At about 1030 on 1 March 1945, the 1st and 2d Battalions of the 28th Marines reached the top of the ridge around Hill 362A on the west side of Iwo Jima. They had jumped off shortly before 0900, after a preparation by artillery, a battleship and cruisers. From the crest the ground fell away nearly 100 feet into a rocky draw cut by an antitank ditch. About 200 yards beyond it rose Nishi Ridge, and machine guns and mortars on that ridge opened on the Marines at once (Garand and Strobridge, pp. 625–626; Bartley, pp. 132–133). The 28th Marines had taken Mount Suribachi less than a week earlier. Now they held the western anchor of Kuribayashi’s main defense line across the island, with Nishi Ridge still ahead of them. This chapter follows the 5th Marine Division from the cliffs above the western beaches to the northern edge of the plateau, from 24 February to 8 March. For the whole battle, see the Battle of Iwo Jima hub.
Iwo Jima · Chapter 6 of 9
- Dates
- 24 February–8 March 1945 (Hill 362A taken 1–2 March; Nishi Ridge and Hill 362B, 3 March)
- Where
- The west side of the island, from the cliffs above the western beaches north across Hill 362A, Nishi Ridge, the ruins of Nishi village and Hill 362B to the northern edge of the Motoyama Plateau
- American forces
- 5th Marine Division: 26th, 27th and 28th Marines; 13th Marines (artillery); 5th Tank, 5th Engineer, 5th Pioneer and 5th Medical Battalions; Navy corpsmen with every rifle platoon
- Japanese forces
- Part of Lt. Gen. Kuribayashi’s garrison, holding the western end of the main cross-island defenses in caves, pillboxes and dug-in positions
- Commanders
- U.S.: Maj. Gen. Keller E. Rockey (5th Marine Division); Col. Chester B. Graham (26th Marines); Col. Thomas A. Wornham (27th Marines); Col. Harry B. Liversedge (28th Marines). Japanese: Lt. Gen. Tadamichi Kuribayashi
- Outcome
- The division advanced about 3,000 yards up the west coast between 25 February and 10 March, at a cost of 4,292 casualties (Bartley, p. 148). Seven Medals of Honor, three of them to Navy corpsmen
Why it mattered
By 24 February the V Amphibious Corps was attacking north on a three-division front. The 3d Marine Division pushed up the center over Airfield No. 2, the 4th Division fought on the right through the Hill 382 complex, and the 5th Division held the left, along the west coast. Bartley calls Hill 362A “the heavily fortified western anchor of the Japanese main cross-island defenses” (Bartley, pp. 124–125). From its caves the Japanese could observe the western part of the island all the way back to Suribachi (Garand and Strobridge, p. 617). As long as they held it, the 5th Division could not advance up the west coast.
The west side was also where the division spent its experienced men. Alexander writes that at Nishi Ridge and Hills 362A and 362B the 5th Division would lose “most of its invaluable cadre of veteran leaders” (Closing In). It was also the corpsmen’s fight: three of the four Medals of Honor awarded to Navy hospital corpsmen for Iwo Jima were earned in this chapter.
Terrain and objectives
Bartley describes the northern plateau as roughly a mile across, broken by gorges and ridges that stand 340 to 382 feet high, with rough, rocky ground and sulfur vents giving off steam and fumes. Toward the coast the ground falls away in steep slopes and cliffs (Bartley, p. 5). The 5th Division’s intelligence officer put it more simply in his report: “Volcanic eruption has littered the whole northern end of the island with outcrops of sandstone and loose rock” (Bartley, p. 140). Garand and Strobridge describe the country the 28th Marines faced as gorges and steep ridges (p. 630).
Three features defined the division’s zone. Hill 362A, just south of the village of Nishi, was “rugged and rocky, devoid of all vegetation on its southern slopes.” Its north face dropped about 80 feet, and “the entire hill bristled with caves of varying sizes, many of them serving as mortar and machine gun emplacements” (Garand and Strobridge, p. 617). North of it, across a draw and an antitank ditch, the ground “rose abruptly to form ragged Nishi Ridge” (Bartley, p. 133), which ran west from the plateau almost to the water’s edge, squarely across the line of advance (p. 136). Farther northeast, near the boundary with the 3d Division, stood Hill 362B, its southern and western slopes “honeycombed with caves and pillboxes” (Garand and Strobridge, p. 631). There were three Hill 362s on the island, which is why the planners distinguished them by letter (Alexander, Closing In). Hill 362C, in the 3d Division’s zone, belongs to the next chapter.
Nishi itself had been one of the island’s four settlements. Bartley counts 1,091 civilians on Iwo Jima in 1943, living in and around Motoyama, Nishi, Kita and Minami, and working at a small sugar mill and a sulfur refinery, at small farms and at fishing (Bartley, p. 3). By the time the Marines reached it, Garand and Strobridge found only “the stark remains of what had once been a small hamlet called Nishi” (p. 628).
Above the western beaches, 25–26 February
A front held back by the center
On the morning of 25 February the 5th Division held a front about 1,200 yards wide. From west to east, the 2d Battalion, 27th Marines, held the cliffs above the western beaches; the 2d Battalion, 26th Marines, held a salient in the center; and the 3d Battalion, 26th Marines, held the right, bent back to keep contact with the 3d Division (Garand and Strobridge, p. 617). The high ground in the center of the island looked down into the division’s zone, and until the 3d Division cleared the bluffs along the boundary the 26th Marines could not advance (Bartley, pp. 123–124).
26 February: the wells
The 26th Marines attacked at 0800 on 26 February. In the center, Company F of the 2d Battalion broke a strongpoint with tanks from Company B, 5th Tank Battalion; Bartley records that for the first time the battalion could see its enemy and close with him. Along the coast, twenty armored amphibian tractors fired their 75-mm guns into cave mouths from the water until choppy seas made their fire erratic and they were ordered to stop (Bartley, pp. 124–125; Garand and Strobridge, pp. 619–620).
The division gained about 300 yards and ended the day 800 to 1,000 yards short of Hill 362A. It also took two Japanese wells, “the last ones believed to be under enemy control” (Garand and Strobridge, p. 620). That night a body of Japanese, about company strength, was seen moving toward a well near the coast, most likely for water, and artillery and naval gunfire broke it up (Bartley, p. 125; Garand and Strobridge, p. 620).
The approach to Hill 362A, 27–28 February
27 February: the 27th Marines take over
On 27 February the 27th Marines passed through the 26th and attacked at 0800 after a preparation that included corps artillery, naval guns, truck-mounted 4.5-inch rockets and carrier aircraft. In the center, the 1st Battalion ran into pillboxes; with no tanks available that morning, assault-demolition teams reduced them one at a time. In the afternoon Shermans of Company B and a flame tank of Company C carried Company C forward another 200 yards before darkness stopped them at 1915. On the left, the 2d Battalion had gained 500 yards by 1700 (Bartley, pp. 125–127). That day intelligence officers raised their estimate of the Japanese garrison to more than 20,000 (p. 127).
Gunnery Sergeant Walsh’s ridge
On the right, Company G of the 3d Battalion, 27th Marines, attacked a ridge guarding the approach to Hill 362A and was thrown back; a flanking group of about thirty men was repulsed and went up again (Garand and Strobridge, p. 622). Gunnery Sgt. William G. Walsh led an assault platoon attached to the company. His citation describes him leading his men to the top of the ridge, where a shower of Japanese grenades came over from the reverse slope and he threw himself on one that landed among his men. The ridge stayed in Marine hands (p. 622; CMOHS citation).
GySgt. William G. Walsh, Company G, 3d Battalion, 27th Marines
27 February 1945. Leading an assault platoon attached to Company G against positions guarding the approach to Hill 362, Walsh was driven back by heavy fire, then led his men up a steep slope to the ridgeline. When a grenade fell among them in a small trench during the final Japanese grenade attack, he covered it, “absorbing with his own body the full and terrific force of the explosion.” His company held the position. Born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, on 7 April 1922, he is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
Citation →28 February: the crest, and the counterattack
The 27th Marines jumped off again at 0815 on 28 February after a 45-minute preparation and reached the foot of Hill 362A about noon, where the attack stalled (Garand and Strobridge, p. 623). In the center, the 1st Battalion used its tanks well against the cross-island positions, though one Sherman threw a track during a grenade attack and had to be abandoned (Bartley, p. 128). At about 1630 a patrol from Company I, 3d Battalion, reached the crest of the hill. It was recalled, and the company pulled back about 100 yards to tie in with the 21st Marines of the 3d Division on its right. At about 1645, between 50 and 100 Japanese counterattacked the battalion’s lines. Company H took the weight of it and fought hand to hand before the attackers were driven off with heavy losses (Bartley, p. 128; Garand and Strobridge, p. 623). That night the regiment held a line about 300 yards beyond its morning start, just south of Hill 362A (Bartley, p. 131).
Pharmacist’s Mate First Class John H. Willis was a platoon corpsman in the 3d Battalion, 27th Marines. His citation places his death on 28 February, during the fight for Hill 362, in a shell hole where he was giving plasma to a wounded Marine during a Japanese counterattack. It does not name his company. It is likely, though the record does not say so directly, that this was the late-afternoon counterattack against Company H.
PhM1c John H. Willis, USN, 3d Battalion, 27th Marines
28 February 1945, Hill 362. A platoon corpsman, Willis was wounded by shrapnel, ordered back to the aid station, and returned to his company on his own. During a counterattack he went to a wounded Marine in a shell hole and gave him plasma while throwing back eight Japanese grenades; the ninth exploded in his hand and killed him. Born in Columbia, Tennessee, on 10 June 1921, he was 23. Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal presented the medal to his widow on 12 December 1945.
Citation →
Hill 362A and Nishi Ridge, 1–2 March
1 March: the 28th Marines go in
The 28th Marines, back from Suribachi, moved up through the 27th at 0630 on 1 March (Garand and Strobridge, p. 625). The preparation began at 0745, and from 0800 to 0830 a battleship and cruisers added their guns to the artillery (Bartley, p. 132). Bartley names the Nevada, Indianapolis and Pensacola among the ships firing that day. Japanese shore batteries dueled with the fire-support ships all day; the destroyer Terry was hit by a shell at 0725 and the Calhoun at 1025 (Bartley, pp. 132–133).
The regiment attacked shortly before 0900 with its three battalions abreast. By 1030 the 1st and 2d Battalions were on the ridge around Hill 362A, and the drop into the draw stopped them there (Garand and Strobridge, p. 625). Machine guns and mortars on Nishi Ridge swept the draw. In the 1st Battalion’s attempts to get down into it, the commander of Company A was killed and the commander of Company B was wounded. A tank bellied down in the soft ground near a cave and was abandoned after its guns were put out of action (pp. 625–626; Bartley, p. 133). Along the coast the 3d Battalion gained about 350 yards (Bartley, p. 133).
By dark the 5th Division held a front of about 1,000 yards along the crest of the ridge running east and west from Hill 362A (Bartley, p. 134; Garand and Strobridge, p. 626). Garand and Strobridge give the 28th Marines’ casualties in the Hill 362A action that day as 224 (p. 627); Alexander says the regiment captured the hill “at the cost of 200 casualties” (Closing In). Two men from Joe Rosenthal’s flag-raising photograph, Sgt. Michael Strank and Cpl. Harlon Block, both of the 2d Battalion, 28th Marines, were killed on 1 March.
They had interlocking bands of fire the likes of which you never saw.
2 March: across the draw
On 2 March the corps commander, Maj. Gen. Harry Schmidt, had the 5th Division put its main weight on the right to keep contact with the 3d Division, and the 26th Marines came back into the line beside the 28th. The 3d Battalion, 26th Marines, led with tanks and gained about 500 yards (Bartley, pp. 134–135).
The 1st and 2d Battalions, 28th Marines, worked around both sides of Hill 362A toward Nishi Ridge. The antitank ditch held up the tanks until an armored bulldozer and a tankdozer filled it “enough to permit passage” (Bartley, p. 136). Company E, 2d Battalion, crossed the open ground to the foot of the ridge, and the regimental report summed up what followed: “All Hell broke loose” (Garand and Strobridge, p. 629). A counterattack against the 1st Battalion was broken with 129 Japanese killed (p. 629).
Shortly after 1400, Lt. Col. Chandler W. Johnson, commanding the 2d Battalion, 28th Marines, was killed by a shell while inspecting his front lines (Garand and Strobridge, p. 629). His battalion had raised both flags on Suribachi on 23 February; Alexander writes that he died “one week after his glorious seizure of Suribachi’s summit” (Closing In). Maj. Thomas B. Pearce Jr. took command (Bartley, App. IV). By evening Companies I and F had reached the line of Nishi Ridge, and Bartley judged that “the battle for Hill 362A was over” (pp. 136–137).
The sources differ on when to call Hill 362A taken. Garand and Strobridge say the hill and the ridge to the west coast were seized by the end of 1 March (pp. 626–627); Bartley closes the battle for the hill on the evening of 2 March, after a second day of clearing its caves and the draw beyond it (p. 137). Both are right about different things: the crest was held on the 1st, and the hill was quiet only on the 2nd.
3 March: Nishi Ridge and Hill 362B
The third of March was one of the costliest days the 5th Division had on Iwo Jima. It was also, by the official historians’ measure, one of its most successful. Garand and Strobridge write that the advance that day “was almost spectacular under the conditions in which the battle was fought” (p. 631). Bartley calls it “one of RCT 26’s most successful, but at the same time most costly, attacks of the operation” (p. 139). Five Medals of Honor came out of that single day, three to men of the 26th Marines and two to men of the 28th.
Before dawn: Berry and Harrell
The fighting began in the dark. Cpl. Charles J. Berry of the 1st Battalion, 26th Marines, was in a machine-gun crew on the front line when the Japanese attacked “shortly after midnight”; he threw himself on a grenade that landed in his foxhole. The citation dates the action 3 March and does not say which night (CMOHS citation).
At dawn, Japanese infiltrators hit the command post of Company A, 1st Battalion, 28th Marines, the company that had lost its commander two days before. Sgt. William G. Harrell, holding the perimeter in front of it, fought on after losing first one hand and then the other, and survived (CMOHS citation).
Cpl. Charles J. Berry, 1st Battalion, 26th Marines
3 March 1945. A member of a machine-gun crew on the front line, Berry kept watch with his gun crew through the night. When the Japanese attacked his position shortly after midnight, he fought back with hand grenades, and when an enemy grenade landed in his foxhole he threw himself on it to protect his comrades. Born in Lorain, Ohio, on 10 July 1923.
Citation →Sgt. William G. Harrell, Company A, 1st Battalion, 28th Marines
3 March 1945, at dawn. Defending the company command post against infiltrators, Harrell killed two attackers with his carbine, kept fighting after losing his left hand and fracturing his thigh, killed a saber-wielding attacker with his pistol, and lost his right hand pushing a grenade back toward the last attacker. At least five of the twelve Japanese dead found at his position were credited to him. Born in Rio Grande City, Texas, on 26 June 1922. President Truman presented his medal at the White House on 5 October 1945.
Citation →The 28th Marines take Nishi Ridge
The 28th Marines jumped off at 0745 with tanks, 37-mm guns and 75-mm half-tracks in support. “Within two hours after the jumpoff, Nishi Ridge had been seized,” and the regiment pushed through the remnants of Nishi village to about 200 yards beyond it (Garand and Strobridge, p. 630). Company H of the 3d Battalion relieved Company B of the 1st Battalion at 1100 and by 1230 had lost so many men that Company B went back in. “Casualties mounted fast as they drove through the maze of enemy emplacements hidden in the rugged terrain” (Bartley, p. 138).
Pharmacist’s Mate Third Class Jack Williams, a corpsman with the 3d Battalion, 28th Marines, had landed with the assault waves on 19 February (Sobocinski, BUMED). He was 20 when he was mortally wounded on 3 March (CMOHS citation).
PhM3c Jack Williams, USNR, 3d Battalion, 28th Marines
3 March 1945. Going forward during a grenade battle to a wounded Marine, Williams shielded the man with his body while giving first aid and was struck three times by rifle fire. He bandaged his own wounds, cared for another casualty, and was shot by a sniper while trying to reach the rear for aid. Born in Harrison, Arkansas, on 18 October 1924; buried at Springfield National Cemetery, Missouri.
Citation →
The 26th Marines: 600 yards and Hill 362B
On the right, Company F, 2d Battalion, 26th Marines, with tanks of Company B, advanced more than 600 yards and closed a horseshoe-shaped bend in the line (Garand and Strobridge, p. 631). Alexander quotes its commander, Capt. Frank C. Caldwell, who called it the worst single day of the battle for his company: 47 casualties, “including the first sergeant and the last of the original platoon commanders” (Closing In). Its corpsman in the 1st Platoon was Pharmacist’s Mate Second Class George E. Wahlen, already wounded twice.
PhM2c George E. Wahlen, USN, Company F, 2d Battalion, 26th Marines
26 February to 3 March 1945. Painfully wounded on 26 February, Wahlen stayed on the field; wounded again on 2 March, he refused evacuation. On 3 March he went forward with his company across 600 yards of open ground, treating fourteen casualties before rejoining his own platoon. Wounded a third time and unable to walk, he crawled 50 yards to treat another Marine. Born in Ogden, Utah, on 8 August 1924. President Truman presented his medal on 5 October 1945.
Citation →Farther right, Companies D and E of the 2d Battalion relieved the 3d Battalion, 9th Marines, near Hill 362B by 1430. “The bloody assault to the crest of rough and craggy 362B was launched at 1600,” with rocket launchers, flamethrowers and demolitions; both company commanders were wounded (Bartley, pp. 140–141). In the 3d Battalion, Pfc. William R. Caddy of Company I was killed that day covering a grenade in a shell hole (CMOHS citation, as reproduced by the Naval Historical Center).
Pfc. William R. Caddy, Company I, 3d Battalion, 26th Marines
3 March 1945. Pinned in a shell hole by snipers with his platoon leader and another Marine, Caddy exchanged grenades with the enemy until a Japanese grenade landed beyond reach in the hole. He covered it with his body and absorbed the blast, saving the two men with him. Born in Quincy, Massachusetts, on 8 August 1925.
Citation →The cost of 3 March
At day’s end the line ran west from Hill 362B along the northern edge of the Motoyama Plateau to the coast, about 200 yards north of Nishi (Bartley, p. 141). The 26th Marines alone had 8 officers and 273 enlisted men hit, not counting attached units (p. 139 n. 37). For the division, Garand and Strobridge count 9 officers and 127 men killed or dead of wounds and 15 officers and 357 men wounded (p. 631); Alexander rounds the day to “500 Marine casualties.”
One day: 3 March 1945
Casualties reported for 3 March. The rows overlap: the 26th Marines and Company F are part of the division totals, so do not add them.
The corpsmen’s war
Marine rifle companies had no medics of their own. Their medical men were Navy hospital corpsmen, rated pharmacist’s mates, attached down to the platoon. André B. Sobocinski, historian of the Navy’s Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, writes that over the 36 days 332 corpsmen were killed or died of wounds and 659 were wounded badly enough to be evacuated. In six battalions corpsman casualties passed 50 percent, and in one they passed 68 percent. Corpsmen received 14 Navy Crosses, 108 Silver Stars and 287 Bronze Stars (Sobocinski, BUMED, 2023).
Four of the 27 Medals of Honor for Iwo Jima went to corpsmen (NHHC, H-Gram 042). Three were earned on the west side within five days; the fourth, Francis J. Pierce, is in the next chapter. Each of the three went to the wounded where they fell and kept treating them after he was hit himself.
The west side, 25 February to 8 March
- An air observer brings three 13th Marines battalions down on a Japanese artillery column moving in daylight.
- The 26th Marines attack; about 300 yards gained and the last two Japanese-held wells taken.
- The 27th Marines pass through. GySgt. William G. Walsh is killed covering a grenade on the ridge guarding Hill 362A.
- A Company I patrol reaches the crest of Hill 362A and is recalled. At about 1645, 50 to 100 Japanese counterattack Company H. PhM1c John H. Willis is killed.
- The 1st and 2d Battalions, 28th Marines, reach the ridge around Hill 362A and face Nishi Ridge across the draw.
- Lt. Col. Chandler W. Johnson, 2d Battalion, 28th Marines, is killed. Engineers blast 68 caves. At 1700 the corps orders consolidation.
- Cpl. Charles J. Berry is killed covering a grenade; Sgt. William G. Harrell holds the Company A, 1/28 command post.
- The 28th Marines jump off and take Nishi Ridge within two hours, then push through the ruins of Nishi village.
- PhM3c Jack Williams is mortally wounded; Pfc. William R. Caddy is killed covering a grenade; Company F, 2/26, advances more than 600 yards.
- Companies D and E, 2d Battalion, 26th Marines, assault the crest of Hill 362B. PhM2c George E. Wahlen is wounded a third time.
- A Japanese demolition blows up a knoll north of Nishi village under the Marines on top of it: 43 casualties.
- The corps orders the capture of the rest of the island; the 27th Marines drive for the northern coast.
Grinding north, 4–8 March
Exhausted regiments
The 4th of March brought mortar fire along the whole front, low clouds that cancelled an air strike, and a net gain the division reported as “practically nil” (Alexander, Closing In). Bartley’s strength figures show why. The 26th Marines had landed 3,256 men; on 4 March they had 2,153 effectives, and 464 replacements had joined. The 28th Marines, even after 322 replacements, rated their combat efficiency at 40 percent (Bartley, p. 142).
On 5 March the 5th Tank Battalion had 35 tanks running, three of them flame tanks (Bartley, p. 142). Lt. Col. John A. Butler, commanding the 1st Battalion, 27th Marines, was killed when a high-velocity shell struck his jeep near Road Junction 338; Bartley’s text places it on 5 March and his command list on 4 March (p. 143; App. IV).
On the other side, Kuribayashi moved his headquarters during these days to a cave between Hiraiwa Bay and the ruins of Kita village (Garand and Strobridge, p. 633); by 10 March, they write, it was in the northwestern part of the island. That was the ground the 5th Division would spend the rest of March reducing.
6 March: a full preparation, small gains
On 6 March the corps attacked behind a two-phase artillery preparation beginning at 0750, with naval gunfire and twelve carrier close-support missions (Bartley, p. 143). Artillery ammunition was now allotted: 2,500 rounds of 105-mm and 1,500 of 75-mm for the division for 24 hours (p. 144). Of 40 napalm bombs carried by carrier planes, 7 failed to release and 7 of the 33 dropped did not ignite (p. 145). The 26th and 27th Marines gained 50 to 100 yards (Garand and Strobridge, p. 634), while the 3d Battalions of the 28th and 27th made about 500 yards along the northwest coast (Bartley, p. 145).
7–8 March: the knoll, and the turn north
On 7 March the 1st Battalion, 26th Marines, and Company H of the 3d Battalion reached the top of a 30-foot knoll just north of Nishi village. As Marines gathered on the crest, the Japanese inside set off a charge, apparently destroying their own command post, and the explosion caused 43 Marine casualties. Capt. Donald E. Castle of Company H gathered the survivors and attacked again (Garand and Strobridge, pp. 635–636). On 8 March the corps ordered its divisions to capture the rest of the island, and the 27th Marines drove toward the northern coast (Bartley, pp. 145–146). That day’s fighting belongs to a later chapter.
People
Maj. Gen. Keller E. Rockey had commanded the 5th Marine Division since February 1944 (Alexander, Closing In). His infantry colonels were Chester B. Graham of the 26th, Thomas A. Wornham of the 27th and Harry B. Liversedge of the 28th. Battalion commanders fared worse: besides Johnson and Butler, the 26th Marines had lost Lt. Col. Tom M. Trotti, killed on 22 February, and Lt. Col. Joseph P. Sayers, wounded on 23 February (Bartley, App. IV).
Of the seven Medal of Honor men in this chapter, five died earning the medal. Two lived. Harrell lost both hands; Wahlen left the Navy in 1945, later served in the Army, and died in 2009 at the age of 84. The Department of Veterans Affairs medical center in Salt Lake City is named for him (Sobocinski, BUMED). Both men received their medals from President Truman at the White House on 5 October 1945 (CMOHS citations). Willis left a widow, Winifred, and a newborn son (Sobocinski, BUMED).
On the Japanese side, Garand and Strobridge identify elements of Col. Ikeda’s 145th Infantry Regiment in the northern pocket by 10 March. They record that the defenders fought to the end under Kuribayashi’s orders, and they describe local counterattacks such as the one by 50 to 100 men against Company H on 28 February (pp. 623, 642). Beyond that, the American histories give few Japanese names or unit identities for the west side, and most of the men in the caves of Hill 362A and Nishi Ridge appear only as numbers in Marine reports.
The civilians of Nishi were gone before the Marines arrived. In 1944 the Japanese armed forces ordered about 7,000 of the roughly 8,000 civilians on the Ogasawara Islands and Iwo Jima evacuated to the home islands. Most men aged 16 to 60 were kept back to work for the military, and when the Marines landed 103 civilians were working on Iwo Jima in military roles; the historian Ishihara Shun writes that only 10 of the mobilized islanders survived (Ishihara, nippon.com, 2018). The former residents of Nishi, Motoyama, Kita and Minami have never been allowed to go back.
Losses and uncertainty
Bartley gives the 5th Marine Division’s casualties from 25 February to 10 March (D+6 to D+19) as 830 killed in action, 263 dead of wounds, 2,974 wounded, 5 missing and 220 combat fatigue cases, a total of 4,292 (Bartley, p. 148). Garand and Strobridge give a cumulative figure: “As of D plus 12, total casualties for the division since D-Day numbered 4,960 officers and men” (p. 631). The two figures cover different periods and should not be compared directly or added.
5th Marine Division casualties, 25 February to 10 March 1945
Casualties by category for the division’s drive up the west side (D+6 to D+19).
Smaller figures disagree in the usual ways. For Hill 362A, Garand and Strobridge give 224 casualties in the 28th Marines and Alexander about 200. For 3 March, the division count totals 508, which Alexander gives as 500 and elsewhere as “more than 500.” Butler’s death is dated both 4 and 5 March.
Japanese losses survive only as American counts. Garand and Strobridge give an estimate of 3,252 Japanese killed in the 5th Division’s zone by the end of 1 March (p. 626) and 8,073 enemy dead counted in its sector by 10 March. Prisoners were few: by 10 March the whole corps had taken 111, of whom 67 were Japanese and 44 Korean laborers (Bartley, p. 148). These counts were made under fire, and it is likely that some dead were estimated or counted twice; they are best read as the Marines’ estimates rather than as a measure of the garrison.
Questions readers ask
Why were there three Hills 362?
Three separate hills on the Marine maps carried the same number, so the planners and the troops told them apart as 362A, 362B and 362C (Alexander, Closing In). Hill 362A and Hill 362B were in the 5th Division’s zone on the west side; Hill 362C, in the 3d Division’s zone farther east, is covered in the next chapter.
Why did three Medals of Honor go to Navy men in a Marine fight?
Because the Marines’ medics were Navy hospital corpsmen, attached to the rifle platoons. Willis, Wahlen and Williams were all corpsmen serving with Marine battalions. Four of the 27 Medals of Honor for Iwo Jima went to corpsmen, and 332 corpsmen were killed or died of wounds in the battle (NHHC, H-Gram 042; Sobocinski, BUMED).
Were men from the flag-raising photograph killed here?
Yes. Sgt. Michael Strank and Cpl. Harlon Block, both pictured in Rosenthal’s photograph of the second flag on Suribachi, were killed on 1 March, the day the 28th Marines took Hill 362A. Their battalion commander, Chandler Johnson, was killed the next day.
How it connects
The 5th Division’s drive could not go faster than the fight in the center, described in the previous chapter, The Meat Grinder. Taking Hill 362A and Nishi Ridge broke the western end of the main cross-island line, and Hill 362B gave the corps the northern edge of the plateau. The next chapter, To the Sea, follows the 3d Division through Hill 362C and Cushman’s Pocket to the northeast coast. For the battle as a whole, return to the Battle of Iwo Jima hub.
What happened afterward
Bartley measures the 5th Division’s gain from 25 February to 10 March at about 3,000 yards up the west coast (p. 148). Beyond Nishi lay Kita village, the high ground running southeast from Kitano Point, and the northwestern ground where Kuribayashi now had his headquarters. On 9 March Duryea of the 1st Battalion, 27th Marines, and Maj. John W. Antonelli of the 2d were badly wounded by a land mine, and by 10 March the 13th Marines had put ten percent of their artillerymen on one hour’s notice to serve as infantry (Bartley, p. 147). The division would end its battle in what Alexander calls “The Gorge” (Closing In).
Walking the ground today
Iwo Jima, now officially Iwo To, is a Japan Self-Defense Forces base and is closed to the public; Hill 362A, Nishi Ridge and the site of Nishi village lie inside it. Americans usually reach the island only for the annual Reunion of Honor, a joint American and Japanese memorial ceremony held each spring. At home, the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Virginia, modeled on Rosenthal’s photograph, stands near Arlington National Cemetery, where Gunnery Sgt. Walsh is buried, and the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle, Virginia, covers Iwo Jima in its World War II galleries. Check current arrangements before planning any visit.
Sources and further reading
- Lt. Col. Whitman S. Bartley, Iwo Jima: Amphibious Epic (USMC Historical Branch, 1954), ch. VII, “5th Division on the Left (D+6–D+19),” pp. 123–148: HyperWar text.
- Bartley, ch. I, “Background” (civilian population, villages and terrain, pp. 3–5): HyperWar text; Appendix IV, “Command and Staff List”: HyperWar text; Appendix VIII, “Medal of Honor Winners”: HyperWar text.
- George W. Garand and Truman R. Strobridge, Western Pacific Operations, History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II, vol. IV (1971), Part VI, ch. 9, “The 5th Marine Division Drive on the Left,” pp. 616–642: HyperWar text.
- Col. Joseph H. Alexander, Closing In: Marines in the Seizure of Iwo Jima (USMC History and Museums Division, 1994): Project Gutenberg text; HyperWar text.
- Naval History and Heritage Command, H-Gram 042, “Iwo Jima”: history.navy.mil.
- André B. Sobocinski, “The Hospital Corpsmen of Iwo Jima: Stories of Valor and Sacrifice,” U.S. Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, 17 February 2023: med.navy.mil; also at DVIDS.
- Congressional Medal of Honor Society, citations for GySgt. William G. Walsh, PhM1c John H. Willis, Cpl. Charles J. Berry, Pfc. William R. Caddy, Sgt. William G. Harrell, PhM2c George E. Wahlen and PhM3c Jack Williams; and the society’s Iwo Jima list.
- Naval Historical Center Online Library photograph pages (HyperWar mirror): George E. Wahlen, John H. Willis, Jack Williams and William R. Caddy.
- The National WWII Museum, “Private First Class William R. Caddy’s Medal of Honor”: nationalww2museum.org.
- Ishihara Shun, “A Modern History of the Ogasawara Islands: Migration, Diversity, and War,” nippon.com, 26 June 2018 (civilian evacuation of 1944): nippon.com.
Photographs: U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Navy photographs, National Archives and Naval History and Heritage Command (Naval Historical Center), public domain. The portraits of Willis and Williams are halftones from the Navy’s official publication Medal of Honor, 1861–1949; the Wahlen presentation photograph is 80-G-701151.
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