I’ve gotta admit: when we finally landed, there was a pretty good show erupting both up and down the beach. Mike boats (LCM) are big amphibious landing craft, capable of carrying a small mechanized fighting vehicle or up to eighty fully combat loaded troops ashore. The noise alone would have driven any Japanese patrol out on the beach running for cover, even if the Mike boats didn’t actually land. They had heavy machine guns and were happily sweeping the beaches with them. Just offshore, two destroyers added to the din by firing 40mm and 20mm anti-aircraft guns up and down the beaches as well as up into the nearby dunes and the first row of those low hills.
We jumped out of our LCVP, climbed the black terrace, and hustled up into the dunes behind the actual beach, where we crouched down into the warm black sand. Goon then signaled for Twitch to take the lead—there had to be minefields out here. We followed him inland for a few hundred yards, detouring when he raised his magic finger, and then turned left toward the northernmost point of the island, where there was a prominent headland created by a short, sharp ridge maybe forty feet high. We could see as long as the diversion was going on, but when it stopped abruptly the entire area went dark.
We dropped to the ground and waited. Where were the nightly flares, I wondered. Then I remembered that the enemy had been pushed all the way back into the last half mile at the northern end of the island. Goon said that the rest of the island had been declared “secured” for publicity purposes, although every Marine ashore knew that was bullshit. They were resisting so hard that we were still losing dozens of men every hour. Hence our mission: get behind them and then call down sufficiently precise fire that we could break the back of that fanatic, fight-to-the-last-man, die-with-maximum-honor resistance.
I’d made one request to the colonel before we decamped for the beach and our waiting LCVP. Move a battleship way offshore, ten, twelve, even fifteen miles, so that her shells would come in as plunging fire. If the northern end of the island was going to be their last line of organized resistance, that had to be because they’d gone really deep, well beyond the reach of offshore destroyers and Marine artillery tubes, and possibly even eight-inch. They’d had twenty thousand shovels available for the last two or three years.
“We need us a cave,” Goon told us. “Let’s creep along that ridge over there, listen for patrols. If we can catch one in or near their hidey-hole, we’ll kill them all and then make it our hidey-hole.”
By then we were only able to distinguish between empty space and boulders, dunes, and ridges. It was still so dark that we couldn’t see much of anything, but we could listen. There was the usual mutter of gunfire and even some artillery to the south of us, but up here, at the northern end, it seemed as if nothing was moving. And for a change, it was cold. Surprisingly cold.
Offshore we saw the ghostly shapes of some wrecked amphibious craft, barely visible in the gloom. One looked like an LCI; the others were unidentifiable. What had they been doing up here, I wondered. We’d gone about a hundred yards, advancing on our bellies through the stinking warm sand, burnt brush, and lava rocks, when we heard indistinct voices. A low ridge cast a black shadow in front of us, featureless in the darkness.
Goon froze, as did we all. Then the voices became more distinct—definitely Japanese, and arguing. Maybe they weren’t, I thought. A lot of Japanese dialogue I’d listened to in training sounded like the men talking were about to pull swords and go at it. Again, I tried to remember if I’d charged my new Thompson. Typical squid mistake, I told myself—no Marine would have failed to do that. Ridiculous, after all this. I checked. I had.
I realized that where I was crouching the ground was getting hotter. Not burn-you hot, but enough to make me want to move. I knew better. In the dark, movement meant noise. This was not the time to make noise. The squabbling—if that’s what it was—continued. At least the air was cleaner—the close-quarters fighting hadn’t reached here yet, so that sickening stench of dead bodies was missing. The sulfurous fumes, however, were still with us. Goon had told me that that was a good thing. To the Japanese, who took baths sometimes twice a day, foreigners always stank, although here on Iwo, I doubted anyone was getting a bath. We were all grateful to get drinking water, never mind a bath. But if the sulfur kept them from detecting that gaijiin were nearby, I was all for it.
Goon’s helmet was suddenly touching mine. “They’re in a cave or a tunnel,” he whispered. “We need to take it. The boys’n me’re gonna creep up there, throw some grenades. You wait right here. Anyone shows up, you grease ’em, hear? Now—find you a rock.”
“Find me a rock, sir,” I said.
“What I meant,” he said, with an invisible grin.
He melded silently into the gloom before I had a chance to ask any questions, so I made like a snake and went looking for a large rock as quietly as I could. I finally blundered into one and then froze when I heard what sounded like a human voice on the other side, muttering something—in Japanese. My blood ran cold—was this a sentry? Was he talking to another sentry, or just grumbling to himself? I could feel the rock, but I couldn’t see it, even when my helmet could almost touch it. It felt pretty solid to my bare fingers. My Thompson was slung, barrel down, across my back. I needed to get it ready to work.
I heard the sentry shift his position on the other side of the rock, which I hoped again was a big-ass boulder, not just a rock. I began to unsling my weapon as carefully as I could by dropping one shoulder and tugging silently on the muzzle. The damned thing caught up on anything and everything projecting from my uniform, but I finally had it on the ground and was able to grip it with both sweaty hands. Make sure, I said to myself. I felt for the bolt. Open. I knew the rate-of-fire lever would be in the full auto position. The whole point of the weapon was to put a stream of .45 caliber bullets going many, many feet per second downrange. I put a finger on the muzzle and wiped a little bit of sand and grit off it. I exhaled quietly. C’mon Goon—light ’em up.
Goon must have heard me, as five bright yellow flashes erupted somewhere up ahead followed by the sound of grenades going off in quick succession. I got to my knees and raised my Tommy. I heard an exclamation from the other side of the rock and then a scrambling noise as the sentry came bursting out from behind it. He popped out so quickly that I had to shoot him in the back with a quick burst.
“Remember Pearl Harbor,” I muttered as he went flat, only momentarily visible in the gun flashes, his back a mass of blood and exposed, shattered backbone. Then it was dark again and my eyes were truly night-blind. Goon and Twitch were there in an instant. Goon almost tripped over the dead sentry; he snapped on a red-lens flashlight.
“All right, Loot,” he said. “Where’d this fuck come from?”
“He was hiding behind my rock,” I said.
“Your rock.” Twitch laughed. “Damn right.”
“C’mon,” Goon said. “We need to clean up our tunnel. Nice one, Loot. Nice one.”
It didn’t feel like a nice one, but I knew it had been necessary. I had finally confirmed to myself that delivering tons of high explosives onto the enemy’s heads from the bowels of a battleship was worlds away different from shooting another human being in the back with a Thompson submachine gun and then stepping over the bloody result as if it wasn’t even there. Goon would have said simply: don’t sweat it, Loot.