74th Anniversary of the Battle of Iwo Jima
Couldn’t let the day go by without reminding everyone that today, 74 years ago, was the start of the Battle of Iwo Jima.
The iconic image of the men raising the flag was on 23 Feb after days of fierce fighting.
This is an air view of Marines and sailors landing on the beach on 19 Feb 1945.
Semper Fidelis
Category: Historical, Marine Corps, Marines
Those fellows caught hell, but they also brought some hell with them.
Thank God that such men lived. Anybody think that we could field such a large of a fighting force now as we did then? Might could get the #s, with the draft, but I seriously doubt we would have the quality. Not taking anything at all away from the quality of the Volunteers that we get now.
I personally don’t follow the Mabus, and who was it, Stalin or one of his Generals that said quantity is a quality of its own.
You’re thinking of Admiral Sergei Gorshkov, 5/77. He said, “Лучшее – враг хорошего” or “Better is the enemy of good enough.”
He was Admiral of the Soviet Navy back in the bad old Cold War days.
Tanks Bro, just couldn’t pull it out of that crashed side of the brain cells, but I did remember it from the Soviet side during the Chilly War.
Iwo might have gone even worse for our boys if the Japanese defenders had of been better fed and led.
Лучше.
Don’t ask me how i know.
😉
“Лучшее – враг хорошего”
I got “fly for me afar and power on”
The definition I’ve seen of “luchshee” is “the best.” Makes sense if that’s what you want to say, but “better” is “luchshe”.
I’m not totally fluent, but I’ve never seen “luchshee” used, just something like “samyj luchshij.”
“Uncommon valor was a common virtue.” – Chester Nimitz
Semper Fi, Devil Dogs.
It is nearly inconceivable that the Marines were victorious at Iwo Jima. There was no cover. The Japanese were entrenched, in caves, and ready. There were no clear targets for the Navy’s big guns. Damn straight the Marines had a mass of casualties, including nearly 7,000 KIA. The Japanese force–estimated at between 20,000 and 22,000- was annihilated, but for some 200 or so who surrendered. We are all familiar with the flag raising, but just to ponder the ferocity and type of fighting that occurred there to secure victory is, to me, much more impressive and awesome.
Not really, 5/77. They were Marines. We aren’t allowed to fail without permission.
Hack Stone was reading about some stragglers on Iwo Jima who did not surrender until 1947, or maybe 1949. They would come out of the caves and raid the garbage dumps for food.
January 6, 1949.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_holdout
I played the Ballad of Ira Hayes on the jukebox, today, and a retired Marine E-9 teared-up a bit. I’ve always wished my Army held onto its history the way the Corps does.
Marine PR is second to none. I guarantee you that if you asked the average Joe or Jane, they would be shocked to learn that most of the fighters in the Pacific during WW II were soldiers. Someone once said that the Marines win battles and the Army wins wars. The bottom line on it all is blood and mud. Damn the Marines uniform, though. They do have the best looking one.
The camo they stole from the canucks?
Believe Cav is referring to Marine SDBs, Hater. And he’s right.
I know, and he is right… I just needed to pick on the CADPAT rip-off before things got too sappy in here.
Well then, the freaking Canadians should have patented it if they didn’t want it stolen.
That is too good a Cammie pattern to waste it on a country that never fights wars.
“Plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery.”
They’re just too polite not to share.
The Army had more soldiers, more Divisions ans suffered more casualties than the Marines in the Pacific.
The major difference was that that Marines pretty much used the same Divisions over and over and had a higher casualty rate as a result.
Some Marines did 4 landings/ assaults during the war.
There were also several islands where no Army troops at all were involved. And the largest the Marine Corps ever was in its history was 485,000 in August 1945. Army divisional performance went from flawless as exhibited by the 77th Infantry Division, to disappointing, as shown by the 27th Infantry Division. That was considered by some a leadership failure though.
I’ll make a comment in memory of James “Jay” Willard Fiscus, who waded ashore as a 17 year old Marine 4 days after the initial beach landing as part of an artillery crew. Jay was the father of my best friend and like a second father to me. He wasn’t perfect, but he was a great man and a successful business owner. He never told us any war stories and I never fully understood his role in WW2 until, in my late teens, my own father told me where/when Mr. Fiscus had served. In his 70’s he confided in me that he still did 30 push-ups, 3 times a day. He was, truly, of the greatest generation and it was my privilege to know him and be influenced by him. Semper Fi, Jay. You are not forgotten.
It was my honor to provide the sword for an old Marine to cut his birthday cake last spring, on his 96th birthday. He carried a flamethrower on Iwo Jima. I always figured if he carried the flamethrower on his back, he must have had a wheelbarrow to carry his balls. (He was in the 28th Marines, and knew three of the men in the flag photo.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Basilone
Oo-rah!
Thanks.
The raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next 500 Years – James Forrestal.
The fact that over a QUARTER of the Medals of Honor awarded during World War II were awarded on that tiny rock (27 out of the 82: 22 Marines/5 Sailors) is frigging AMAZING. Almost 33% of the highest award given during wartime action over a 4 year period was awarded during a 2 month battle. Damn near HALF of them were awarded to LIVING recipients. Amazing. Men such as Jacklyn Lucas, Herschel Williams, Joseph McCarthy. Read somewhere that McCarthy (he retired from the Marine Corps Reserve in 1971 as a LtCol) drove from Maine to North Carolina in 1946) and stopped along the way the homes of 26 men he lost on Iwo, telling each family that their men were just as brave as him.
Are the men we have serving today just as brave? I honestly have no idea. I see men like Kyle Carpenter, Dakota Meyer, Sal Giunta, and Leroy Petry and want to say yes…..then I see dickheads like Spenser Rapone, Bradley Manning, and the like. I just don’t know.
That really IS amazing.
On average very few enlisted men receive MOH non-posthumously. Through 1976 only 2 or three Navy Hospital Corpsmen survived the heroism so notable. (My recollection of the MOH portraits in the Honor Hallway at NSHS, Balboa.)
DOUG out
“Are the men we have serving today just as brave?” Unquestionably, yes. There is a dark side to the greatest generation. More than the criminals who served, the cowards who ran, there is the great number who avoided induction. The info is out there for anyone to read. The thing is, during WW II, the American press were Americans first and reporters second. They largely ignored stories that would hurt morale and the image of one for all and all for one. Today, the media seek out such stories and largely ignore the honorable, the noble, and the good.
Air Cav,
Very fair point. We also had the Rosenthals, Lowery’s, and Galloway’s getting EMBEDDED with the young men. We humanized them. Now….it’s a 20 second blurb about how mechanized and dehumanized the military is.
I will add Ernie Pyle to your list. “The Death of Captain Waskow” is a brief account, written simply, and straight from the soul. I read it every so often.
https://loa-shared.s3.amazonaws.com/static/pdf/Pyle_Captain_Waskow.pdf
The media used have its share of veterans.
Today, not so much.
Dare I say, not at all.
You mean, besides Brian Williams? (snort)
Wasn’t that Williams boy the one that provided covering fire for Hitlery when she was waddling across the tarmac dodging the sniper fire? Or was he smoking in hot with all nose/wing/door guns blazing?
Brian Williams: “So I told Rosenthal, ‘Now, Joe, now!’ and the rest is history.”