November 20, 2023 - Playing a Bob Wills song to open a program on the Battle of Iwo Jima might seem strange, but that is what Jim Ross did at the monthly meeting of the Timpson Area Genealogical and Heritage Society last Wednesday. Released in May of 1945, just two months after the battle had ended, “Stars and Stripes on Iwo Jima” contains the lyrics “When the Yanks raised The Stars and Stripes on Iwo Jima Isle, Thru' the blood and tears they won thru', Bless the heart of each Yankee, There on Iwo Jima Isle”. The song went to the top of the country charts, reflecting the depth of feeling Americans had for the accomplishment and the sacrifices made by U.S. soldiers, symbolized by the photograph of the flag being raised atop Mount Suribachi.
“My interest in the Battle of Iwo Jima was sparked by my discovery after the death of my uncle, Virgil Pittman, that he had fought on Iwo Jima. Having quit high school in Oklahoma in 1943 to join the Marines, he was among the soldiers who landed in the first wave of the assault on Feb. 19, 1945. He was wounded three days later and spent the next two months in the hospital. When he was discharged from the Marines, he went home to Oklahoma where he lived for the rest of his life. On Veteran's Day 2003 he was awarded his high school diploma and he died at the age of 86 in 2012. Neither he nor our family ever spoke of the fact that he had fought on Iwo Jima”, Ross shared.
“Iwo Jima is a volcanic island located in the Pacific Ocean, about 750 miles southeast of Tokyo”, Ross continued. The volcano is dormant but the sulfurous fumes rising from it is what gives the island its name. 'Iwo' is Japanese for 'sulfur' and 'Jima' is 'island'. It has an area of only 11.5 square miles, which would allow it to fit inside the City Limits of Center. It's most notable geographic feature is 554 foot Mount Suribachi, which is located on the southern tip of the island. There is no natural source of fresh water on the island and no native animal life. There is little vegetation. Everything has to be imported. The temperature on the surface is about 100 degrees. Prior to the battle, few Japanese or Americans had ever heard of it.”
“Before the war, the island had had about 1200 inhabitants, who survived mostly by mining sulfur and fishing. Japan had claimed the island but it's inhabitants were not
Japanese and the people had no loyalty to the Japanese, so before the battle the Japanese moved them all off of the island for fear that the Americans would capture some and gather valuable information about the Japanese positions from them,” Ross explained. “General Kuribayashi, the commander of the Japanese forces on Iwo Jima, had had more than a year to prepare for the American assault. Using Chinese and Korean slave labor, the Japanese had built a landing strip on the island and had two more under construction. They had also dug eleven miles of caves and tunnels in Mount Suribachi which allowed the Japanese to fire from cover. Incredibly, many of the Marines who fought on Iwo Jima never saw a Japanese soldier. Realizing that the American forces always sought to gain control of the higher elevation and fight from there, Gen. Kuribayashi built his headquarters underground on the opposite end of the island, hidden from the Americans. Before the invasion, the island was subjected to 74 days of bombing and artillery assault, but after the battle it was discovered that this bombardment had had virtually no effect on the Japanese positions”.
“There were about 20,000 Japanese troops under Gen. Kuribayashi at the time of the battle, and he had told them that they could not win the battle but they would not surrender. They would all die there. Their goal was to hold the island as long as possible, inflicting as many casualties on the Americans as they could. Each Japanese soldier was ordered to kill at least ten American soldiers before he died. Japanese snipers fired on the Marines attempting to retrieve a fallen comrade from the battlefield Japanese helmets and weapons left on the battlefield were frequently booby-trapped. As the battle progressed, the Japanese were running out of food, water, and ammunition,” Ross continued. “Many of them had diarrhea, and others had dysentery, which is fatal. When a Japanese soldier was killed, there was no way to bury him or remove his body from the fortifications. Ventilation was poor and the heat inside was terrible”.
“The Marines began coming ashore on the morning of February 19, 1945 for what they had been told was to be an operation lasting a few days. No sooner did they hit the beach than they realized that they were well-equipped, but poorly prepared. Rather than sand, they discovered black sharp volcanic gravel, into which they and their equipment sank. Unable to make the expected forward progress, Marines soon found themselves crowded shoulder to shoulder on the beach as waves of Marines continued to come in behind them. Additionally, they had been equipped for a tropical environment, the exact opposite of barren Iwo Jima. Also, their long, heavy M-1 rifles were poorly suited to the close quarter fighting they would encounter once they began entering the caves and tunnels,” Ross revealed. “The Japanese held their fire until about 10 AM when the beach was crowded with Americans”.
Among the Marines landing on Iwo Jima was twenty-seven year old Sgt. John Vasilone who had previously won a Medal of Honor at Guadalcanal”, Ross continued. Though he had been offered an officer's commission and a non-combatant job back in the states, Vasilone refused, saying he wanted be back with 'his boys'. Given the fact that most of the Marines there were in their late teens, Vasilone was one of the oldest and highly respected by the other troops. Realizing the urgency of getting his men off the beach, Vasilone searched for and found a route that gave the men enough footing to advance. It was reported that he frequently was the only Marine standing as he led his troops inland. He was killed about 11 AM”. After the war, the Hollywood movie 'Sands of Iwo Jima' starring John Wayne as John Vasilone was released”.
“Since the Japanese soldiers were dug into the volcanic rock of the island, the only way to defeat them was to go in after them”, Ross continued. The flame-thrower was a particularly effective weapon against these positions. Once the opening to a Japanese position was discovered, the soldier with the flame-thrower stuck the nozzle of his weapon into the hole and fired a blast of burning napalm-like substance into it. After the battle, it was learned than although many Japanese died from the flames, many more died of suffocation because the fire depleted the oxygen in the poorly ventilated tunnels. The Americans also used trained killer dogs to clear the tunnels. The dog was sent into the tunnel and attacked the first person it encountered. They were no expected to emerge from the tunnel alive. Eventually, though, American soldiers had to enter the tunnels”.
“The battle raged on for days and then weeks and weeks. American casualties continued to mount. Unable to store the large number of bodies, the Navy began performing burials at sea. Eventually, the Seabees were able to construct a cemetery to allow the burial of fallen Marines. There were more Seabees killed on Iwo Jima than in any other battle in WWII. The island, which already smelled of sulfur soon began to reek of the odor of death as well,” Ross revealed. “In the early days of the battle, many more Americans died than Japanese. The death of “Manilla John” Vasilone had hit the young Marines hard, as many wondered what chance of survival they had if John Vasilone did not. At night the Japanese, who were much more familiar with the terrain, would slip out of their positions and silently attack sleeping soldiers with knives and bayonets. What was to have been an operation of a few days obviously was going to last much longer. Morale began to decline,” Ross revealed. “On the fifth day of the battle, the Navy, who had been in command of the operation, decided to have soldiers plant an American flag atop Mount Suribachi as encouragement to the troops.
It took a detachment of Marines with a photographer two hours under heavy fire to ascend to the top of Mount Suribachi with a 3 foot by 5-foot American flag. Once they had reached the summit and erected the flag, the photographer began taking photos. During this time, a Japanese hand grenade landed near the photographer and exploded, wounding him and another soldier”, Ross shared. “After the detachment had made their way back down the mountain, the Naval officer who had ordered the flag raised, decided that it was too small and a larger flag should be raised. He ordered a second detachment of Marines to climb back to the summit with a 5 foot by 8-foot flag. It was this group that included Native American Ira Hayes that was captured raising the flag atop Mount Suribachi in what was to become the most famous wartime photograph in history. By the afternoon, three of the six soldiers in the photograph were dead”.
“The American command declared victory on Iwo Jima on March 26, 1945, although there were still many Japanese soldiers left in the tunnels. They were out of supplies and no longer a significant threat. They sneaked out at night and went through the garbage looking for food. The last few were captured in 1949. In 1968 Iwo Jima was returned to the Japanese, who now maintain it as a tomb of their war dead since about 10,000 fallen Japanese soldiers' bodies were never recovered from the tunnels of Mount Suribachi”, Ross concluded.
TAGHS meets at 2PM on the third Wednesday of each month in the meeting room of the Timpson Public Library, located on the corner of Austin and Bremond Streets. The public is always welcome.
