75 years ago today , and the days to follow , about 70,000 Marines landed on Iwo Jima , and battled the Japanese for about 5 weeks , lost about 7000 Marines KIA , and about 25,000 WIA . The Japanese lost about 22,000 KIA ,, and only about 200 Japanese soldiers were either captured , or surrendered . I met an Iwo Jima veteran about a month ago , said he spent about 17 days on that Island . On this day , my hat is off to all of our WW11 veterans . Semper Fi Marines ,,,
My Fishin buddy's Dad was a Corpsman on Iwo and survived it! I only met him once, but he was a true hero! My Uncle Served aboard the U.S.S. New Mexico the entire war and took part in all the actions and invasions the ship was part of! He died in 1947 of massive asbestos poisoning! I have his scrap book from the war, it's amazing to see and read his accounts of his time aboard and it's a piece of history not often seen or heard! He didn't mention any of the islands they shelled and supported the landings of but a ships log search answers all that!
There was an Old Gent that lived up the Inlet, with his wife.... ExMarine Sargent from WWII and the IWO JIMA Battle... He was a platoon Sgt, and was assigned to Babysit a Naval Gunnery Officer who was a Forward Fire Controller for the Offshore Heavy Guns on the Battleships & Cruisers... their First night, they came under heavy mortar fire and he went to find cover, ... The Officer told him to sit tight, but he found a cave 30 yards away, and moved the operation, into the cave, once the Officer was wounded but still able to function.. They called in fire from that cave for 36 hours, and he was wounded by mortar shrapnel numerous times... and the Navy guy was killed when he went out to check out the battle... His platoon evacted him and sent him straight to the hospital ship, and back to Guam, where he spent the rest of the war, in the hospital, recovering... He was then shipped to Camp Pendleton, and mustered out, without ever rejoining his outfit... In the early 1990’s he got a package addressed to Sgt. Bert Stewart from the Commandant of the Marine Corp. Inside was a Citation, signed by the Commandant, and a leather Case, which held Bronze Star with Two Clusters, a Purple Heart, and a Letter, stating that the Corp was sorry it had taken so long t get him his metals, but they had thought he had died on IWO, until just six months before.. and it had taken them that long to track him down.. This old man was a real live War Hero, but you would never know it by knowing him.. Semper Fi
People today don't know the sacrifices, courage and outright in your face bravery the men and women of this country endured and displayed during the wars America has fought.
Many years ago I once met a marine that served on I.J About one of the only story's I remember is he said there were guys walking around in the piles of dead Japs pulling gold teeth out?
My oldest uncle did Tarawa and Iwo Jima. He never commented much, but I do remember him talking about no one knowing what it's like to have to walk over and on bodies. He was shot twice, once in the calf and again in the shoulder blade, which sent him home.
It was a great generation that was willing to make sacrifices and back up the commitments they made. Seems each generation since is lesser with each iteration. Perhaps it takes a dead serious challenge to bring out our best, but I don't think our newest crop could rise like they did, and bad on us for raising them that way. My Dad was in the Army. and spent his time in the Philippines. He got to do fun things like clearing caves and tunnels. In one instance his helmet was shot and it penetrated the outer shell and he got to hear it spin around between the two shells until is stopped. The helmet turned up missing later after he was severely wounded and hospitalized. Apparently it became somebody else's war prize. He was severely wounded on Mindanao when taking the point for his unit. He had a small amount of cover, but a lucky shot hit the ammunition he carried on hit belt and when it exploded it tore his side and some of his back open. It was so bad that as he tried to move to a safer location he had to untangle his intestine from where it had snagged a root. He was left for dead, but a Filipino found him and got help after the battle was over. Fortunately they were able to patch him up. You would think after a wound like that the war would be over for him. Not a chance. After they stitches were pulled he was on a transport ship headed to Japan. If the Bomb hadn't ended the war that's where he would have next seen action and by the odds of survival they were projecting for troops he likely wouldn't have survived. I never heard these hair raising stories (and many more) until I was his caretaker and only then when I took him to visits to his VA mental health clinic. You would have never known the trauma he had gone through and continued to deal with the rest of his life.
Another thing that I have always found amazing about the Soldiers and Marines of WW2, they were NEVER driven off of any beach, in ANY theater of the war, by ANY enemy! THESE WERE MEN!!
That type of talk is somewhat disrespectful.. WAR Many been there know the image , but should tell others to avoid .. Let me ask here !! Who has killed another human by force !! and amount ?? I'll never answer !! S
It's also quite true,Why this was done is beyond me,I for one would never participate. Like cutting off ears in Vietnam.
It helps if you de-humanize your enemies. That is why we give our enemies names...like Tories and Rebels, Yankees and Rebels, Japs, Gooks, Slants, Nazis, Huns, Rag-Heads, etc..
I overlooked the Sailors and Airmen of WW2. I saw a notice in the local paper that on this date kamikazes sank the escort carrier USS Bismarck Sea with a loss of 318 MEN! The reason that the Marines and Sailors were fighting for Iwo Jima became apparent when during the battle a wounded B-29 crash landed on a very recently captured airfield, and saved the Airmen from having to bailout over the Pacific. They would be just the first of many Airmen that would survive the war thanks to Iwo's airfields that offered fighter protection and emergency landing sites.
No doubt Wildbilly ,,, the Navy and Army AirCorps definitely played a role in this War , and battle . But I believe the reason for the attack on Iwo Jima was to gain an Airfield AO to have closer access to hit Japan's mainland .
Capture of Iwo Jima gave us an emergency landing field for damaged B-29's returning after a mission and allowed basing P-51' s closer to the target so they could provide coverage to the B-29's over that target. And my uncle (Army engineers) talked of pulling gold teeth from corpses on Kiska and Atu while on burial detail. Only spoke of it once. Never had reason to doubt him.
In answer to your question, It's war, it's the absolute violence of man brought to his very basic of instincts, and thus, the taking of another's life become a very personal and intimate experience! You now hold that mans life in your hands, and his living or dying is your responsibility and it becomes a deeply personal experience to be viewed in all seriousness during and after! Most would never tell of their personal experiences regarding that, nether feeling shame or remorse, nor satisfaction in the taking of life! It's something that must be done, often for reasons we may never understand, and may never find absolution for, but we who go in harms way do so with the full knowledge that that most intimate of experiences may be ours to live and to live with after! I find no satisfaction in doing some of the things I have done, but I do accept my role in all that, and I still hold my head up with great pride! I had the honor of preforming my duty to the utmost of my skills and abilities, and I had the opportunity to save lives by the use of extraordinary violence against those who would make war against those I was there to protect!
Absolutely! It de-humanizes ones enemy, makes him less then you and there fore eases the mind and feelings, making it easier to do what may/must be done, when you no longer think of him as anything but a rabid animal that needs to be dealt with! It's often said that pilots never see the MAN they are fighting, only the machine he is operating, and thus, they call him a bandit, tango, vampire,or other slang term, because it is assumed he is not a human being, and yet, the pilots DO see the Human they are fighting, they see his face and especially the eyes of that enemy, and it does make it just as personal as those war fighters on the ground experience!
On this date, Feb. 23, 1945, U.S. Marines on Iwo Jima captured Mount Suribachi, where they raised the American flag.
