1st Battalion, 27th Marines – Rendezvous with Destiny on Red-2

Foreward

I began working on this story nearly twenty years ago as part of a monograph about 1st Battalion, 27th Marine Regiment in World War II. 1/27 was one of the assault battalions in the invasion of Iwo Jima.

LtCol John A. Butler – a posthumous Navy Cross recipient – commanded 1/27 during the war. In 2003 his son John reached out to me through my old website, WWII Gyrene. John had amassed a great deal of information about his father’s service, including operational documents, letters, photographs, etcetera.

Over the years, I’ve come back to this story many times, reworking, rewriting, and adding new information. I would like to thank a few people who helped me greatly in my work: John A. Butler Jr., who was five years old when he saw his dad for the last time in 1944, but has never forgotten him; Talbot Rain, author of Remembering Iwo – a Personal Memoir; Chuck Tatum, author of Red Blood, Black Sand – Pacific Apocalypse, and my dear friend Craig Leman, who served on Iwo Jima with 1/27.

This story is humbly dedicated to the Marines and Sailors of Landing Team 1/27, and to their families.

A Day Like no Other

Hours before dawn on 19 February 1945, the troop-carrying convoys of the Joint Amphibious Force arrived off the coast of Iwo Jima. All around the island, ships of every type dropped anchor in the predawn darkness. Sailors went to battle stations and began preparing for the coming assault. Meanwhile, the Marines who would soon hit the beach finished packing their gear. Most of them had slept little in the night, and a ripple of expectancy swept through the ranks.

Marines went to chow on the brightly lit mess decks. Eating the traditional pre-assault meal of steak and eggs, some surely must have quipped, “This is the only time we ever get decent chow.” They chugged down cups of steaming Navy coffee, swiped apples to eat later in the day, and then moved quietly to their debarkation stations. There wasn’t much idle chatter, but some new Marines wondered out loud whether the battle might be a pushover since the Navy and Air Force had been pounding Iwo nonstop for months. The combat veterans, on the other hand, knew what lay ahead.

In the LSTs, the Marines and Sailors of Landing Team 1/27 (1) climbed down the steep ladders to the tank decks. Wearing workmanlike dungaree uniforms with camouflaged helmets, they moved clumsily, struggling to keep their balance in the rolling ships. Everyone found his assigned amphibian tractor (amtrac) and loaded gear and supplies. NCOs and officers called the final roll to account for all hands. Then, like always in the Marine Corps, it was hurry up and wait.

LtCol John A. Butler commanded the landing team. A Naval Academy graduate in the class of 1934, he was a tall, rawboned Marine with good looks and a dark complexion. His southern roots were revealed in his New Orleans accent. A fluent Spanish speaker, Butler had already spent a decade of service moving between duty with the Fifth Marine Regiment and in Naval Intelligence.

Boat team leaders passed out white anti-flash cream to every Marine. Smeared onto faces and hands, the cream was supposed to protect the skin from exploding gasoline drums that intelligence said were planted on the beaches. Pfc Chuck Tatum of Stockton, Calif., served as a machine gunner in Baker Company. He thought the cream made him and his buddies look like ghosts from hell. (2)

With many months to prepare for the American invasion, Japanese troops had dug deep into Iwo’s volcanic soil, constructing a labyrinth of caves, tunnels, and defensive positions. They knew there was little hope for them. Just like the U.S. Marines, Japanese soldiers wanted to live. But they were trapped in a military system that placed no value on their lives. These defenders of Iwo had each vowed to kill ten Americans before laying down his life. Hope forsaken, their country broadcast a final farewell, sung by schoolchildren: The Song for the Defenders of Iwo Jima.

Red-2

Landing Team 1/27 was assigned to go ashore on a nondescript 500-yard strip of beach dubbed “Red-2.” This was the far-right-hand beach in the Fifth Marine Division sector on Iwo’s eastern shore. Red-2 lay about 1,500 yards from the dominating heights of Mount Suribachi. LT 1/27 was to land and attack across the southern runways of Motoyama airfield #1 (Motoyama-1) then pivot and drive to the O-1 line. The team’s other assignment was to tie in with Fourth Marine Division units on the right flank. H-Hour was set for 0900.

With no fringing reef, Iwo Jima’s beaches were exposed to the ocean’s full power. Heavy wave action rocked against the shoreline and swift undercurrents made boat handling difficult under the best circumstances. Close up on the beach, steep terraces from eight to twenty feet in height angled up toward the central plateau. Iwo’s black sand was pulverized volcanic ash, almost like quick sand. It would play hell with men and machines in the coming battle.

H-minus

Before first light, bow doors on the LSTs opened. On signal, each amtrac driver gunned his engine, launching his sixteen-ton tractor out into the ocean. In a precise choreography, the amtracs formed into waves and began circling at staging points. Meanwhile, Marines in follow-on waves climbed down the nets of their transports into pitching boats to make the run-in to the beach. In their turn, the landing boats grouped into waves and began to circle, waiting for their signal to form into assault lines.

Morning dawned bright and cool over Iwo Jima, but the Japanese troops couldn’t see the sun. It was blotted out by heavy smoke and dust. Before dawn, the fire support ships had begun the final stage of the prelanding bombardment. A continuous barrage of shells, bombs and rockets pounded every known Japanese position as the invasion fleet prepared to land the landing force. For many days, an endless stream of explosions had been hammering the island’s defenders.

Unlike many of the previous assaults in the Pacific, at first there was little Japanese fire directed against the fleet on D-Day. Some Marines commented on this, but most watched in quiet awe as the support ships fired salvo after salvo at the enemy defenses. The morning wore on. Soon, control boats moved into position to shepherd the waves to the line of departure (LD) 4,000 yards from the beach.

As H-Hour approached, the shore bombardment reached a crescendo of violence. A wave of B-24 bombers from Saipan arrived overhead at 0740, dropping their heavy loads across the island. At 0805, more than 150 U.S. Navy fighters and dive bombers stuck individual Japanese positions. The island seemed to jump and shake as dust and smoke rose into the morning sky. At times, only the crest of Mount Suribachi was visible above the swirling maelstrom.

The first wave crossed the line of departure at 0830. These were the LVT(A)-4 amphibian tanks (amtanks) of the 2nd Armored Amphibian Battalion. Armed with 75mm howitzers, eleven of these vehicles were slated to land on Red-2 at H-Hour. Once ashore, the amtanks would provide close-in fire support during the assault.

Two minutes behind the amtanks, the second wave moved into assault formation and began heading shoreward. These were the amtracs loaded with Marines of LT 1/27. Pfc Chuck Tatum rode in a tractor with this wave. As they crossed the LD, Tatum yelled to his squad leader, “Hey Windle, this is it! We are going in.” Sgt Raymond Windle of Snyder, Okla., was already a combat veteran with two operations behind him. He yelled back, “Goddamn it, Tatum. I told you people not to say that!” (3)

Every two minutes another wave left the staging area, forming into a line 500 yards wide. Once the wave crossed the LD, it was thirty minutes to the beach. Inside the rocking machines most Marines were left to their own thoughts, trying to balance on the slippery decks. Some made their peace with God in that interval but others just waited. Boat team leaders passed the word to lock and load weapons. 

LtCol Butler rode in amtrac VT-41 in the fourth wave, slated to hit the beach at H+6 minutes. (4) Battalion radio operators and part of the command group accompanied him. 1stLt Talbot Rain served as 1/27’s intelligence officer, riding in the same tractor. Seeing so many U.S. ships and the waves of landing craft, he thought, “What could be happening anywhere in the world this minute … more important than what was going on right here?” (5)

Minutes before the amtanks touched down, rocket-equipped landing ships steamed ahead and loosed a salvo of over 9,000 4.5 inch rockets into the landing beaches. Sounding like a horde of banshees, the explosions spewed geysers of smoke and dust into the sky. Still, the Japanese defenders did not answer. Pfc Chuck Tatum and his shipmate Pfc Steve Evanson manned the .50 caliber machine guns on their amtrac in the second wave. As the vehicle approached the shore line, he and Steve fired off several bursts to test the guns and vent their frustration. (6)

H-Hour, D-Day

On schedule at 0900, the dripping amtanks in the first wave emerged from the ocean up onto Red-2. Their job required that they move up over the first two beach terraces. But as amtanks tried to push forward, they quickly bogged down in the mushy volcanic sand. Only a handful made it up off the beach, the infantry had to go it alone until the tanks arrived.

Three hundred yards behind them, still churning toward the beach, came the second wave of amtracs full of infantry Marines. Boat team leaders yelled to get ready. Soon, treads began to bite against the soft beach sand and the second wave clattered ashore. It was exactly 0902, and for every Marine and Sailor of LT 1/27, the battle for Iwo Jima was about to begin.

As they came ashore, amtrac drivers raced their engines to push the heavy machines up the beach. Right away, tractors began bogging down in Iwo’s grainy volcanic sand. Some tractors were swamped after broaching sideways in the heavy surf. But like clockwork, more amtracs touched down as wave after wave deposited more Marines on Red-2. Two red star flares arced high into the sky to alert the control ships that the leading waves were on the beach.