Chapter IV: Part 4

26th Marines Col Chester B. Graham
1/26 LtCol Daniel C. Pollock
2/26 LtCol Joseph P. Sayers
3/26 LtCol Tom M. Trotti
27th Marines Col Thomas A. Wornham
1/27 LtCol John A. Butler
2/27 Maj John W. Antonelli
3/27 LtCol Donn J. Robertson
28th Marines Col Harry B. Liversedge
1/28 LtCol Jackson B. Butterfield
2/28 LtCol Chandler W. Johnson
3/28 LtCol Charles E. Shepard, Jr.

[Note: Of those infantry battalion commanders who landed on Iwo Jima on D-Day, only seven remained unwounded and still retained command at the battle’s end.] ]

_Sources_

The official records of the V Amphibious Corps at Iwo Jima occupy 27 boxes in the USMC archives. Within this maze, the most useful information can be found in the “comments and recommendations” sections of the After Action Reports filed by the major units. The best published official account of the battle is contained in George W. Garand and Truman R. Strobridge, _Western Pacific Operations_, vol IV, _History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II_ (Washington: Historical Division, HQMC, 1971). Three other official accounts are recommended: LtCol Whitman S. Bartley, _Iwo Jima: Amphibious Epic_ (Washington: Historical Division, 1954); Capt Clifford P. Morehouse, _The Iwo Jima Operation_, and Bernard C. Nalty, _The U.S. Marines on Iwo Jima: The Battle and the Flag Raising_ (Washington: Historical Branch, G-3 Division, HQMC, 1960). Chapter 10 of Jeter A. Isely and Philip A. Crowl, _The U.S. Marines and Amphibious War_ (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1951), combines exhaustive research and keen analysis of the assault on Iwo. Three of the many postwar published accounts are particularly recommended: Richard F. Newcomb, _Iwo Jima_ (New York: Bantam, 1982); Richard Wheeler, _Iwo Jima_ (New York: Crowell, 1980); and Bill D. Ross, _Iwo Jima: Legacy of Valor_ (New York: Vanguard Press, 1985).

The most comprehensive Japanese account is contained in Part II (“Ogasawara Islands Defense Operations”) in _Chubu Taiheyo rikugen sakusen (2)_ [Army Operations in the Central Pacific, vol II], part of the _Senshi Sosho_ War History Series. Of Japanese accounts in English, the best is Major Yoshitaka Horie’s “Explanation of Japanese Defense Plan and Battle of Iwo Jima,” written in 1946 and available at the Marine Corps Historical Center (MCHC).

The MCHC maintains an abundance of personal accounts related to Iwo Jima. Among the most valuable of these are the Iwo Jima comments in the Princeton Papers Collection in the Personal Papers Section. The Marine Corps Oral History Collection contains 36 well-indexed memoirs of Iwo Jima participants. The research library contains a limited edition of _Dear Progeny_, the autobiography of Dr. Michael F. Keleher, the battalion surgeon credited with saving the life of “Jumping Joe” Chambers on D+3. The Personal Papers Section also holds the papers of TSgt Frederick K. Dashiell, Lt John K. McLean, and Lt Eugene T. Petersen. For an increased insight, the author also conducted personal interviews with 41 Iwo veterans.

The author wishes to acknowledge the contributions of Marvin Taylor of the Marine Rocket Troops Association; Helen McDonald of the Admiral Nimitz Museum: Frederick and Thomas Dashiell; LtCol Joseph McNamara, USMCR; BGen James D. Hittle, USMC (Ret); Mr. Bunichi Ohtsuka; and the entire staff of the Marine Corps Historical Center, whose collective “can-do” spirit was personified by the late Regina Strother, photograph archivist.

_About the Author_

Colonel Joseph H. Alexander, USMC (Ret), served 29 years on active duty in the Marine Corps as an assault amphibian officer, including two tours in Vietnam. He is a distinguished graduate of the Naval War College and holds degrees in history from North Carolina, Georgetown, and Jacksonville. He is a life member of both the Marine Corps Historical Foundation and the Naval Institute, a member of the Society for Military History, the Military Order of the World Wars, and the North Carolina Writers’ Workshop.

Colonel Alexander, an independent historian, wrote _Across the Reef: The Marine Assault on Tarawa_ in this series. He is co-author (with Lieutenant Colonel Merrill L. Bartlett) of _Sea Soldiers in the Cold War_ (Naval Institute Press, 1994) and the author of “Utmost Savagery: the Amphibious Seizure of Tarawa” (Naval Institute Press, pending). He has also written numerous feature essays published in _Marine Corps Gazette_, _Naval Institute Proceedings_, _Naval History_, _Leatherneck_, _Amphibious Warfare Review_, _World War Two_, and _Florida Historical Quarterly_.

THIS PAMPHLET HISTORY, one in a series devoted to U.S. Marines in the World War II era, is published for the education and training of Marines by the History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, Washington, D.C., as a part of the U.S. Department of Defense observance of the 50th anniversary of victory in that war.

Editorial costs of preparing this pamphlet have been defrayed in part by a grant from the Marine Corps Historical Foundation.

WORLD WAR II COMMEMORATIVE SERIES

_DIRECTOR OF MARINE CORPS HISTORY AND MUSEUMS_
=Brigadier General Edwin H. Simmons, USMC (Ret)=

_GENERAL EDITOR,
WORLD WAR II COMMEMORATIVE SERIES_
=Benis M. Frank=

_CARTOGRAPHIC CONSULTANT_
=George C. MacGillivray=

_EDITING AND DESIGN SECTION, HISTORY AND MUSEUMS DIVISION_
=Robert E. Struder=, Senior Editor;
=W. Stephen Hill=, Visual Information Specialist
=Catherine A. Kerns=, Composition Services Technician

Marine Corps Historical Center
Building 58, Washington Navy Yard
Washington, D.C. 20374-5040

1994

PCN 190 003131 00

Transcriber’s Notes

Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.

Simple typographical errors and unbalanced quotation marks were corrected.

To make this eBook easier to read, particularly on handheld devices, some images have been made relatively larger than in the original pamphlet, and centered, rather than offset to one side or the other; and some were placed a little earlier or later than in the original. Sidebars in the original have been repositioned between chapters and identified as “[Sidebar (page nn):”, where the page reference is to the original location in the source book. In the Plain Text version, the matching closing right bracket follows the last line of the Sidebar’s text and is on a separate line to make it more noticeable. In the HTML versions, that bracket follows the colon, and each Sidebar is displayed within a box.

Sidebar “The Marines’ Zippo Tanks” (originally on page 37) used both “Mark I” and “Mark 1”. Here, all of them are “Mark I”.

Page 47: “D-4” may be a misprint for “G-4”.