Letter from Iwo Jima
Letter from Iwo Jima
By James C. Roberts
AVC President Jim Roberts with the Honorable Yoshitaka Shindo, member of the Japanese Parliament and grandson of Gen. Tadamichi Kuribayashi, Commander of Japanese troops on Iwo Jima.
For Herschel “Woody” Williams, a veteran of the Battle of Iwo Jima, returning to the island 70 years later was not something he expected to do.
“I thought it was wrong to give it back to the Japanese,” he says of the 1968 transfer of sovereignty, “and I said I would never return.”
Yet standing on the famous black sands of Iwo Jima Woody says, “I’m glad I came.”
“I’m overwhelmed by emotion. One minute I’m elated, and the next I’m on the verge of tears.” Woody says it was the insistent pleading of his grandchildren that made him change his mind and return to Iwo Jima and two grandsons and a great-grandson are with him. “They’re the main reason I’m glad I came back,” he says. “Now when I talk about the black sands of Iwo Jima, they’ll know what I’m talking about.”
Woody Williams is a special Marine. He is one of 27 men to receive the Medal of Honor for heroism during the battle, the largest number of Medals of Honor awarded for any battle in American history, and is the only one still living. All Iwo Jima veterans are special, however, a fact impressively demonstrated four days before at Los Angeles International Airport at a departure ceremony organized by United Airlines and the airport management to honor the 42 Iwo Jima veterans returning to the island for the 70th anniversary observances of the iconic battle of World War II in the Pacific. Almost 400 people joined the veterans on the pilgrimage to Iwo organized by Military Historical Tours in what is likely to be the last large-scale commemoration on the island. At the LAX terminal a crowd of several hundred gathered to listen to speeches, toasts, free refreshments and music provided by a bagpiper, instrumentalists and the TSA Chorus (yes, you read that correctly – the Transportation Safety Administration Chorus).
As our plane taxied out to the runway two fire trucks saluted the vets with arcs of water sprayed over the plane. Fifteen hours later and there is another salute at the airport in Guam and yet another at the hotel. Our group spends three days touring landing beaches and other World War II sites on the beautiful tropical island before we are awakened at 2:45am on March 21th for the bus ride to the airport. There we board three planes for the one and three-quarter hour flight to Iwo Jima.
Despite seeing photos of the island for years, I am still not prepared for the emotional impact when Mount Suribachi comes into view as we fly by at close range. The entire island is visible and the tiny size is shocking.
A mere six miles long, this island was a hellish nightmare for the 21,000 Japanese defenders and 70,000 Americans who came ashore here in March of 1941. Expected by the American command to take five days to subdue, it took 36 days to pacify Iwo Jima. Casualties numbered 20,000 Japanese dead and a few hundred wounded and almost 7,000 American dead and another 20,000 wounded.
Occupying eleven miles of tunnels, caves and bunkers, the entire Japanese garrison was underground implementing a brilliant defense strategy organized by General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, the Japanese Commander on the island. Impervious to a pre-invasion bombardment by the American Navy, the Japanese bided their time, firing at the exposed Americans once they had landed on the beaches and emerging only at night to engaged, them in close-range combat.
AVC President Jim Roberts with Navajo Code Talker and Iwo Jima veteran Roy Holiday on the summit of Mt. Surabachi.
The ferocious battle for Iwo Jima became so legendary that the photograph taken by photographer Joe Rosenthal of the flag-raising on Mt Suribachi has become one of the most famous in history.
So fierce was the battle that every blade of grass was blasted off the island, giving it a lunar appearance, made more sinister by the stinking sulpher vapors rising from the dormant volcano beneath. Today, however, the view from the summit of Mount Suribachi is one of an island covered with lush vegetation.
Standing there where the flag was raised I met Sam Holiday a Navaho code talker from the battle and his granddaughter Tamera Begay.
“For three nights before we left my grandfather could barely sleep,” says Tamera. “He kept reliving his experiences with the explosions and gunfire and the moaning of the wounded men and the dead lying all around.”
Tamera continues, “When we got here he didn’t want to look at the black sand. But then he did and once he started walking around and saw how green and peaceful the place is, he started to relax and his mood changed.”
Tamera says that her grandfather told her, “The first time I came as a warrior. The second time as a man of peace.” Every veteran I spoke with had vivid, searing memories of the battle. Jack Colby, a member of the 4th Marine Division and a resident of Alexandria, Virginia was one of the lucky 50 percent who were not wounded on Iwo but he says he remembers being under fire almost continuously for almost a month. Ron Scharf was a 16-year-old Navy landing craft coxswain (he forged his sister’s wedding documents to prove that he was 18.) “On the way in to the beach we hit an underwater obstacle in 14 feet of water, he says.”It ripped the bottom of the boat wide open and the boat sank and half the 32 Marines aboard drowned. It was terrible.” Gene Bell was a Marine with the 3rd Division, half of which was held in reserve. He was part of a boat crew that made hundreds of trips to the beach ferrying the endless stream of wounded men to the ship. “The wounded, were missing limbs, shredded by shrapnel or had parts of their faces blown off. There were wounded men on every deck in every available space,” he says. “Once the ship was full, we sailed for Guam where the nearest military hospital was located.” Corporal Woody Williams went as hore on February 1, 1945 and encountered one of the most strongly fortified complexes on the island, filled with concrete pillboxes and bunkers from which the Japanese were pouring fire on The Americans.
Acting on his own, Williams, manned a 70-pound flame thrower and singlehanderley eliminated seven enemy positions all while under hostile fire. He fought through the entire 36-day battle, being wounded once, later receiving the Medal of Honor for his incredible bravery which saved many American lives.
After a couple of hours touring the island on foot our group gathered at the memorial near the landing beaches for a joint ceremony with the Japanese delegation of approximately 300 people. Participating in the ceremony was a Marine Corps contingent of 200, including the Commandant, General Joseph F. Dunford and Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus.
Among the speakers was Yoshitaka Shindo, grandson of General Kuribayashi, commander of the Iwo Jima garrison who had organized the island’s defense so brilliantly. He, like all the speakers, remarked on the valor of the men on both sides of the Battle of Iwo Jima and how, out of the blood-soaked sand of 70 year ago, a strong and ending friendships had developed between the US and Japan.
A combined Japanese-American band played, matching units of both sides carried the flags of both nations. The national anthems were played and wreaths were lad in honor of the dead.
Following the ceremony, individuals from both sides mingled, posed for photographs and chatted in the warm sunshine.
It made an almost surreal scene, given the carnage and desolation of 70 years before.
An hour later as our plane lifted off the airstrip we once again got a view of the entire island, a small splash of verdant green in the midst of the deep blue ocean. It had been an incredible experience for all of us participating.
For Woody Williams and the other Iwo vets they could now close the books on the Horror of 70 years before and along with Navaho code talker Sam Holiday they could say. “I came as a warrior. I leave as a man of peace.”
The writer, Jim Roberts, is President of the American Veterans Center.
