casualties from knee mortars or invisible point-blank rifle and machine gun fire. On only one day were "A" and "B" companies able to reach the higher ground to the front, not more than 600 yards from the ridge "B" company occupied the night of D-Day. And once there, increasing fire, 50 casualties, and no supplies all combined to force a withdrawl.

- Captain Frederic Stott, Ten Days on Iwo Jima (Leatherneck Magazine, May, 1945)