On the morning of the 19^th of February, three marine divisions were landed on the Japanese fortress of Iwo Jima. The Japanese made no move to contest the beaches, knowing a counterattack would be shot to pieces, and held their heavily fortified positions, waiting until the beaches were crowded with marines and shipping, then opening up with heavy artillery, machine guns and mortars. The casualties and carnage among the marines were terrible, but they nevertheless knocked what beach fortifications they could, though they could do little about long range artillery and mortar fire, and yard, by yard, advanced inland. On the right of the marine line, Mount Suribachi, a 556-foot extinct volcano towering over the southern portion of Iwo Jima was cut off that first day, from the rest of the Japanese defenses, though from Mount Suribachi itself, the Japanese still maintained an excellent observation post from which to direct large caliber artillery and mortar fire down on the hapless marines.

The morning of D+1, the day after D-day, was a cold and miserable one for the marines ashore, dampened by a light rain. Morning light revealed an awful spectacle. War Correspondent Robert Sherrod recorded:

 “Whether the dead were American or Japanese, they had died with the greatest possible violence. Nowhere in the Pacific War, had I seen such badly mangled bodies. Many were cut nearly in half. Legs and arms lay 50 feet from any body. In one spot on the s and, far from the cluster of dead, I saw a string of guts 15 feet long. Only legs were easy to identify; they were Japanese if wrapped in khaki puttees, American if covered by canvas leggings. The smell of burning flesh was heavy…”[1]

The destruction was just as great among the materiel. One observer wrote:

The wreckage was indescribable. For two miles, the debris was so thick that there were only a few places where landing craft could still get in. The wrecked hulls of scores of landing boats testified to the price we had to pay to put our troops ashore. Tanks and half tracks lay crippled where they had bogged down in the coarse sand. Amphibian tractors, victims of mines and well-aimed shells, lay flopped on their backs. Cranes, brought ashore, to unload cargo, tilted at insane angles, and bulldozers were smashed in their own roadways.[2]

While the other regiments forged ahead to capture the airfields and secure the rest of the island, the 28^th was given the task of securing Mount Suribachi, dubbed “Hotrocks” by the marines. Dawn brought an air attack against Mount Suribachi as carrier planes pounded the volcano with rockets, napalm and bombs, followed by naval bombardment from ships offshore. Command of the 28^th regiment belonged to Colonel Harry Liversedge, dubbed “Harry the horse” Liversedge, by his men. Liversedge’s attack got off late, at 8:40 am, and were further slowed by the Japanese and the strength of their positions.

General Kuribayashi, the Japanese commander on Iwo Jima, had designed Mt. Suribachi as a semi-autonomous defensive position. The mountain was garrisoned by 2,000 soldiers and navy personnel under the command of Colonel Kanehiko Atsuchi. The mountain was honeycombed with tunnels, gun positions, machine gun nests, etc., and ringing the base of the mountain were a series of mutually supporting pillboxes and bunkers, close enough to render each other support and provide interlocking fields of fire.  Capturing Mt. Suribachi would be no easy task. Kuribayashi intended the garrison to hold out, surrounded and cut off, for at least ten days and possibly a week. The 28^th regiment’s advance was met by a hail of artillery, mortar and small arms fire; though many of the really heavy artillery pieces had been knocked out of action by the air strikes and naval bombardment, enough guns of smaller caliber remained to give the Marines a hard time. During the morning, therefore, the marines advanced only 50 to 70 yards in the face of the this determined Japanese resistance. Liversedge called for tank support, but though eight tanks were available, there was no fuel or ammunition for them. But their resourceful crews managed to salvage enough from disabled tanks to commit their vehicles. The Japanese took the tanks under heavy mortar fire, forcing them to move from one place to the other, to avoid damage. Beset by these difficulties, the marines of the 28^th therefore advanced only 50 to 70 yards that morning.[3] Even that much progress was due in large measure to the efforts of naval ships offshore providing fire support, and air attacks on the mountain’s defenses. During the afternoon, more progress was made. The tanks were finally able to support the advance, as were halftrack mounted 75- and 37-millimeter weapons of the regiment’s weapons company.

37 millimeter marine anti tank gun in use against Mount Suribachi cave positions

The official marine history records:

In the face of bitter enemy resistance, only split-second teamwork by every unit could gain any ground. The procedure employed was for infantry and tanks to take each pillbox under fire, while a flamethrower team worked up to one of the entrances. After several bursts of flame had been squirted at the fortification, the remainder of the assault squad closed in to finish the job with grenades. Once the occupants had been eliminated, engineers and demolition teams blasted the positions to ensure that they would not be preoccupied by the Japanese after nightfall. Whenever the rugged terrain permitted, flamethrowing tanks were employed against the pillboxes.[4]

Marine flamethrower in operation against Japanese defenses at base of Mt. Suribachi

Using such methods, the marines managed to advance a further 200 yards that afternoon; “in the course of the afternoon, they had closed off nearly forty caves with demolitions.”[5]

The next day, the advance resumed. The fighting was a mere repetition of the experience of the previous two days, although Lieutenant Colonel Charles E. Shephard’s 3^rd Battalion, advancing along the western shore of Iwo Jima, killed some 73 of the enemy. From his observation posts, Colonel Atsuchi could readily observe the slow but steady progress of the marines. Casualties mounting, Atsuchi knew that that the fall of Mt. Suribachi was merely a matter of time. Preferring to die in a glorious banzai charge rather than like rats in a hole, he dispatched a message to General Kuribayashi over the telephone wire, stating “Enemy’s bombardments from air and sea and their assaults with explosions are very fierce and if we have to stay and defend our present positions it will lead us to self-destruction. We should rather like to go out of our position and choose death by banzai charges.”[6] But Kuribayashi was having nothing of banzai charges. Replying to Atsuchi, he posed a question: why was Atsuchi wanting to throw in the towel after only three days since the invasion? It was a veiled rebuke, implicitly implying a lack of courage on Atsuchi’s part. But there would be no more stinging rebukes from Kuribayashi’s headquarters, because the marine engineers shortly found the buried cable running from Mount Suribachi back to Japanese headquarters and naturally severed it. As for Atsuchi himself, he was mortally wounded when a 75-millimeter tank round burst inside his cave entrance after he foolishly stuck his head out to get a look around. The night of D+1 found the Japanese gun positions on Mount Suribachi once more shelling the beaches, as American guns, both afloat and ashore, answered back. Tired marine eyes scanned the darkness for signs of an enemy counterattack that once again did not materialize.[7]

February 21, D+2, was another repetition of the activities of the previous day. An air strike of 40 aircraft preceded the ground attack with bombs and rockets. It was the closest air support thus far provided, and it would be last for the 28^th regiment in their assault upon Suribachi. They had moved so close to the mountain by now, that the Japanese positions blasted from the air were no more than 100 yards forward of the Marines. For the safety of the marines, therefore, no more air strikes could be delivered. At 8:25 am, Liversedge launched his attack, with the 3^rd Battalion in the center, the 2^nd Battalion on the right, and the 1rst Battalion on the left. Tank support was slow in getting to the scene, but when it did arrive, the 1rst Battalion supported by armor, half-tracks, and rocket vehicles, reached the western base of Mt. Suribachi. The Japanese were particularly galled by the rocket blasts, and concentrated their return fire against the rocket launching trucks.[8] In the center, the 1rst Battalion found the going tough, but the marines were tougher, and their attack gained momentum, even repulsing an enemy counterattack on their front. By 2:00 pm, they had reached the foot of Mount Suribachi. The 2^nd Battalion, advancing on the eastern shore encountered little resistance at first, but soon were taken under fire by enemy riflemen, followed by machine gunners, and marines began to fall. Then the Japanese opened up with their heavy mortars, and more marines fell. One marine described the Japanese fire:

“It was terrible, the worst I can remember us taking. The Jap mortarmen appeared to be playing checkers, and using us as their squares. I still can’t understand how any of us got through it.”

Enough marines did get through to continue the advance, though as one marine confessed, “there wasn’t a man among us who didn’t wish to God he was moving in the opposite direction.” Private First-Class Donald J. Ruhl of the 2^nd Battalion, 28^th Marines earned himself a medal of honor in this action for selflessly jumping atop a hand grenade that fell next to his platoon sergeant, Henry O. Hansen, saving the latter’s life. By the evening of February 21rst, the 28^th Marines occupied a line which formed a semicircle around Mount Suribachi, the 1rst Battalion on the western shore, halfway around the mountain, the 2^nd Battalion on the eastern shore, again halfway around the mountain, and the 3^rd Battalion facing the extinct volcano in the semicircle’s center. The progress that was made that day was due in large part to the tank support the regiment received. Of the seven tanks, three were put out of action, one due to enemy fire, another due to an anti-tank mine, and a third busted its tracks. A cold rain fell that evening, chilling the marines. Adding to their discomfort was the stench of death and fire.

Behind them, and all around them were the remnants of the main defenses guarding the volcano. Some of the pillboxes and bunkers had been crushed like matchboxes by naval gunfire; others had been seared black by napalm flames. The entire area was pervaded by the smell of death and burned flesh, where flamethrowers had done their deadly work. The expenditure of flamethrower fuel had reached such proportions that a temporary shortage developed – overcome only when versatile Weasels carried additional supplies to the front lines.[9]

As dusk settled over the island, the marines surrounding Mt. Suribachi could clearly make out Japanese chatter coming from inside the extinct volcano. Trying out a crude, but effective method of rooting out Japanese, the marines poured gasoline through fissures in the rocks, and then set it aflame. Through such a method, they succeeded in killing a large number of the enemy. That evening, inside the volcano, a dying Colonel Atsuchi ordered a squad of men to break through the American lines to reach General Kuribayashi’s headquarters and inform him that the Mt. Suribachi defensive sector had fallen.

Atsuchi may have been just a bit premature. Mt. Suribachi was not yet in American hands, but it was falling fast. So was the rain on on D+3, February 22^nd, much to the disgust of the marines. The cold rain turned the volcanic ash to slush, which clogged their weapons, so that they could only fire single rounds. But despite this, Liversedge, undaunted, resumed the advance of his regiment. No air support was available, and no artillery support either. There was tank support, however, but it was severely impeded by the rain. The task of rooting out the Japanese from their dug-outs, caves, and pillboxes, thus fell to the cold, wet, marines. The Japanese resisted with heavy mortar and small arms fire, as the marine infantrymen had to blast and burn their way forward with small arms, flame-throwers, demolition charges, and hand grenades. By nightfall, not only was Mt. Suribachi cut off, but it was completely encircled, and the marines had begun to scale the rock face. Its fall was imminent, but Liversedge declined to carry the crest that night, waiting for morning to do so.

Some 300 Japanese still remained in the extinct volcano, holed up in caves and other places. A vigorous discussion now took place among them as to whether they follow Kuribayashi’s orders and stay in the volcano to die at their posts, extracting as many American lives as possible in the process, or to escape to join up with the rest of Kuribayashi’s army and live to fight another day. The decision came down 50/50. About half the Japanese crawled off into the darkness and tried to make their way north through the American lines, while the other half remained inside Mt. Suribachi. Of the half that escaped, most fell to the accurate fire from the marines, by now alert to the Japanese tactic of night infiltration, but about 20 men succeeded in breaking through the marine lines to reach Japanese headquarters.[10]

They were led by a navy lieutenant. In blood stained unforms, they arrived at the headquarters not of Kuribayashi, but of Captain Samaji Inouye, second in command to Admiral Ichimaru, the top Japanese navy commander on Iwo Jima. Seeing the lieutenant, Inouye became furious. “Why did you come here?” He shouted in anger, cursing the lieutenant. “Wasn’t your assignment to hold that fortress at any cost? Shame of you to come here. Shame, shame, shame! Don’t you know what shame is? I tell you that you are a coward and a deserter.” Inouye’s aides tried to calm the furious officer, but Inouye grew angrier. Howling more profanity, he cried, “Under military regulations, a deserter is executed summarily. I shall condescend to behead you.” And with that, Inouye drew his samurai sword and raised it to strike off the hapless lieutenant’s head, who meekly knelt to receive the blow. But before he could make it, Inouye’s junior officers tore Inouye’s sword from his hand. “Ugh!” Inouye mumbled, bursting into tears, “Suribachi’s fallen! Suribachi’s fallen!” The wounded lieutenant, having narrowly escaped beheading, was taken to sick bay for first aid treatment.

On February 23^rd, Liversedge’s marines finally scaled Mount Suribachi. The steep slopes of the extinct volcano ruled out scaling it from any direction other than up the north face. This was in the 2^nd Battalion’s zone, so Lieutenant Colonel Johnson ordered a small reconnaissance patrol to climb up to the Mt. Suribachi and have a look. At 8:00 am, therefore, Sergeant Sherman B. Watson of Company F, 2^nd Battalion, 28^th Marines, led a four man patrol up the volcano. There was no enemy resistance as they made, they way up to the top, and they were encumbered only by the steepness of the ascent. With Watson’s report in hand, Johnson assigned a larger combat patrol to ascend the mountain and plant the American flag upon the crest. A platoon of Company E was given the task, and it was led by the company’s executive officer, 1rst Lieutenant Harold G. Schrier. The 40-man patrol made their way up the volcano, carrying the stars and stripes. This particular banner measured 54 by 28 inches. Mount Suribachi dominated the island, and as the marines climbed, American eyes, both ashore, and offshore, watched as the patrol as it inched ever upward. The climb was the most difficult part of the advance; in some places the ascent was so steep the marines had to climb on their hands and knees. Schrier dispatched flankers to guard the column from surprise attack. But it turned out that these precautions were undertaken in vain, for no enemy resistance developed. The only Japanese encountered were corpses. Schier reached the crest first. At the top, Schrier looked around, observing several cave entrances, and two- or three-gun emplacements, but there was no sign of life. He signaled the rest of the men to come on up. They did, ready for instant action, but there was no sign of life within the volcano. Someone now located a 20-foot length of iron pipe. Lashing the flag to this, they planted it in the soft ground. At 10:20 am, February 23^rd, the stars and stripes waved atop Mount Suribachi. Photographer Louis R. Lowery snapped a picture of the scene. The momentous significance of the American flag waving atop Mt. Suribachi was not lost on American spectators and ships of the invasion fleet blew their horns, and rang their bells in jubilation, as tired marines wept and cheered from below. On the beach, Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal had come ashore with General Smith. Observing the flag waving from the summit of Mt. Suribachi, Forrestal turned to Smith and said, “This means a Marine Corps for the next 500 years.”

Lowery’s picture of the first flag raising on Mount Suribachi

But there were still Japanese remaining inside the crater, and the stars and stripes waving over Mt. Suribachi was an affront they could not bear. As Sergeant Louis Lowery snapped a picture of the flag waving, a Japanese soldier leapt from out of a cave mouth and opened fire on the photographer. But the aim of the Jap soldier was poorer than that of Private First-Class James A. Robeson, just 16 years old, who returned fire with a Browing Automatic Rifle, dropping him with a long burst. Another Japanese soldier, with a samurai sword with a broken blade, came out of the cave next. American soldier Howard Snyder met this man with a pistol, but the 1911 Colt. 45 misfired. Snyder scrambled out of the way, as a rifle volley from several other marines felled the charging Jap. Hand grenades now came hurtling out of cave mouths and landed near Lowery, who was forced to escape, by leaping over the rim of the volcano and sliding 50 feet down the crest before his fall was broken. His camera was destroyed, but his negatives survived to furnish posterity with a picture of that first flag raising. The marines now moved against that troublesome cave from which the two Japanese had come from, squirting flame into it, and then sealing the entrance off with explosives.

Colonel Johnson believed that the flag planted by Schrier’s patrol was too small, and ordered a larger flag raised. So, three hours later, six marines raised a much larger flag, 56 by 96 inches, over the crest of Mount Suribachi.[11] Joe Rosenthal, a photographer of the Associated Press, snapped a picture of this second flag being raised. It would turn out to become the most famous photograph of the Second World War, and certainly the most enduring one of the entire battle.

Mopping up operations continued that afternoon, as engineers and demolition squads continuing to seal off cave and tunnel entrances, burying occupants alive. By the end of the day, the fight for Mount Suribachi had ended, with the volcano in American hands. It had not been an easy victory. The marines suffered 519 casualties over the four day engagement, including 112 killed. The Japanese by contrast lost nearly the entire 2,000 man garrison. 1,231 dead were counted by the Americans, and hundreds more were sealed alive inside their caves and blockhouses to die by suffocation.

But while the sight of the stars and stripes fluttering from Mount Suribachi was a welcoming sight to the marines, the Japanese naturally found the sight anything but welcoming. As the defense sector had been intended to hold for at least ten days, and possibly two weeks, the Japanese were “very discouraged” when the Mt. Suribachi defense sector fell after a fight lasting only three days. “I never thought of losing Mt. Suribachi in only three days,” Major Y. Horie, one of Kuribayashi’s officers, reported, “I was bursted with emotion.”[12] But though the marines of the 28^th regiment had won a significant victory, most of the island still remained in the hands of the enemy, and if the marines thought Suribachi was a tough nut to crack, they hadn’t seen nothing yet. Kuribayashi’s main defensive belts still remained and would have to be pierced. The marines faced a long and hard fight ahead.

[1] Quoted in Samuel Eliot Morison History of United States Naval Operations in World War II (Urbana and Chicago, Illinois: Universitiy of Chicago Press, 2001) [Reprint] p. 47

[2] Colonel Joseph H. Alexander Closing In: Marines In the Seizure of Iwo Jima p.  21

[3] George W. Garand and Truman R. Strobridge Western Pacific Operations History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II (Washington D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971) p. 531

[4] Ibid

[5] Ibid

[6] Major Y. Horie, Explanation of Japanese Defense Plan and Battle of Iwo Jima p. 8

[7] George W. Garand and Truman R. Strobridge Western Pacific Operations History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II (Washington D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971) pp. 533-534

[8] “During the advance it became apparent that the enemy was particularly vulnerable to the heavy explosive blast of the rockets and retaliated by concentrating his fire on the rocket launching trucks which were unprotected by armor-plate. When caught in such a concentration of fire, the crews withdrew to cover and ran up singly to load the rocket platform. When the order to fire was given, one Marine would scamper forward, dive under the truck, then reach his arm around the side to push the firing button. The resulting explosion when the rocket hit the target usually meant that the Marines had one less enemy position to contend with.” (Ibid p. 534)

[9] Ibid p. 536

[10] Ibid p. 539

[11] The six marines from left to right in the famous photograph were: Private First Class Ira H. Hayes; Private First Class Franklin Sousley; Sergeant Michael Strank, Navy Pharmacist’s Mate Second Class John H. Bradley, Private First Class Rene A. Gagnon, and Corporal Harlon H. Block.

[12] Major Y. Horie, Explanation of Japanese Defense Plan and Battle of Iwo Jima p. 8