Operation Detachment – The Battle for Iwo Jima

Note: So much has been written about the Battle of Iwo Jima, by individuals far more qualified than myself, some of whom participated in it, all of whom conducted extensive research on this iconic battle, that I have avoided the effort for years.  But the Battle of Iwo Jima has called out to me to write something in tribute to the men who served there.  What follows is my unworthy summary an event that traumatized its survivors for the balance of their lives.    

American successes in the Pacific campaign forced the Japanese war machine to reevaluate their situation.  By the end of the Marshal Islands campaign, senior Japanese naval and army officers realized the truth of what Admiral Yamamoto had predicted three years earlier.  Japan had awoken a sleeping giant.

It was always Japan’s intention to create an inner perimeter defense of its home islands.  It was a defensive position that extended northward from the Carolines to the Marianas and the Palau Islands and led to the Philippines.  In March 1944, General Hideyoshi Obata, commanding the 31^st Japanese Army (21,000 infantry supported by field and naval artillery, anti-aircraft batteries, and 23 tanks) [1], was ordered to garrison the inner defensive area.

The commander of the garrison on Chichi Jima [2] was placed in overall command of Army and Navy units in the Volcano Islands [3].  Once US and allied aircraft began regularly attacking the Japanese home islands, Iwo Jima became an early warning station that radioed reports of incoming bombers, allowing the Japanese to anticipate the attack and organize an anti-aircraft defense.

Defending the Volcano Islands in 1944 was problematic.  The Japanese Navy had already been neutered by American and allied naval forces and was in no position to challenge an assault on the islands.  Additionally, Japanese aircraft losses by 1944 had been so significant that Japanese industries could not replace them.  Third, Japanese aircraft based on the home islands did not have the range needed to help defend the Volcano Islands, and last, there was a substantial shortage of properly trained or experienced pilots (and other aircrew) to fly what war planes the Japanese did have remaining in their arsenal.  Accordingly, the only purpose of Japan’s defense of Iwo Jima was to delay the Americans for a sufficient time to bolster its ground-defense of the home islands.

Allied commanders determined that Iwo Jima was strategically important.  With three existing landing strips, Iwo Jima would provide an alternate landing site for crippled allied bombers returning from missions over the Japanese home islands.  Typically, American intelligence sources were certain that Iwo Jima would fall to allied forces within a week of an amphibious assault.  Military planners began preparations for the assault, assigning it the code name OPERATION DETACHMENT.  At the beginning of operational planning, given what the allied forces had learned from earlier Pacific battles, particularly at Saipan, it is likely that allied planners expected a Japanese defense in depth [4] —but it is unlikely that they anticipated how exhaustively extensive the Japanese defenses would be.

In June 1944, Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi [5] assumed command of the defenses at Iwo Jima.  He knew from the beginning that his force could not withstand a full allied assault, so he dedicated his command to inflicting as many casualties on the landing force as possible, hoping that massive casualties would convince US, Australian, and British forces to reconsider any thought of invading the Japanese home islands.

Kuribayashi designed a defensive plan that employed static and heavy weapons within mutually supporting defensive positions.  With insufficient time to link tunnels from Mount Suribachi to the main force position, he created a semi-independent defense force at Suribachi, but retained his primary defense zone in the northern area of the island.  His system of tunnels allowed him to rapidly reinforce or replace neutralized defensive positions.  His network of bunkers and pillboxes was extensive and so thoroughly supplied with food and water that the Japanese could hold out for three months.  Ammunition stores, however, were inadequate; Kuribayashi’s troops only had 60% of the ammo they would need to confront one combat division.  The tunnel network extended to around eleven miles, interspersed with command bunkers extending 75 feet underground.  There were hundreds of hidden artillery and mortar positions; land mines were laid through likely avenues of approach, and these were interspersed with sniper and concealed machine gun positions.

Based on allied intelligence estimates, Major General Harry Schmidt, USMC, commanding the Fifth Amphibious Corps, who served as commander of the Marine landing forces, requested a ten day heavy bombardment of Iwo Jima.  The commander, Amphibious Assault Group (Task Force 52), Rear Admiral William Blandy, USN, did not believe that such a bombardment would allow him sufficient time to replenish task force ammunition stores before the landing [6].  On this basis, he denied Schmidt’s request.  General Schmidt then requested nine days of pre-landing bombardment.  Blandy refused this request, as well.  It is difficult today to find fault with Blandy’s decision; he was the officer responsible for the safety and viability of his amphibious ready group —but at the time, senior Marine officers were not pleased with the navy’s decision [7].

Each of Blandy’s assault ships were assigned a sector of supporting fire.  Each warship fired for approximately six hours before shutting down the guns for cooling [8].  Poor weather conditions, which began three days before the scheduled landing, led to “uncertain results” of daily bombardments, but on the second day the USS Pensacola was hit six times and the USS Leutze was hit by Japanese shore battery fire [9]; these two incidents revealed that allied bombardments were ineffective.  On D-day minus one, weather conditions again hampered allied bombardment, limiting the navy to 13 hours of pre-assault gun fire.  Overall, navy’s pre-landing bombardment did not accomplish its mission.

The landing force consisted of the Fifth Amphibious Corps, which included 5^th Marine Division (5thMarDiv) regiments (13^th  (artillery) 26^th, 27^th, 28^th Marines), 4^th Marine Division (4thMarDiv) regiments (14^th (artillery), 23^rd, 24^th, 25^th Marines), the US 147^th Infantry Regiment, and serving in reserve, the 3^rd Marine Division (3rdMardDiv) regiments (12^th (artillery), 3^rd, 9^th, 21^st Marines).

D-day was 19 February 1945.  The dawn was bright and clear.  The first wave of the landing force went ashore at 08:59.  They found nothing even remotely similar to the intelligence estimates provided by the allied war planners.  The beaches weren’t “excellent.”  There would be no “easy push” inland.  The Marines faced a 15-foot high slope of soft black volcanic ash.  There was no “sure footing,” and the Marines were unable to construct fighting (fox) holes.  The Japanese waited in silence as Marines swarmed ashore.  Senior navy officers observed the absence of enemy activity as a sure sign that the island was lightly defended.  By their shear numbers, Marines began moving toward Iwo Jima beach and inched their way inland.  The Japanese waited patiently until the Marines were bunched up on the beach, until their unloaded heavy equipment clogged up the small landing zones.  Finally, at 10:00 hours, Kuribayashi unleashed his artillery, mortars, machine guns.  The beach soon became mired in blood.  Robert Sherrod, a war correspondent with Time Magazine, described it as “a nightmare in hell.”

Marine amphibious landing vehicles attempted to clear the black ash, but managed only to churn up the fine powdery material and made no progress.  As the Marines struggled, Navy Seabees braved enemy fire to bulldoze roadways off the beach.  In time, the Marines began a forward push, but as one observer noted, there was at least one dead Marine for every shell hole along the landing beach.

At 11:30 hours, a Marine platoon reached the southern tip of Airfield One.  This was one of the original objectives for the first day, but the expectation was nothing if not unrealistic.  The Marine platoon soon encountered a fanatical Japanese charge of around 100 men.  The Marines held their position, but it was at best tenuous.  Colonel Liversedge led his 28^th Marines across the island at it narrowest width.  Liversedge didn’t know it at the time, but the movement of his regiment isolated the Japanese who were dug in on Mount Suribachi.

Japanese heavy artillery positioned on Mount Suribachi opened up heavily reinforced steel doors to unleash fire, and then closed them again to defeat allied counter-battery fire.  Marines attacked Japanese positions and neutralized them, but many of these positions were quickly re-manned by Japanese troops being shifted through unseen tunnels.  The Marines soon learned that they could not ignore “cleared” enemy positions.  As a response to heavy enemy resistance on the beach, the US 147^th Infantry Regiment was ordered to scale a ridge about three-quarters of a mile from the foot of Mount Suribachi and fire on Japanese positions so that the Marines could advance inland.  The regiment soon found itself inside a hornet’s nest; they would remain engaged there for another 31 days.

The far right side of the landing zone was dominated by Japanese positions at “the Quarry.”  Colonel John Lanigan led his 25^th Marines in a two-pronged attack into the Quarry to silence Japanese guns.  At the beginning of the push, the third battalion (3/25) had 900 men.  By the end of the day, the battalion was down to 150 effective Marines.  Second Lieutenant Ben Roselle was serving as a naval gunfire liaison officer, whose mission it was to direct naval artillery.  He was brutally wounded four times within mere minutes, losing his left foot at the ankle, receiving severe wounds in his right leg, a wound to his left shoulder, additional wounds to his thighs, and a shrapnel wound to his left forearm.  Miraculously, the lieutenant survived.

By sunset of the first day, 30,000 Marines had gone ashore.  The Japanese would not make it easy for these Marines—an additional 40,000 Marines would be required to win this fight.  Based on their previous experiences in the island campaigns, the Marines expected banzai attacks during the night, but historians tell us that only one of those occurred on Iwo Jima.  Initially, General Kuribayashi forbade such attacks because he felt they were a waste of effort and human life.  This is not to suggest there were no night-time Japanese counter-attacks.  Fighting on the beach was fiercely unrelenting; the Japanese opposed every Marine thrust into their defensive areas.  Many Marine units were ambushed by Japanese who suddenly appeared from “no where,” from spider holes that were connected to the extensive tunnel network, and counter-attacks after dark occurred against the various Marine perimeters.  English-speaking Japanese were used to harass or deceive Marines.  Voices would come out of the darkness, calling for a corpsman, pretending to be a wounded Marine as a means of luring Marines into Japanese kill zones.

Rifle fire proved ineffective against the Japanese positions, which forced the Marines into using flame weapons and grenades to flush the Japanese out of their fighting positions.  Flame tanks were routinely used by the Marines against the Japanese.  At night, the battlefield was illuminated by naval gunfire star clusters and locally employed mortar illumination rounds.  The number of night attacks increased over time, which the Marines repelled with crew-served weapons and on-call artillery.  Hand to hand fighting was a frequent occurrence at night, bloody melees that denied rest to the weary Marines.  Hundreds of Japanese soldiers were slaughtered, but not without taking American Marines with them.   

With the passage of time, of course, Japanese defensive positions weakened.  Kuribayashi realized early on that he would be defeated and most Japanese troops, experiencing shortages of food, water, and ammunition, realized this as well —but there would be no surrender.

On 23 February, four days after the Marine’s initial assault, 40 men from Company E, 2^nd Battalion, 28^th Marines conducted a combat patrol to the summit of Mount Suribachi.  Their mission was to destroy enemy opposition and secure the summit.  To signal their mission’s success, First Lieutenant Harold G. Schrier [10], the patrol leader, was instructed to raise an American flag from atop Mount Suribachi.  The men who participated in this “first” raising of the American flag over Mount Suribachi were Lieutenant Schrier, Sergeant Henry Hansen, Platoon Sergeant Ernest Thomas, Corporal Charles Lindberg, PFC Raymond Jacobs (radioman), PFC Jim Michels, PFC Harold Schultz, Private Phil Ward, and US Navy Corpsman, Pharmacist Mate Second class John H. Bradley.  The flag raising was captured on film by Staff Sergeant Louis R. Lowery [11].  Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal had just come ashore when this first flag was raised and he said he wanted the flag as a souvenir.  The 2/28 commander, Lieutenant Colonel Chandler Johnson, however, flatly refused, stating that the flag belonged to his battalion (which the Marines had stolen from the USS Missoula (APA-211)).

Admittedly, the flag was hard to see from the beach, so Colonel Johnson dispatched a second patrol to the top of Mount Suribachi with a larger flag donated by the Commanding Officer of USS Duval County, (LST 758).  The second group of Marines, who were also assigned the mission of laying communications wire to connect the observation posts, were Sergeant Michael Strank, Corporal Harlon Block, PFC Franklin R. Sousley, PFC Harold Schultz, PFC Ira Hayes, and PFC Rene Gagnon [12].  When the Strank patrol reached the top, Lieutenant Schrier supervised the second raising, which was photographed by Joe Rosenthal and Sergeant Bill Genaust —the only photograph to win a Pulitzer Prize for photography in the same year it was published.  The Iwo Jima flag raising is one of the most recognizable images of World War II.  Rosenthal’s photograph was later used by Felix de Weldon in the sculpting of the Marine Corps War Memorial located adjacent to the Arlington National Cemetery.

While the 28^th Marines remained engaged with Japanese forces on the slopes of Mount Suribachi, battalions from the 23^rd, 24^th, and 25^th Marines of the 4thMarDiv, and the 26^th and 27^th Marines from the 5thMarDiv maneuvered toward the seizure of Airfield One.  The 5thMarDiv made spectacular gains of up to a thousand yards during this push, but the 23^rd Marines, posted to the left of the 4thMarDiv, was unable to keep pace.  Stiff enemy resistance came from Japanese defenses along the East coast, all of whom were well-situated within impassable terrain.  The 23^rd regiment’s deepest gain into this heavily contested zone was only around 200 yards.

To help overcome stiff enemy resistance, the 3rdMarDiv was ordered to send its 21^st Marine Regiment ashore to reinforce the 4thMarDiv on 21 February.  The hope of replacing the beleaguered 23^rd Marines with the 21^st Marines was dashed because the terrain was so thick and impassable that the Marine advance was reduced to mere inches, rather than yards.  The 21^st Marines was ordered to move forward after the hours of darkness —a difficult maneuver under any circumstances.  The two front-line regiments of each division were relieved on the morning of 22 February.  Heavy rain, enemy fire, and difficult terrain hampered relief operations.  General Rocky, commanding the 5thMarDiv, ordered the 26^th Marines to relive the 27^th.  All the while, the Japanese were paying close attention to the activities of the American Marines.  Hostile fire and ill-defined regimental boundaries made the move difficult but it was ultimately successful.  Replacing the 23^rd Marines with the 21^st Marines was equally difficult.  Six hours after the commencement of relief operations, the 23^rd Marines were still engaged in heavy combat.

From 23 February, Mount Suribachi was effectively cut off (above ground) from the rest of the island.  By this time, the Marines realized that the Japanese defenders were operating from an extensive subterranean network.  Despite its isolation above ground, Suribachi was still connected to the main defense on the northern end of the island.  The terrain in the northern sector was rocky and favored a strong defense.  Kuribayashi’s defensive positions were difficult to hit with naval artillery.  In the northern area, Kuribayashi commanded the equivalent of eight infantry battalions, a tank regiment, two artillery battalions, and three heavy mortar battalions.  Japanese infantry was augmented by an additional 5,000 naval infantry and gunners.

On the morning of 24 February, the Navy delivered a 76-minute bombardment, joined by Marine artillery and carrier air strikes.  At 0915, 5thMarDiv tanks crossed into the enemy’s forward defenses along the western portion of the airfield.  Simultaneously, 4thMarDiv tanks pushed forward to the eastern edge of the field.  Mines and fire from Japanese antiaircraft guns halted the 4thMarDiv advance.  5thMarDiv units reached the airfield and began blasting entrenched Japanese in the hills to the North.  It was a bitter fight, but at the end of the day, 5thMarDiv units had advanced 500 yards. 

For one full week, the 4thMarDiv was ground to a bloody pulp in what became known to the Marines as the “meat grinder” —a system of fortified ridges including Hill 382 and Hill 362A.  The meat grinder was a defensive system lying roughly halfway up the island, east of Airfield Two.  Here, the Marines were literally torn apart by Japanese positions on Hill 382, the highest ground, a bald hill known as the Turkey Knob, and a rocky bowl the Marines dubbed “the amphitheater.”  Situated within this complex was the main Japanese communications system that included a vast network of caves and tunnels.  It was from this point on the island that the Japanese had kept the Marines under close observation since D-day.

The approach to the meat grinder provided no cover or concealment.  Whatever vegetation had existed was stripped away by naval gunfire and laid bare a maze of rocks and brush and crossing defiles that led to the sea.  All approaches were covered by buried enemy tanks that exposed no more than their turrets and gun barrels.  Behind the tanks were systems of interlocking machine guns and light artillery.  Japanese anti-aircraft guns were depressed to fire point blank into the advancing Marines.  These three high points were mutually supporting; they could defend themselves, or one another.  It was not possible to seize the meat grinder one objective at a time —only by attacking all three points simultaneously.

General Erskine’s 3rdMarDiv (less the 3^rd Marines) entered the fight on 25 February.  By this time, of course, the 21^st Marines were already committed.  Erskine was ordered to advance along the relatively flat (although pockmarked sandstone) portion of the northern plateau.  Once these Marines had gained control of the tableland, they were in a position to attack down the many ridge lines leading to the sea.  The 9^th Marines passed through the 21^st Marines on 25 February.  The 3rdMarDiv attack began at 0930.  Its gains were slight, losses heavy.  The 9^th Marines had come up against Kuribayashi’s main defense line.  General Schmidt gave the 3rdMarDiv fifty-percent of the corps’ artillery.  Flame tanks were moved up to incinerate the entrenched enemy.  After three days of horrific combat, the Japanese line finally cracked.  By the evening of 27 February, the 9^th Marines controlled the twin hills north of Airfield Two.

During the afternoon of 28 February, the 21^st Marines overran the ruins of Motoyama Village and seized the hills that dominated Airfield Three.  The 4thMarDiv was still struggling to seize Hill 382.  To the left, the 5thMarDiv was making every effort to seize Hill 362A.  The terrain features were the strongest links in the chain of Kuribayashi’s defenses.  Responsibility for seizing Hill 362A fell to the 28^th Marines.  Several platoons from the 27^th Marines had managed to reach the crest of the heavily fortified hill, but had to pull back in order to maintain contact with the rest of the regiment.  Augmented and reinforced by 3/26, the 28^th Marines planned on renewing their assault on the morning of 1 March.

Deadly artillery and mortar fire greeted the Marines as they moved forward, but before the sun set, the crest of 362A was in American hands.  It was a costly advance: 224 Marines had been killed or wounded.  The next day, the entire hill was overrun and the neighboring Nishi Ridge was also captured.

By this time, Marines had been slogging it out in the meat grinder for four excruciating days.  On 3 March, the main effort was directed at Hill 382, but even with naval artillery and air strikes, progress was slow.  The Japanese had to be burned, or blasted out of their well concealed positions by rocket launchers, grenades, or flame throwers.  The Marine’s attempt to encircle the Turkey Knob was thwarted and it was only with the assistance of artillery and smoke screens that the Marines were able to disengage before darkness.  The Marine attack was renewed on the following day with 2/24 gaining control of Hill 382, but it was not until 10 March that the Japanese defending the Turkey Knob and the Amphitheater were eliminated.

While Marines reduced Japanese resistance in the meat grinder, the rest of the V Corps moved against the complex within Hill 362.  In the 5thMarDiv zone, Hill 362B was assigned to the 26^th Marines.  The complex was declared secure on 3 March.  On 7 March, the 3rdMarDiv was poised to assault Hill 362C.  No matter how well dug in the Japanese were, the Marines found ways to prevail over them.  As but one example, the Japanese had learned that the Americans always attacked following an artillery barrage.  During these artillery assaults, the Japanese would take their guns inside and their troops would disappear inside their tunnel complex.  At the end of the barrage, the Japanese would reappear and maul the Marines with artillery and rifle/machine gun fire.  General Graves B. Erskine, commanding the 3rdMarDiv, ordered Colonel Kenyon’s 9^th Marines to attack under the cover of darkness with no pre-assault fires.  Movement across Iwo Jima’s terrain at night was slow and tiring, but the enemy was caught by surprise and the attack was successful; the 9^th Marines killed many Japanese while they were asleep, a key moment in the seizure of Hill 362 complex.

The following night, the Japanese organized a counter-attack led by Captain Samaji Inouye and a thousand troops.  Ninety Marines were killed, 257 more were wounded, but the next morning, the Marines discovered 784 dead Japanese.

Undeterred by the loss of Hill 362C, the Japanese continued to resist, but there was a change in Japanese behavior: their efforts were no longer coordinated, which means that their interlocking defenses had broken down.  Combat patrols from the 3rdMarDiv reached the seacoast on 9 March.  By the evening of 10 March, only one organized pocket of resistance remained active within the division sector.  Independent resistance continued, however.  Japanese diehards refused to surrender.

Meanwhile, the Japanese defending against the 4thMarDiv had grown desperate.  Communications had failed and unable to coordinate with supporting units caused some panic among the fanatical defenders.  Rather than depending on their defensive networks, the Japanese began a series of fanatical counter-attacks.  Enemy mortar and artillery fire increased during the evening of 8 March, and then, hugging the scorched earth, the Japanese attempted to worm their way through the lines of the 23^rd and 24^th Marines.  It was a failed attempt and by noon the following day, more than 650 Japanese had been killed by Marine defensive fires.  The failure of the Japanese to counter-attack Marine positions led to the dissolution of the enemy’s overall defense.  By 10 March, the 4thMarDiv had destroyed the Turkey Knob and Amphitheater salient and pushed combat patrols all the way to the seacoast.

We cannot say that organized resistance ceased, but henceforth, Japanese defenses took the form of independent pockets of resistance.  The 3rdMarDiv was forced to reduce a heavily fortified enemy pockets near Hill 362C, and the 4thMarDiv opposed a stubborn enemy halfway between the East Boat Basin and the Tachiiwa Point, and the 5thMarDiv would aggress Japanese troops around Kitano Point.

On 10-11 March, the 3rdMarDiv conducted a sweep of its sector along the coastline.  Most of the division concentrated on overwhelming enemy resistance southwest of Hill 362C.  The use of flame weapons and 75 mm howitzers was required to destroy these defenses.  The last vestige of Japanese resistance was crushed on 16 March.

The 5thMarDiv faced Kuribayashi’s stronghold, a gorge extending seven-hundred yards in length from the northwestern end of the island.  Marines destroyed the Japanese command post on 21 March and within a few days, managed to seal off (through the use of explosives) remaining caves and tunnels on the northern tip of the island.   On 25 March, a 300-man Japanese company attacked allied positions in the vicinity of Airfield Two.  US Army pilots, Seabees, and Marines battled the attackers for well over 90 minutes.  The American casualties included 53 killed, 120 wounded [13].

Iwo Jima was declared “secured” on two occasions, each one of these a bit premature: at 18:00 hours on 16 March, and at 09:00 hours on 26 March.  But after the main battle, the US 147^th Infantry Regiment continued to battle thousands of Japanese holdouts who had resorted to guerrilla tactics.  Using well-stocked tunnels and caves, Japanese defenders continued to resist American advances for over three months.  During this time, the 147^th slogged back and forth across the island using flame weapons, grenades, and satchel charges to dig out or seal up the enemy.  In the aftermath of the battle, an additional 1,602 Japanese were killed in small unit actions.  The last Japanese holdouts were Yamakage Kufuku and Matsudo Linsoki, who finally surrendered on 6 January 1949 [14].

During the Battle of Iwo Jima, US forces suffered 26,000 casualties.  Of these, 6,800 were killed in action.  Nearly 20,000 Japanese defenders gave up their lives on Iwo Jima; only 216 Japanese were taken as prisoners of war.  The Battle of Iwo Jima remained contentious for a number of years.  In the first place, senior Marine Corps officers were not consulted in the planning for this operation.  Secondly, the justification for Iwo Jima’s strategic importance as a landing and refueling site for long-range fighter escorts of B-29 bombers was both impractical and unnecessary.  Only ten such missions were ever flown from Iwo Jima.  Last, in the view of retired Chief of Naval Operations Admiral William V. Pratt, the “expenditure of manpower to acquire a small, god-forsaken island, useless to the Army as a staging base, and useless to the Navy as a fleet base … one wonders if the same sort of airbase could not have been reached by acquiring other strategic localities at a lower cost.”

There were important lessons learned from Iwo Jima, not the least of which was that the US Navy needed to increase pre-landing bombardments —a lesson that was incorporated into the Battle for Okinawa in April 1945.  Military planners also realized that a subsequent invasion of the Japanese home islands would be extraordinarily costly to allied forces.  This realization may have provided the justification for the United States’ use of atomic weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Captain Robert Burrell, an instructor at the United States Naval Academy observed, “This justification [for the Battle of Iwo Jima] became prominent only after the Marines seized the island and incurred high casualties. The tragic cost of Operation Detachment pressured veterans, journalists, and commanders to fixate on the most visible rationalization for the battle. The sight of the enormous, costly, and technologically sophisticated B-29 landing on the island’s small airfield most clearly linked Iwo Jima to the strategic bombing campaign.  As the myths about the flag raising on Mount Suribachi reached legendary proportions, so did the emergency landing theory in order to justify the need to raise that flag.”

Twenty-seven medals of honor were awarded to Marine and Navy participants of the Battle of Iwo Jima —14 of those were posthumous awards.  The number of medals of honor awarded to Marines in this one battle constituted 28% of the total of such awards to Marines during World War II.  Chief Warrant Officer-4 Hershel W. Williams is the last living recipient of the Medal of Honor from the Battle of Iwo Jima.  As of this writing, he is 96 years old and  living in Fairmont, West Virginia.

The Battle of Iwo Jima formed the basis for a national reverence United States Marines that not only embodies the American spirit, but in the opinion of then Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, will guarantee the existence of the Marine Corps for another five-hundred years.  We shall see if the American people have a memory that will last that long.

Semper Fidelis …

Sources:

1. Bradley, J.  Flyboys: A True Story of Courage.  Little, Brown, Publishers, 2003
2. Bradley, J. With Ron Powers.  Flags of Our Fathers.  New York: Bantam Publishing, 2001
3. Buell, H.  Uncommon Valor, Common Virtue: Iwo Jima and the Photograph that Captured America.  New York: Penguin, 2006
4. Hammel, E.  Iwo Jima: Portrait of a Battle: United States Marines at War in the Pacific.  St. Paul: Zenith Press, 2006.
5. Leckie, R.  The Battle for Iwo Jima.  New York: iBooks, 2006/1967.
6. Wells, J. K.  Give me Fifty Marines Not Afraid to Die: Iwo Jima.  Abilene: Quality Publications, 1995.

Endnotes:

1. A Japanese army was approximately equal in size and equipment to an American corps.
2. “Father Island,” also known as Peel Island, is the largest island in the Ogasawara archipelago, laying 150 miles north of Iwo Jima.  A small Japanese naval base was established on Chichi Jima in 1914.  It was the primary site of long-range Japanese radio stations and a central supply depot.  From around December 1941, approximately 4,000 Japanese troops and 1,200 naval forces garrisoned the island.  Chichi Jima was a frequent target of allied air attacks.  Lieutenant George H. W. Bush, USN was shot down during one of these air attacks.  It was from Chichi Jima that the Japanese began to reinforce the volcano island of Iwo Jima.
3. A group of three volcanic islands south of the Ogasawara archipelago, which the Japanese named Kita Iwo Jima, Iwo Jima, and Minami Iwo Jima.  A Japanese self-defense force base exists today on Iwo Jima consisting of about 380 troops.  It is the only human settlement remaining in the Volcano Islands.
4. After the battle, Americans discovered that hundreds of tons of allied bombs and thousands of rounds of heavy naval artillery had almost no effect on the Japanese defenders on Iwo Jima.  The battle would last from 17 February until 26 March 1945.
5. Kuribayashi was a Japanese intellectual who was trained as a cavalry officer.  In 1928, he served for two years as a military attache in Washington D.C., which enabled him to travel extensively in the United States and conducting research on American military and industrial capabilities.  For a short time, he studied at Harvard University.  A pragmatist, Kuribayashi often reminded his family that the United States was the last country Japan should ever fight.  Nevertheless, he had a job to do —and he did it.  American casualties on Iwo Jima were massive.
6. Admiral Blandy was concerned that he would run out of ammunition, thereby reducing his ability to provide naval gunfire support to the Marines after the amphibious assault.  It was a legitimate concern
7. After the battle, Lieutenant General Holland M. (“Howling Mad”) Smith, Commander, Expeditionary Force (Task Force 56) criticized Blandy for his lack of preparatory naval gunfire, charging him with costing the lives of Marines during the battle.  Given what we know today about Kuribayashi’s defenses, Smith’s claim was spurious.
8. Gun barrels have a shelf life.  There is a limit to the number of rounds that can be fired before having to change these rifled barrels and it is a major undertaking.  If the barrels are not changed according to “service life” guidelines, bad things begin to happen, such as a reduction in accuracy and distance.  The more these barrels wear, the quicker the rate of wear, and the more erratic the ballistics.  Ideally, each ship capable of naval artillery had an adequate store of replacement barrels, but the extent of the availability of these replacement parts to Blandy’s force is unknown to me.
9. Seventeen US sailors of the Pensacola were killed; seven more lost their lives on the Leutze.
10. Harold G. Schrier (1916-1971) enlisted in the Marines in 1936.  He served with the China Marines in Beijing, Tientsin, and Shanghai before serving as a Marine Corps drill instructor at the MCRD San Diego, California.  In 1942, Schrier served with the Second Raider Battalion as a Platoon Sergeant, serving at Midway Island and on Guadalcanal.  He was field commissioned to Second Lieutenant in 1943 and served on Vangunu Island and Bougainville.  He was assigned as the Executive Officer of E/2/28 during the Battle of Iwo Jima and later assigned to command Delta Company 2/28.  During the Korean War, Schrier served with the 1^st Provisional Marine Brigade at the Pusan Perimeter where he was wounded while commanding Company I, 3/5.  During Schrier’s combat service, he was awarded the Navy Cross, Silver Star, Legion of Merit (with valor device), Bronze Star (with valor device), and Purple Heart.  He retired as a lieutenant colonel in 1957.  He passed away at the age of 54 in Bradenton, Florida.
11. This photograph was not released to the press until 1947.
12. Hansen, Strank, Block, and Sousley were killed in action a few days later.
13. Some have speculated that, owing to the nature of the Japanese assault, Kuribayashi himself may have led this assault, but there is no evidence of this and General Kuribayashi’s body was never recovered.
14. Pacific Stars and Stripes, page 5, reported on 10 January 1949.