My Father along with thousands of other Marines landed on Iwo Jima. What ensued would be one of the bloodiest battles of WW2 for the Marines.

Semper Fi Dad.

God bless him, and his fellow American Marines.

I remember a print of that photo on the classroom in our elementary school. I was in third grade at the time.

The greatest generation. God bless him

The Japanese had every square foot of the island registered for fire; unimaginable hell. God Bless him, and all the others. From memory—I believe 27 MOHs were awarded after Iwo Jima

I've watched many hours of footage on this. I cant imagine fighting under such conditions.

Cheers for all Marines.

Didn't they bomb and shell for something like 2 months prior to landings ?

quote:

Originally posted by TMats:
The Japanese had every square foot of the island registered for fire; unimaginable hell. God Bless him, and all the others. From memory—I believe 27 MOHs were awarded after Iwo Jima

From MY memory which is shaky at best.

I believe 40% of all MOH's from WW2 were awarded for heroism on Iwo Jima. Amazing , considering the action was slightly over a month long.

As Iwo was considered by the Japanese to be one of the home islands, when we raised the American flag on Mount Suribachi on Feb 24th, that was the first time an enemies flag had been raised on Japanese soil.

Iwo Jima was the first and I believe the only time during the War, where our losses exceeded that of the enemies.

Semper Fi and thank you for the reminder. God bless your Dad.

Its a shame that the Little Boy bomb wasn't yet ready to be employed in combat until July. Had we not needed Iwo as an airbase to support the B-29 raids on the Japanese Home Islands, Iwo Jima would have been the perfect demonstration site.

One big BOOM! and the entire garrison of 22,000 would have been removed without many, if any American dead.

Real men. God bless them all.

Thank you FN. My Uncle got his Purple Heart there.
Shot through the jaw, luckily it wasn't fatal and the docs used a piece of his pelvis to repair it.

My stepfather was in Leyte. He would tell me what he heard later about Iwo Jima was really bad.

The Filipinos absolutely hated the Japanese. I remember a photo in a scrapbook he brought home from the war. A beheaded Japanese soldier head skewered by a rod, held by 2 Filipino guerrillas.

I hate that Mom and my stepfather's sister threw all his WW II souvenirs away, including that photo album.

RIP, Iwo Jima American casualties.

My uncle got his purple heart there also.

My college room mate's father, who I had the honor to know quite well, commanded one of the B-29's that made use of Iwo after the Marines took it. Refueled and repaired there a couple times, I believe.

I recall from the History Channel there were P51s on the island to fly bomber escort. Remaining enemy came down at night and used swords on the sleeping pilots in their tents. They tossed grenades into the Mustangs. The Vet who told of this stated they went back up and killed every damn last one of them.

My granddad's best friend fought on Iwo Jima. He told me many stories over the years, but nothing gruesome. He's the one that told me the first flag raised was too small so they re-did it with a larger flag. RIP Woodrow Wilson Mace.

A cousin on my dad's side of the family died in the invasion, killed a few days later, on 24 Feb 1945. RIP PFC James F. (Buddy) Perkins, 24th Marines, 4th Marine Division.