Yank Magazine reporter Bill Reed wrote the following account of the Fifth Marine Division’s Iwo Jima slug fest that occupied much of their time throughout the months on February and March, 1945:
“For two days the men who landed on Green beach were pinned to the ground. Murderous machine-gun, sniper, and mortar fire came from a line of pillboxes 300 yards away in the scrubby shrubbery at the foot of the volcano. No one on the beach, whether he was a CP phone operator or a front line rifleman, was exempt. The sight of a head raised above a foxhole was the signal to dozens of Japs, safely hidden in the concrete emplacements, to open up. Men lay on their sides to drink from canteens or urinate. An errand between foxholes became a life-and-death mission for the man who attempted it.”
To read other articles about the Battle of Iwo Jima, click here.
Click here to read the story of the flag raising on Iwo Jima, as remembered by the photographer Joe Rosenthal.
Click here to read a few Japanese opinions about the movie Sands of Iwo Jima (1949)…
