Marines fighting on Okinawa not only fought the enemy on the ground, but also underground, as the Japanese hid in caves and tunnels. Howard Beasley describes how difficult it was to root out an enemy that lived and fought in tunnels.
Howard Beasley
After the landings on Iwo Jima, Jim Blane had the unenviable task of collecting bodies and body parts from the surf and bringing them to the beach for identification, and to clear the way for subsequent waves of Marines to land and join the fight.
Jim blane
In the early days of World War II, the Marines often didn’t get the best pilots for their small air wing. John Brown was a tail gunner for a particularly poor pilot who ditched his plane in the ocean five times, and was lucky to survive the experience.
John Brown
Even the first few hours of combat can harden men to extraordinary situations. During the invasion of the Marshalls, John Greaves describes how on his first landing, he quickly became numb to the carnage around him.
John Greaves
A veteran of multiple amphiious landings as a Marine Raider, Ben Hartman found out that Japanese resistance during the invasion of Guam would prove tougher than any of his previous landings.
Ben Hartman
The raising of the flag on Iwo Jima’s Mount Suribachi is the iconic moment of the Pacific War. Before that occurred, Marines like Jack Thurman had to fight their way to the top, clearing its caves of Japanese soldiers dug in deep inside the mountain.
Jack Thurman
Even after Japanese-held islands were taken by American forces, there were still Japanese soldiers holding out in the jungle, fending for themselves after the battles ended. Jim Van Buskirk tels of how close the holdout Japanese on Tinian would get to American bases.
Jim Van Buskirk
Infantry observer William Vickers went ashore in the invasion of Peleiliu, one of the toughest days the Marines had before Iwo Jima. He tells about how the initial landings unfolded.
William Vickers
Don Whipple‘s first taste of combat came on day one of the invasion of Iwo Jima. Fresh out of training with other green troops, he tells when it began to sink in that it wouldn’t be like the repetitive training exercises they had become bored with.