World Battlefronts: It Was Sickening to Watch ...

On Iwo Jima last week at least 40,000 Marines fought to the death with 20,000 entrenched Japanese in an area so constricted that the troops engaged averaged twelve men to an acre. Ashore with the marines, TIME Correspondent Robert Sherrod radioed his account of the battle:

At the end of six days of bitter fighting, the men of the 3rd Marine Division (Major General Graves B. Erskine), the 4th (Major General Clifton B. Cates) and the 5th (Major General Keller E. Rockey) hold approximately 40% of Iwo Jima, including half of Airfield No. 2, the fighter field. This is almost in the exact geographical center of the island and is perhaps the key to the entire defense. Built on a high plateau, it is defended by hundreds of interlaced pillboxes and concrete casemated caves, apparently connected by labyrinthine tunnels which wind in & out of the cliffsides.

Naval gunfire and air support have been far superior to those anywhere else in the Pacific. A battalion commander, Lieut. Colonel Alexander A. ("Archie") Vandegrift Jr. (son of the Marine Corps commandant), said yesterday: "I used to fight with these naval aviators over air support, but I've no argument with them any longer. They've been superb." So has the artillery ashore. "As long as they don't drop any shells in our own lines, the men have confidence in it," said Vandegrift.

Some Marines Wept. The 28th Regiment (part of the sth Division) of tall, gaunt Colonel Harry ("The Horse") Liver-sedge, ex-Raider, took Suribachi Volcano on D-plus-four. When the U.S. flag was raised over this highest point on the island, some marines wept openly.

A typical Jap blockhouse below Suribachi was more cunningly contrived than anything on Tarawa. Its outer walls were of reinforced concrete, 40 inches thick. The vent did not open toward the sea, but slantwise toward the upper beaches: the 120-mm. gun inside could fire on the beaches and some of our ships, but could not be hit except from a particular angle. There was no sign that it had been touched by anything but a flamethrower. Beside it lay the bodies of eight marines—the apparent cost of taking what was only one of several hundreds similar positions, nearly all of which have to be. knocked out by men on foot with explosive charges or flamethrowers.

Jap mortars and rockets still fire heavily from the recesses of the northern plateau. Even on the night of D-plus-four we caught hundreds of rounds. There is still no point on the island which the Japs cannot bring under fire easily, though their chances of accuracy diminish as we slowly edge forward up the high ground. Soon they will no longer be looking down our throats.