The Pacific /Iwo Jima Ross book

[imarangemaster]

I know there was a thread awhile back, but it dealt with the weapons in the mini series. It so happened that I was able to watch episodes 1-8 on vacation at my son's house, before it dropped of on-demand HBO. It so happens that I am also reading the book "Iwo Jima - Legacy of Valor" by by Bill D Ross, who was a Marine Sgt. combat correspondent that landed on Iwo on D-Day. It took him 40 years to write, as it is not a memoir, but rather a historical journal covering all of the conflict. Most Marine units suffered 60% casualties, and sometimes more (especially around hill 382 and "The meat grinder" where progress was measured in feat per day!) What these heroes endured is beyond any belief.

Recently I have been researching my father's service in in the Army during WW2, mostly on Iwo Jima. I uncovered more of his papers and personal effects from Iwo packing for my pending move to Mississippi. Through my research I confirmed he landed on D-Day plus 7 with the advance party of Army Major General James Chaney and HQ and HQ Co, US ARMY Garrison force, toting his Inland M1 Carbine, as Singals NCO for Chaney.

The Ross book also confirms many things my father told me about: him watching the first flag raised through a rifle scope from an LST (I have an original print of that flag taken by USMC correspondent Sgt. Louis Lowery that he later developed in my dad's makeshift dark room from the original negative), seeing the 1st B29 emergency land in the heat of the battle, the night the main ammo dump blew up several days after he arrived and a shell fragment destroyed his cot while he was taking cover during the shelling in the slit trench, and much more.

My dad loved to "spin a yarn" or tell a good story. Strangely. however, I am finding he understated what it was like for him on Iwo. Nightly shelling (they slept in the slit trenches for several weeks), snipers shooting all the time, his tent and the signals tent being shot up occasionally, and even the night a sapper crept out of a cave down the ravine and tossed a Type 97 grenade into the tent with them. Thank God it was a dud. (I have that grenade that had his name on it. He had an EOD guy disarm it and empty it, and my dad brought it home).

To close, what those men (especially the Marines) endured boggles the mind. The vicious and brutal hand to hand fighting on Iwo went for 35 (some say 45) days without stopping or a break in action. More Service men earned the Medal of Honor on Iwo Jima than in any other battle in US History. Most were Marines, though some where Navy Corpsman and SeeBees. Almost 26,000 Americans were killed or wounded in on a patch of rock that was about 8 square miles in area. While casualties were mostly Marines, the Navy and SeeBees lost men, as did the Army.

Pardon my rambling, but I am in awe and overwhelmed with respect and admiration.

PS As the fighting was close up, lots of M1 carbines and Thompsons were used. After all, there was no such thing as rear areas on Iwo.

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