CLOSING IN: Marines in the Seizure of Iwo Jima
by Colonel Joseph H. Alexander U.S. Marine Corps (Ret)
Assault Preparations (continued)
The physical separation of the three divisions, from
Guam to Hawaii, had no adverse effect on preparatory training. Where it
counted mostthe proficiency of small units in amphibious landings
and combined-arms assaults on fortified positionseach division was
well prepared for the forthcoming invasion. The 3d Marine Division had
just completed its participation in the successful recapture of Guam;
field training often extended to active combat patrols to root out
die-hard Japanese survivors. In Maui, the 4th Marine Division prepared
for its fourth major assault landing in 13 months with quiet confidence.
Recalled Major Frederick J. Karch, operations officer for the 14th
Marines, "we had a continuity there of veterans that was just
unbeatable." In neighboring Hawaii, the 5th Marine Division calmly
prepared for its first combat experience. The unit's newness would prove
misleading. Well above half of the officers and men were veterans,
including a number of former Marine parachutists and a few Raiders who
had first fought in the Solomons. Lieutenant Colonel Donn J. Robertson
took command of the 3d Battalion, 27th Marines, barely two weeks before
embarkation and immediately ordered it into the field for a sustained
live-firing exercise. Its competence and confidence impressed him.
"These were professionals," he concluded.
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"Dinah Might," the first crippled B-29 to make an
emergency landing on Iwo Jima during the fighting, is surrounded by
Marines and Seabees on 4 March 1945. Department of Defense Photo (USMC)
112392
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Among the veterans preparing for Iwo Jima were two
Medal of Honor recipients from the Guadalcanal campaign, Gunnery
Sergeant John "Manila John" Basilone and Lieutenant Colonel Robert E.
Galer. Headquarters Marine Corps preferred to keep such distinguished
veterans in the states for morale purposes, but both men wrangled their
way back overseasBasilone leading a machine gun platoon, Galer
delivering a new radar unit for employment with the Landing Force Air
Support Control Unit.
The Guadalcanal veterans would only shake their heads
at the abundance of amphibious shipping available for Operation
Detachment. Admiral Turner would command 495 ships, of which fully 140
were amphibiously configured, the whole array 10 times the size of
Guadalcanal's task force. Still there were problems. So many of the
ships and crews were new that each rehearsal featured embarrassing
collisions and other accidents. The new TD-18 bulldozers were found to
be an inch too wide for the medium landing craft (LCMs). The newly
modified M4A3 Sherman tanks proved so heavy that the LCMs rode with
dangerously low freeboards. Likewise, 105mm howitzers overloaded the
amphibious trucks (DUKWs) to the point of near unseaworthiness. These
factors would prove costly in Iwo's unpredictable surf zone.
These problems notwithstanding, the huge force
embarked and began the familiar move to westward. Said Colonel Robert E.
Hogaboom, Chief of Staff, 3d Marine Division, "we were in good shape,
well trained, well equipped and thoroughly supported."
On Iwo Jima, General Kuribayashi had benefitted from
the American postponements of Operation Detachment because of delays in
the Philippines campaign. He, too, felt as ready and prepared as
possible. When the American armada sailed from the Marianas on 13
February, he was forewarned. He deployed one infantry battalion in the
vicinity of the beaches and lower airfield, ordered the bulk of his
garrison into its assigned fighting holes, and settled down to await the
inevitable storm.
Two contentious issues divided the Navy-Marine team
as D-day at Iwo Jima loomed closer. The first involved Admiral
Spruance's decision to detach Task Force 58, the fast carriers under
Admiral Marc Mitscher, to attack strategic targets on Honshu
simultaneously with the onset of Admiral Blandy's preliminary
bombardment of Iwo. The Marines suspected Navy-Air Force rivalry at work
heremost of Mitscher's targets were aircraft factories which the
B-29s had missed badly a few days earlier. What the Marines really
begrudged was Mitscher taking all eight Marine Corps fighter squadrons,
assigned to the fast carriers, plus the new fast battleships with their
16-inch guns. Task Force 58 returned to Iwo in time to render sparkling
support with these assets on D-day, but two days later it was off again,
this time for good.
The other issue was related and it concerned the
continuing argument between senior Navy and Marine officers over the
extent of preliminary naval gunfire. The Marines looked at the
intelligence reports on Iwo and requested 10 days of preliminary fire.
The Navy said it had neither the time nor the ammo to spare; three days
would have to suffice. Holland Smith and Harry Schmidt continued to
plead, finally offering to compromise to four days. Turner deferred to
Spruance who ruled that three days prep fires, in conjunction with the
daily pounding being administered by the Seventh Air Force, would do the
job.
Lieutenant Colonel Donald M. Weller, USMC, served as
the FMFPAC/Task Force 51 naval gun fire officer, and no one in either
sea service knew the business more thoroughly. Weller had absorbed the
lessons of the Pacific War well, especially those of the conspicuous
failures at Tarawa. The issue, he argued forcibly to Admiral Turner, was
not the weight of shells nor their caliber but rather time. Destruction
of heavily fortified enemy targets took deliberate, pinpoint firing from
close ranges, assessed and adjusted by aerial observers. Iwo Jima's 700
"hard" targets would require time to knock out, a lot of time.
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An
aerial view of Iwo Jima before the landing clearly shows "pork chop"
shape. Mount Suribachi, in the right foreground, is at the southern end
of the island. Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 413529
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Neither Spruance nor Turner had time to give, for
strategic, tactical, and logistical reasons. Three days of firing by
Admiral Blandy's sizeable bombardment force would deliver four times the
amount of shells Tarawa received, and one and a half times that
delivered against larger Saipan. It would have to do.
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A
Marine inspects a Japanese coastal defense gun which, although protected
by steel-reinforced concrete, was destroyed in prelanding naval gunfire
bombardments. Col William P. McCahill Collection
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In effect, Iwo's notorious foul weather, the
imperviousness of many of the Japanese fortifications, and other
distractions dissipated even the three days' bombardment. "We got about
thirteen hours' worth of fire support during the thirty-four hours of
available daylight," complained Brigadier General William W. Rogers,
chief of staff to General Schmidt.
The Americans received an unexpected bonus when
General Kuribayashi committed his only known tactical error during the
battle. This occurred on D-minus-2, as a force of 100 Navy and Marine
underwater demolition team (UDT) frogmen bravely approached the eastern
beaches escorted by a dozen LCI landing craft firing their guns and
rockets. Kuribayashi evidently believed this to be the main landing and
authorized the coastal batteries to open fire. The exchange was hot and
heavy, with the LCIs getting the worst of it, but U.S. battleships and
cruisers hurried in to blast the casemate guns suddenly revealed on the
slopes of Suribachi and along the rock quarry on the right flank.
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(click on image for an enlargement in a new window)
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That night, gravely concerned about the hundreds of
Japanese targets still untouched by two days of firing, Admiral Blandy
conducted a "council of war" on board his flagship. At Weller's
suggestion, Blandy junked the original plan and directed his gunships to
concentrate exclusively on the beach areas. This was done with
considerable effect on D minus-1 and D-day morning itself. Kuribayashi
noted that most of the positions the Imperial Navy insisted on building
along the beach approaches had in fact been destroyed, as he had
predicted. Yet his main defensive belts criss-crossing the Motoyama
Plateau remained intact. "I pray for a heroic fight," he told his
staff.
On board Admiral Turner's flagship, the press
briefing held the night before D-day was uncommonly somber. General
Holland Smith predicted heavy casualties, possibly as many as 15,000,
which shocked all hands. A man clad in khakis without rank insignia then
stood up to address the room. It was James V. Forrestal, Secretary of
the Navy. "Iwo Jima, like Tarawa, leaves very little choice," he said
quietly, "except to take it by force of arms, by character and
courage."
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