Posted on 02/19/2005 3:34:46 PM PST by mdittmar
Eight days is all Kenneth Phillips expected.
Raymond Rogers figured he'd be on another island, for another mission, in no time at all.
The men knew it would be a tough week, for sure. Every fight had been -- Guadalcanal, Saipan, Peleliu. But after eight days, they thought, Iwo Jima would be theirs.
The two Texans remember well the weeks of pre-invasion briefings that told them so.
But the rosy predictions came to a violent and abrupt end 60 years ago today, when two U.S. Marine divisions stormed the Japanese stronghold of Iwo Jima, a volcanic island in the Pacific Ocean not half as big as Manhattan.
The battle lasted 36 days. More than 6,800 American servicemen died -- one-third of all the Marines killed in World War II -- and an additional 19,000 were wounded in a fight that brought to mind the unforgettable savagery of Antietam or Gettysburg.
Iwo Jima, at least as much as the Normandy invasion of June 1944, defines World War II for the United States because of the extraordinary valor and sacrifice of the troops.
More Medals of Honor were earned on Iwo Jima -- 27 -- than in any other battle in U.S. history. And what is perhaps the war's most enduring photograph was taken on Mount Suribachi, the island's highest point, as six men struggled to raise the U.S. flag.
Their experiences resonate among the Marines of today.
"I have some sand from the island," said Gunnery Sgt. Robert Betlewicz, a 17-year veteran who serves with the 14th Marines in Fort Worth. "You want to try to grasp the past, to feel like you're closer to it.
"To know how hard they fought. ... On my best day, I couldn't be like them."
Sixty years is a long time, and a dwindling number of eyewitnesses remain.
Phillips, 86, is retired from Bell Helicopter and lives in Hurst. Rogers, 79, is a retired insurance executive with a house on Alvarado Lake.
Neither man is given to making much of a fuss about his role in World War II or his part in one of the most horrific battles of the 20th century.
Their wives said they had been married for decades before their husbands spoke of Iwo Jima.
"I'm proud of it," Phillips said. "But I don't want to do it again."
That was enough.
Iwo was a change in tactics for the Japanese, before, on
Tarawa and the other islands the method was to try and stop
the attack at the waters edge. On Iwo, it was defense in
depth and no false hope of reinforcement, all the defenders
expected to die.
Only a few survived.
Iwo was a preview of what an attack on the mainland would
have been.
exactly, and could you have imagined the carnage? i read once about estimated american casualty figures in a battle for japan and it was unbelievable...
The estimate I have read is over 1 million allied casualties, and MANY more Japanese, both military and civilian. The Hiroshima-Nagasaki bombs were a Godsend; they saved so many more lives than they lost.
My uncle was one of those who received the Congressional Medal of Honor on Iwo Jima. He just died a few years ago. He was approached by Hollywood many times to make a movie of his life, but he declined. Said he didn't do anything more than anyone elso would have.
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