The convoluted ravines in the north made flat-trajectory naval gunfire less effective. Worse, Admiral Spruance deployed the fast carriers north for a series of strikes around Tokyo, removing eight Marine fighter squadrons trained in close air support operations. Navy fighters flying off the remaining escort carriers tried to pick up the slack, but they could not carry large bombs, nor were they allowed to descend below 1,500 feet. The Americans used some napalm bombs, but those were disappointing. At that stage of the war, the ‘bombs’ were still primitive–old wing tanks with improvised detonators. Half did not explode. Nor did the troops appreciate such area weapons being dropped from high altitudes.

Marianas-based Consolidated B-24 Liberator bombers of the Seventh Air Force continued to pound the island daily. Some of the best close air support, after the initial week, came from a squadron of Army Air Force North American P-51 Mustangs that flew into the first captured airfield below Suribachi. It was not at all a dive bomber squadron, but the pilots were good at glide bombing, plus they were enthusiastic. Marine Colonel Vernon E. McGee, commanding the experimental Landing Force Air Support Control Unit ashore, instructed the pilots to arm their 1,000-pound bombs with 12-second fuzes, and directed them against the cliffs and bluffs along the flanks of the attacking Marines. Sometimes those bombs achieved spectacular results, dropping a cliff face into the sea, exposing the tunnel system, and causing smoke to roll out of hidden entrances. The Marines loved this improvised support.

Both sides unveiled new weapons for the close-in fighting. The Japanese had enormous 320mm’spigot’ mortars, firing shells bigger than most Marines had ever seen. Kuribayashi also used aerial bombs lofted from crude rocket launchers. These were grossly inaccurate, but their psychological effect was awesome. No American who survived Iwo has ever forgotten the sight of those huge bombs, the size of a 55-gallon drum, tumbling end over end, seemingly headed right for the viewer’s foxhole. For their part, the Americans introduced the Mark I flamethrower built into the Sherman M4A3 medium tank. The days of using thin-skinned light tanks or LVTs for assaulting fortified positions were finally over. The Mark I system could spew burning napalm at a range of 150 yards with a duration of more than a minute. Unfortunately, despite the deployment of three tank battalions ashore, the Marines could only muster eight vehicles equipped with the Mark I for Iwo Jima. These were in constant demand.

Not surprisingly, most casualties in the first three weeks of the battle resulted from high explosives–mortars, artillery, mines, grenades and the hellacious rocket bombs. Time magazine combat correspondent Robert Sherrod, a veteran of earlier landings in the Aleutians, Gilberts and Marianas, reported that the dead at Iwo Jima, whether Japanese or American, had one thing in common: ‘They all died with the greatest possible violence. Nowhere in the Pacific war had I seen such badly mangled bodies. Many were cut squarely in half.’

‘Jumpin’ Joe’ Chambers’ exclamation on D-day had been prophetic. Landing Team 3/25 was indeed ‘in for one hell of a time.’ Chambers’ mission was to seize the rock quarries on the right flank, then act as a hinge as the entire expedition swung around to the north. The team accomplished this at staggering cost. Chambers reported the loss of 22 officers and 500 men in the first day alone. Three days later, a Japanese machine-gunner shot Chambers through the chest. The battalion surgeon pulled him out of the line of fire at great risk and saved his life. Chambers’ war was over. He received the Medal of Honor, one of 24 Marines and attached Navy corpsmen to be so recognized for courage ‘above and beyond’ during the battle for Iwo Jima.

Including Colonel Chambers, 14 of the 24 Marine infantry battalion commanders engaged on Iwo Jima were killed or wounded. Higher losses occurred among company and platoon commanders. One company commander who miraculously survived unscathed reported 100 percent casualties in his unit–every man in the outfit had been hit at least once. Japanese gunners destroyed one-third of the Sherman tanks and one-fourth of the LVTs. More LVTs sank in the rough seas while shuttling casualties out to ships or delivering ammunition ashore.

During the pre-dawn hours of D-plus-16, maneuver elements of the 3rd Marine Division executed one of the few battalion-size night attacks in the Pacific War. At 5 a.m., the 3rd Battalion, 9th Marines, moved silently across the line of departure, foregoing the telltale artillery barrage, and advanced toward Hill 362C, a particularly vexing objective 500 yards away. Surprise was complete. The battalion moved gingerly across open ground for 35 minutes before attracting a few rounds from startled Japanese sentries. By the time stiff resistance materialized, the Marines seemed to be on the hill. Then it was the Americans’ turn to be surprised. In the darkness they had seized the wrong hill. Their real objective lay another 250 yards away, and now it was fully daylight. But such was the momentum of their surprise attack that the battalion pressed on, reaching the crest by early afternoon. ‘Although nearly all the basic dope was bad,’ the commander reported, ‘the strategy proved very sound.’ In a battle marked by painstakingly slow progress, this advance was a real breakthrough.

On March 4, two weeks after D-day, a shot-up B-29 made an emergency landing on the captured bomber strip while the fighting still raged. Thirty-five more crippled Superfortresses made emergency landings on Iwo Jima during the battle. The troops had almost daily reminders of what the fighting was all about. On March 16, Schmidt declared the island secure. His salty veterans snickered at this premature euphemism and continued dueling die-hard Japanese soldiers. Finally, advance elements reached Kitano Point on the north coast. Kuribayashi and his chief of staff died at the end, either in a final charge or by suicide. On March 26, a full 34 days after the landing, Schmidt announced that the operation was over. Yet just a few hours earlier, a well-armed force of 350 Japanese had infiltrated Marine lines and fallen upon a rear encampment of support troops, inflicting 200 casualties in the confusion of darkness before being overwhelmed and snuffed out. Schmidt turned the island over to Army garrison forces of the 147th Infantry and began re-embarkation. It was time to start thinking about the next assault landing.

The Marines and their multiservice supporting arms killed about 20,000 Japanese on the island during the battle, and the troops captured nearly 1,100 prisoners. That success came at an appalling cost to the Marines. Altogether, the V Amphibious Corps sustained 24,053 casualties in the fight. Over 6,000 men died. The total casualty count represented the equivalent loss of 11ž3 standard divisions. The overall casualty rate was about 30 percent of forces employed, but many rifle battalions surpassed 75 percent. As Private Muscarella recalled, ‘There were no good days, and we lost a hell of a lot of people. Hell, I didn’t know who the company skipper was, or who the battalion commander was.’ By D-plus-35, few Marines did.

News of the casualties and savagery of Iwo Jima shocked the American public. The Hearst newspapers demanded that Nimitz and Spruance be replaced by General MacArthur, ‘a general who looks after his troops.’ But there was hardly time to indulge in recrimination. The invasion of Okinawa began four days after Iwo Jima fell. That campaign was equally bloody and savage. Ahead, presumably, lay the assault on the Japanese home islands themselves. The long, bloody road to Tokyo looked costlier than ever.

Seizing Iwo Jima achieved all the strategic goals desired by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. American B-29s could henceforth fly with less reserve fuel and a greater bomb payload, knowing Iwo Jima would be available as an emergency field. Iwo-based fighters escorted the Superfortresses to and from Honshu. For the first time, all the Japanese islands were within bomber range, including Hokkaido. Was all this worth the cost? One surviving Marine Corps officer thinks the question is still moot: ‘We saved a lot of airplanes, but whether it was worth the Marine lives to save Air Force planes, I don’t know.’

The 2,400 Army Air Force pilots who were forced to land at Iwo Jima between its capture and V-J Day had no doubts. Said one, ‘Whenever I land on this island, I thank God and the men who fought for it.’

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This article was written by Colonel Joseph Alexander and originally appeared in the February 2000 issue of World War II. Colonel Alexander wrote the 50th Anniversary history of Iwo Jima for the U.S. Marine Corps. For further reading, he suggests: Iwo Jima by Richard F. Newcomb; and Iwo Jima: Amphibious Epic by Whitman S. Bartley.

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