The drive north by the 3d Battalion, 28th Marines, enters rugged terrain. Under heavy Japanese fire, this attack netted only 200 yards despite supporting fires.
Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 111988
Not surprisingly, most casualties in the first three weeks of the battle resulted from high explosives: mortars, artillery, mines, grenades, and the hellacious rocket bombs. Time correspondent Robert Sherrod reported that the dead at Iwo Jima, both Japanese and American, had one thing in common: “They all died with the greatest possible violence. Nowhere in the Pacific War had I seen such badly mangled bodies. Many were cut squarely in half.”
Close combat was rough enough; on Iwo Jima the stress seemed endless because for a long time the Marines had no secure “rear area” in which to give shot-up troop units a respite. Kuribayashi’s gunners throughout the Motoyama Plateau could still bracket the beaches and airfields. The enormous spigot mortar shells and rocket bombs still came tumbling out of the sky. Japanese infiltrators were drawn to “softer targets” in the rear. Anti-personnel mines and booby traps, encountered here on a large scale for the first time in the Pacific, seemed everywhere. Exhausted troop units would stumble out of the front lines seeking nothing more than a helmet-full of water in which to bathe and a deep hole in which to sleep. Too often the men had to spend their rare rest periods repairing weapons, humping ammo, dodging major-caliber incoming, or having to repel yet another nocturnal Japanese probe.
General Schmidt planned to attack the Japanese positions in the north with three divisions abreast, the 5th on the left, the 3d (less the 3d Marines) in the center, and the 4th on the right, along the east coast. The drive north officially began on D+5, the day after the capture of Suribachi. Prep fires along the high ground immediately north of the second airfield extended for a full hour. Then three regimental combat teams moved out abreast, the 26th Marines on the left, the 24th Marines on the right, and the 21st Marines again in the middle. For this attack, General Schmidt consolidated the Sherman tanks of all three divisions into one armored task force commanded by Lieutenant Colonel William R. “Rip” Collins. It would be the largest concentration of Marine tanks in the war, virtually an armored regiment. The attack plan seemed solid.
The Marines soon realized they were now trying to force passage through Kuribayashi’s main defensive belt. The well-coordinated attack degenerated into desperate, small-unit actions all along the front. The 26th Marines on the left, aided by the tanks, gained the most yardage, but it was all relative. The airfield runways proved to be lethal killing zones. Marine tanks were bedeviled by mines and high-velocity direct fire weapons all along the front. On the right flank, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander A. Vandegrift, Jr., son of the Commandant, became a casualty. Major Doyle A. Stout took command of the 3d Battalion, 24th Marines.
During the fighting on D+5, General Schmidt took leave of Admiral Hill and moved his command post ashore from the amphibious force flagship Auburn (AGC 10). Colonel Howard N. Kenyon led his 9th Marines ashore and into a staging area. With that, General Erskine moved the command post of the 3d Marine Division ashore; the 21st Marines reverted to its parent command. Erskine’s artillery regiment, the 12th Marines under Lieutenant Colonel Raymond F. Crist, Jr., continued to land for the next several days. Schmidt now had eight infantry regiments committed. Holland Smith still retained the 3d Marines in Expeditionary Troops reserve. Schmidt made the first of several requests to Smith for release of this seasoned outfit. The V Amphibious Corps had already suffered 6,845 casualties.
Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 110604