"A Marine sergeant boasted 'Well boys. There it is ... Iwo Jima. Hell. We’ll be in there and out in a couple of days and then we can go home.' Neither he or myself could have known the ugly truth.
We were with the second assault wave going in when a Japanese artillery shell overturned us in the water. I had a simple choice – shed my 60 pounds of combat gear or risk drowning. There were a lot of Marines who never got to see any action. They were killed before they made it in. That first day, we didn't go that far. They had pinned us down for almost 20 hours. When we could move ahead, it took us four days to get to that first airstrip. I initially landed with 300 Marines and by the time the airstrip was secure, only 17 Americans were left including myself.
One night, a friend had to urinate so I suggested that he crawl out from under the tarp. As he was crawling out, he took a bullet to the neck and I dragged his body back into cover. As he bled out, he asked me to please contact his parents. He gave me a number and address...that was how it went. The fellows would gather up so many souvenirs. We would go up to dead or wounded Japanese to kick or stomp their heads to knock loose the gold from their mouths and collect the teeth in tobacco pouches.
On the 7th day, I was sitting on top of an amphibious tractor loaded down with ammunition when the vehicle treads crossed over two land mines. The twin explosions decimated the LVT and killed 11 men instantly. There was nothing left. It left behind a crater the size of a small house. There were only two survivors – myself and a fellow Marine. What saved me was I was leaning over the side of the LVT. My back was broken and I was left naked on the black sand. Every stitch of clothing had been ripped from my body except for a sock. Even my dog tags went missing. I lost all hearing in my left ear. Marines searching for survivors found me prone and apparently lifeless. Just then, I moved and a sniper fired and the bullet went through my arm. They rescued me and a landing craft came by to move me to relative safety aboard a nearby hospital ship." Cpl. Richard L. Brown, 4th Marine Div, Iwo Jima, Feb 1945. #stayzero #ww2