The day wears on

A steadily increasing number of Marines are coming ashore and assault units attempt to reach their objectives. Meanwhile, relentless fire pours into the American positions.

Marines on the far left flank begin to dig in under heavy fire from Suribachi. Counterbattery fire is hitting the flanks of the volcano, but all day long, the beaches will continue to be raked by fire.

A Navy Corpsman sprinkles sulfa powder on a Marine’s wound as Japanese indirect fire scours the landing beach. This Marine, like many others, has been hit in the back by a shell fragment. Corpsmen faced the same dangers as their brother Marines, and they paid a fearsome toll on Iwo. Eight Hundred and Fifty Navy medical personnel were killed or wounded during the campaign, and four of them received the Medal of Honor, our nation’s highest award for heroism in combat.

By the time we reached a hole by the water’s edge, near where we had landed, we had lost our sense of urgency and entered that stage, which comes after a certain amount of time in a shelled area, when you can lo longer bring yourself to duck and run constantly, even when you are moving in the open.

John Lardner, The New Yorker Magazine

As a mortar round impacts just behind them, Marines work on a plan to continue the advance. By this point, the shellfire was constant, and these troops do not even flinch from this explosion.

During the afternoon of D-Day, more Marines hit the beach. These are likely troops from one of the divisional reserve units, since they are laden with field transport packs. Throughout the day, Japanese gunners continually pounded the beach head with accurate mortar and artillery fire.

Casualties were mounting, and the reinforcing regiments had hunched their shoulders and come ashore. They came in riddled, forming on a battlefield more horrifying than any in the memory of the oldest salts. Death had been violent on Iwo Jima. Few indeed were the corpses not mangled. Some were squarely cut in half…. Except for the puttee tapes of theJapanese or the yellowish leggings of the Americans, it was hard to identify the fallen of either side. From it all rose the intensifying reek of death.

Strong Men Armed – The United States Marines vs. Japan by Robert Leckie

USS LSM-92 waits to back off the after delivering its cargo on the beach. Thirty-One of these invaluable ships took part in the operation. They carried a wide variety of valuable cargo ashore, including tanks, bulldozers, ammunition preloaded in trucks and other critical supplies. As is evident in this still, the beach terrace was only the first terrain obstacle to forward movement. In the background, yet another, even steeper terrace presents a serious obstacle.

A litter team races to load a wounded Marine onto a Higgins boat for transport to a hospital ship. The coxswain is maintaining power to counteract the strong cross current on the beach and each wave is sending plumes of water over the ramp. This is a hazardous undertaking and there is not much time before this boat swamps.

Three hospital ships and four converted LSTs served the wounded at Iwo. The LST(H) were stationed 2,000 yards off the beach as staging hospitals.

Our landing craft, LSM-141 [is] moving closer to the line of departure…. The old battleship New York is only a hundred yards or so from us, firing broadside into the island. The noise [is] unreal. We are now inside the tank. Lt Steiner gives us the word to button-up. We know we are now very near the beach…. Since I am a crewmember in a platoon leader’s tank, we are the first in line to disembark. At last we feel the surge as the LSM slams ashore at about seven to eight knots, putting us high and dry on the beach. Straight ahead of us is Iwo Jima, Red Beach One. The time is about 1330.

Iwo Jima – One Man Remembers by George M. Nations

The price of victory. On D-Day at Iwo Jima, 2,420 Marines were killed, or wounded on the 3,500-yard beach head. This casualty number was comparable with that suffered by V Corps (US Army) on Omaha Beach in Normandy, France, on 6 June 1944.

An LSM approaches the shore during the Japanese barrage. On the beach, Marines dash for cover as round impact close-by. Firing from both concealed positions in the badlands of northern Iwo, and from direct fire emplacements in Mount Suribachi, the Japanese had unobstructed access to every square yard of the Marine positions.

An LCS(L) serves as the control ship on one of the Yellow beaches. She wears bright markers to orient ship and boat crews. A cluster of landing boats holds position starboard of the control ship waiting for clearance to make their run-in to the beach. An enemy barrage is pounding the beach at this moment, so perhaps the control ship has closed the beach until fire lifts.

An assault teams fights its way forward to secure their D-Day objective. Regardless of casualties and under an indiscriminate rain of fire, Marines doggedly blasted, burned, suppressed, and neutralized the enemy’s defenses on the Motoyama Plateau.

A medium tank advances off the beach. Although the terrain limited movement by these vehicles, both the 4th and 5th Tank Battalions pushed forward in support of the infantry on D-Day.

Someone gets on the field telephone, which is mounted on the rear of each tank. He tells us he has a target for us and talks us into firing position. The target is an observation post, directing mortar and artillery fire down in the area, One round from our 75mm tank gun loaded with a high explosive shell and the O. P. is no more. This was our first kill, the first of countless others. We refuse to think of them as human beings.

Iwo Jima – One Man Remembers by George W. Nations

Far from home, this Marine has given his last full measure of devotion on D-Day. His family will soon receive a dreaded telegram reporting his death and the blue star that hangs in their window for him will change to gold.

Victory was never in doubt. Its cost was. The enemy could have displaced every cubic inch of volcanic ash on the island, which he nearly did, and still victory would not have been in doubt. What was in doubt, in all our minds, was whether there would be any of us left to dedicate our cemetery at the end,or whether the last Marine would die knocking out the last Japanese gun and gunner. Let the world count our crosses.

Excerpt of remarks by Maj. Gen. Graves B. Erskine at the dedication of the 3rd Marine Division Cemetery on Iwo Jima