World War II, Ray Porter - Part Two
When we left the story of Marine Corporal Ray Porter, he and the crew had just learned that their destination was Iwo Jima. This island, midway between Saipan and Japan was heavily fortified. Its mountain, Mt. Surabachi, was honeycombed with caves, tunnels and fortified positions. Surrounding the mountain were 750 pill boxes and block houses fortified with six foot concrete walls, in front were oilcans filled with sand and trunks of coconut palms. Iwo Jima was an important target because it had an excellent air strip which could service crippled planes on their way back from bombing Japan and provide a base for the B-29’s. The Japanese had barracks in Mt. Surabachi which were carved out of the mountain for a depth of 9 stories.
Considering the size of the objective, eight square mile, rocky, volcanic island, the force assigned to capture and develop Iwo Jima (Sulfur Island) was tremendous. An armada of 800 vessels, including 8 battleships and 12 aircraft carriers was on hand. There were 70,647 Marines and a total expeditionary force of 111,308 men. Counting the crews of the ships, the total force was over 250,000 men. The allotted time for capturing Iwo Jima was two weeks; it took five!
Porter’s unit was up at 3 AM the morning of February 19th, 1945. It was traditional to serve steak and eggs to the troops before a landing, but in this case, the marines had to settle for potatoes mixed with reconstituted dried eggs. Everyone in the unit applied heavy white skin cream to their faces, to be prepared for flame throwers.
This great armada was assembled in a particular order about one half mile off shore , and the battleship Tennessee dropped a white flag as a signal for the invasion to begin. As Porter’s tank lumbered off the ramp of the LST, it was at first on pontoons a half a mile from shore. It used its tracks like paddle wheels through the pontoons to make its way through water. Then it found traction in the sand. It was in the first wave to hit Red Beach at 9:01 AM. It soon came under heavy fire. Trenches dug behind the beaches made going difficult. A Bangalor torpedo mine, which is about the length of a baseball bat, hit the tracks of their tank, stopping it from any forward movement. The three men had to escape through a trap door in the bottom of the tank and make their way as infantry of the 5th Marine Division.
The massive shelling from the battleships, cruisers, destroyers and the heavy bombing from the Air Force had done little damage to the Japanese in their fortified positions. The guns were all focussed in on the invasion beaches. The Red Beach was soon covered with dead marines and their blood stained the ocean for several feet off shore.
Porter does not want to go into the details of the fighting there. So many of his good buddies were killed. The statistics tell the story. Out of thirty-two men in his unit, only seven came off the island alive. (Today only two of them are living.) Twenty-five per cent of the unit had been killed by the second day. He was made platoon sergeant by the third day, as all the sergeants had been killed. After two days the Marines had succeeded in cutting the Japanese defenses in two. Porter was fifty yards down the hill when the Marines placed the famous, much photographed flag on Mount Surabachi, Iwo Jima. Flame throwers and bazookas proved to be the most effective weapon in routing the Japanese defenders from the caves in Mount Suribachi. Some entrances were sealed by earth-moving blades mounted on tanks.
After the caves and bunkers had been taken, Iwo Jima was still a dangerous place for the Marines. Japanese snipers were hidden in “spider traps” all around the island. A spider trap was a small hole in the ground which was covered by a camouflaged trap door. These sharpshooters would pick off drivers of trucks and other personnel. Ray Porter was an excellent shot and received 5 dollars extra pay a month as a marksman. He was on a patrol looking for the spider trap snipers when a sniper shot the bill of his cap off and creased his left eyebrow. A very few millimeters closer would have been fatal. His Guardian Angel was with him again. With a bandage from a medical corpsman, he continued to carry on.
To be continued
– Percy