BACK TO IWO JIMA 'Uncommon Valour A Common Virtue'

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30686, 27 February 1965, Page 5

BACK TO IWO JIMA 'Uncommon Valour A Common Virtue '

(By

JOSEPH GALLOWAY,

of United Press International?

TWENTY years ago this month United States marines stormed the shores of Iwo Jima to launch one of the last great battles of World War IL In 26 days of fighting, 4590 Americans and more than 20,000 Japanese were killed.

Reporters have just been allowed to return to Iwo Jima for the first time in five years.

Time and the jungle have healed most of the scars. But 20 years later, Iwo Jima’s covering of scrub brush and banyan trees is still too thin to make you forget that thousands fought and died for this tiny dot in the Western Pacific.

Deadly grenades and live bullets and occasionally human bones—emerge from time to time from the black volcanic ash as continuing reminders of the 25,000 men who died here. From the air, Iwo Jima looks like a lush green paradise island. The mountain rises abruptly at one end of the Island and its slopes are a cool green. But the closer you get the more faults you see. The sides of Mount Suribachi are gouged and pitted. Steaming volcanic “hotspots” dot the length of the five-mile-long island. As you step off the plane a humid Pacific breeze slaps you in the face with the rotten egg smell of hot sulphur. On an outcropping of soft Iwo Jima sandstone, an anonymous Seabee carved a 10 foot high bas-relief of the famous flag-raising on Suribachi with a bayonet. Around it, carved in the sandstone, are the names of hundreds of lonely soldiers who did their year on “the rock” and left their names behind as proof they were there. Live Primers Lying beside the road to this unofficial monument are two 37 millimetre artillery Shells. A quick look proves that the primers in these casings are live and could blow your hand off. The population of Iwo Jima today is about 150 American airmen, soldiers, sailors and Coast Guardsmen. About 40 Japanese contract workers also are on Iwo doing work for the United States military. There are no women on Iwo Jima so the diversions of these isolated Americans are limited to fishing, hiking, exploring and badgering each other with the normal interservice rivalary. Beards and mustaches are In the overwhelming majority on Iwo Jima. The Air Force is on Iwo for only one reason—to maintain the landing strip which has been blessed by thousands of pilots who found themselves

in inld-Pacific low on fuel or short of one engine. The Coast Guard maintains a long-range navigation station to keep ships and planes on course. The Army tracks satellites. Most of the Third, Fourth and Fifth Division United States Marines who hit the beaches of Iwo Jima remember it as a desolate, barren island fortress. Jungle Back Today, 20 years after the first wave hit the beach on Febraruy 19, 1945, the jungle has reclaimed most of the island. Banyan trees, black locus bushes, breadfruit trees and the tough hardy grasses make it impossible to wander at will. Hot, smoking, bubbling pits that give off the sulphur smell are counted by the dozens. They are unpredictable and pop up anywhere.

One hotspot is located in the middle of the airstrip. It is paved over but a pipe vents off the steam.

Another pit, surrounded by the tangled and twisted remains of an old Japanese command post, tosses boiling water into the air. Down on the beach where the marines landed you can see immediately Why the casualties were so high. There actually isn’t real beach. Just a narrow strip of soft volcanic ash that Slopes upward at a 60-degree angle right into the mouths of dozens of Japanese pillboxes. Walking is difficult on Iwo Jima’s beaches. Your feet settle into the ash ankle-deep. Rusty steel-mesh mats form the beach road. Without them, a wheeled vehicle sinks to the fenders. A battered engine and bits of old metal, along with a few live shells are reminders of the landing. Pillbox Gun Higher up the slopes many of the fantastically strong pillboxes and emplacements remain in good condition. Inside one a disarmed fiveinch Japanese gun maintains its silent watch over the sea. A paved road snakes its way up Mount Suribachi today, but it is so steep that even the four-wheel drive military vehicles protest and whine. Atop Mount Suribachi your attention turns first to the small white stone monument to the Fifth Marine Division and its 28th Battalion which captured the slope and raised the first small American flag. An American flag snaps in the breeze on top of the monument It is one of only four places in the world where Congress has authorised 24-hour-a-day flying of the flag. The words on the monument reach out to you with the simplicity of truth “Where uncommon valour was a common virtue.”