World Battlefronts: Hell's Acre

For all their drama, the air strikes on Tokyo were incidental. They were designed to isolate the battlefield, to pin the Japs' home-based aircraft to the ground, while more Navy plans unfolded at Iwo Jima—also known as Sulphur Island.

Little Iwo, only five miles by three, covering only eight square miles, lay almost exactly halfway between Guam and Tokyo. From its airfields enemy planes had attacked B-29s and their fields at Saipan; its radar station had tattled to Tokyo whenever B-29s were on the way.

The Japs knew how vital it was to U.S. forces to capture Iwo. They knew what a blow its loss would be to the defense of Japan. So they packed Iwo with 10,000 to 15,000 men, with casemated heavy coastal guns, well-sited antiaircraft guns, machine-gun nests hewn out of the rock.

For 72 days Iwo had been bombed without surcease; often it had been shelled by cruisers and destroyers. But air attack left Iwo unchastened and unsoftened. When a bombardment group of the Fifth Fleet, under Rear Admiral W. H. P. Blandy (an expert in the use of the big gun at long range), arrived to give it the Navy's full treatment, Iwo was still spitting fire.

Iwo Could Take It. For three solid days it took the worst that Blandy could give it, and it gave back. On the fourth day new battleships added their 16-in. salvos to the big-gun chorus; big carriers sent in more planes. Iwo absorbed more than 7,000 tons of shells plus untold tons of bombs—a record for a Pacific island.

It was D-day—Feb. 19. Dawn broke clear on a calm sea black with ships: 800 craft under Vice Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner, the high-domed, hard-driving conqueror of Guadalcanal, New Georgia, Tarawa, Kwajalein and Saipan. With Turner on the bridge of his command ship was Lieut. General Holland M. ("Howlin' Mad") Smith, boss of the Fleet Marine Force. Loaded on the surrounding transports were the men of Major General Harry Schmidt's V Amphibious Corps: the 4th and 5th Marine Divisions.

Forty-five minutes before H-hour, rocket ships began belching their projectiles against smoking, dust-covered Iwo. When the first landing craft nosed into Futatsune Beach at 9 a.m., the opposition was thin and scattered. The Japs had pulled back from the black-ash beach, but they were calling their shots. In the next two hours, the leathernecks drove inland 600 yards to No. 1 airfield. The farther they went, as the day wore on, the stiffer the opposition got.

Iwo Could Give It. From the heights of Suribachi in the southwest, and a series of hills in the northeast, the Japanese poured enfilading fire into the attackers. Forward observers with the marines radioed back to the ships for fire support. Turner conceded that the preliminary bombardment had cleaned out "by no means all" of the Jap artillery positions. Said Howlin' Mad Smith: Our men are spread all over hell's acre out there, and they're going after those hidden Jap guns, which are mighty hard to locate. Most of those guns are in caves. They come out and fire five or six rounds and then go back into hiding."