Black Sands of Hell (Part 2)

The Old Man continues. The next day, February 20, the carnage continued. Inch by inch, foot by foot, yard by yard the Marines began to gain ground getting off the beach and moving slowly toward Mount Suribachi.



The mindset of the Japanese defender was an unbroken thread reaching back hundreds of years. The code of Bushido dictated that surrender would bring great and lasting dishonor; both to the individual and his entire family for generations to come, and especially to the Emperor. Iwo Jima commander General Kuribayashi issued orders that each man was to fight to the death and must kill at least 10 invaders before he died. It's been said that Iwo Jima was Japan's Alamo.



Japanese Captain Masao Hayauchi commanded a heavy gun emplacement. When it was knocked out by fire from Sherman tanks, Captain Hayauchi clutched a demolition charge to his chest and threw himself against one of the tanks, blowing himself up but failing to stop the tank. While many have questioned this apparent 'fanaticism', it should be understood that the culture of the Samurai was diametrically opposed to our own. Americans went to war to preserve our way of life and then go home; the Japanese went to war to honor their Emperor and did not expect to go home.

The slow, methodical move to the taking of Suribachi became a job for the foot soldier. The rifle, the bayonet, and the hand grenade proved more effective than the tank or artillery. The Marines quickly developed a system for taking out pillboxes and bunkers. One man under covering fire from others would crawl up to the (hopefully) blind side of the target carrying a satchel charge or flamethrower. He would then squeeze the charge or let loose a blast of yellow flame into an air slit.

As the fighting progressed, the general mantle of misery worn by all was made even heavier by the addition of the smells. Mixing with the normal odors of cordite and TNT, of gasoline and napalm, was the stench of burning flesh and human decomposition as the 110 degree heat turned bodies into biological Jello. Bunker by bunker, pillbox by pillbox the Marines slowly made their way through this pestilence toward the mountains base. The assault on Suribachi had now begun.



As the Marines fought their way up the mountain, they could hear the Japanese talking below in the caves that were as much as six stories deep. Drums of gasoline were brought forward, emptied into the fissures, allowed to seep into the underground fortress, and ignited.
Combat engineers sealed many of the caves, blowing them up with dynamite and turning them into crypts for the hundreds of souls packed below. One of the engineers said that when he would return to the supply dump for more dynamite, he would take a moment to clean from his uniform and his face a mixture of dust, blast residue, and human flesh.

When day 3 of the battle ended, there were only about 300 Japanese left in Mount Suribachi. Most had been killed and the rest had committed suicide to avoid the "disgrace" of capture.

Suffering plays no favorites.

Part 3 will continue on Monday