The Spearhead: The 5th Marine Division in World War II: [Part One]

By Howard M. Conner

The story of the 5th Marine Division centers around their participation and victory in the bloody battle for the island of Iwo Jima. Extremely detailed and richly illustrated this history is a fascinating and gripping account of one of the bloodiest battles of modern times.

The 5th Marine Division was a United States Marine Corps ground combat division which was activated on 11 November 1943 (officially activated on 21 January 1944) at Camp Pendleton, California during World War II. The 5th Division saw its first combat action during the Battle of Iwo Jima in 1945 where it sustained the highest number of casualties of the three Marine divisions of the V Amphibious Corps (invasion force). The 5th Division was to be part of the planned invasion of the Japan homeland before Japan surrendered. Assault troops of the 5th Division were included in the Presidential Unit Citation awarded to the V Amphibious Corps for extraordinary heroism on Iwo Jima from 19 to 28 February 1945.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barakaldo Books
• Release date: May 8, 2020
• ISBN: 9781839744686

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The Spearhead

THE WORLD WAR II HISTORY OF THE

5th Marine Division

BY

HOWARD M. CONNER

Infantry Journal Press Washington D.C.

...THE COMMANDING GENERAL desires to lake this opportunity to extend to the officers and men of the Division a well done for its part in the prosecution of the war...In the Iwo Jima operation, and in the occupation of the Japanese homeland, the 5th Marine Division, by its execution of assigned missions, exhibited beyond any doubt that its success was derived from a well trained, and well led professional team. The officers and men...may take pride in the knowledge that they have played an important role in ultimately defeating the enemy...in keeping with the highest tradition of the U.S. Marine Corps...

LIEUTENANT-GENERAL ROY S. GEIGER

COMMANDING GENERAL, FMFPAC

ALL LIVING MARINES of the 5th Marine Division share a high sense of pride in what their Division did in Pacific battle. All share it—those who helped build the 5th but did not fight with it, those who joined it as its own D-day neared, and those who served more briefly after its battles were done. And all of the 5th who live remember the fighting spirit of those who died.

The 5th Marine Division was granted the boon of adequate time for combat training. It was able to train into an efficient battle team at places where every aid to that grim growth of power could be made available. From its earliest days to the hour of its disbandment, I found the 5th to possess and maintain a high standard of military performance and an esprit exceptionally fine.

And when the 5th Division entered combat, it acted from the first hour like a unit of veterans. It fought that first tough fight with the utmost vigor, courage, and intelligence. Few times in history has a force kept fighting in the face of losses such as our Division suffered on Iwo Jima. The Division followed attack with attack. It continued to assault the heavy resistance of a desperate enemy—until the last small pocket on the island was overcome.

As a single member of the 5th Marine Division who was given the great privilege of leading it in training and battle, I here join with all other veterans of the 5th in tribute to The Spearhead.

K. E. ROCKEY

Lieutenant-General, USMC

Table of Contents

Contents

Table of Contents 9

CHAPTER ONE — Forging the Spearhead 10

THE 5th’s FIRST HOME 11

THE SPEARHEAD DIVISION 12

SNAPPING IN 13

AMPHIBIOUS TRAINING 20

BOUND OVERSEAS 23

CHAPTER TWO — To Comp Tarawa 27

FIRST VOYAGE 27

OVERSEAS HOME 31

CHAPTER THREE — Training Overseas 35

RECREATION 37

IWO NEXT 38

BREAKING CAMP 41

CHAPTER FOUR — Off to War 45

TARGET ANNOUNCED 46

CHAPTER FIVE — The Target 53

THE ISLAND DEFENSES 57

PRE-INVASION BOMBARDMENT 61

CHAPTER SIX — D-Day 71

THE LANDING 72

ADVANCE INLAND 77

HELP FOR THE INFANTRY 84

CHAPTER SEVEN — Suribachi 93

ON TOWARD SURIBACHI 99

THE VISE CLOSES 103

THE FALL OF SURIBACHI 106

CHAPTER EIGHT — Attack to the north 112

HOT BEACH 115

D PLUS 2 121

CHAPTER NINE — The Drive for O-2 124

TROUBLE 126

THRUST TOWARD AIRFIELD NO. 2 128

REORGANIZATION AND MAINTENANCE 132

D PLUS 7 135

CT 27 MOVES IN 137

HILL 362 141

CT 28 COMES NORTH 143

CHAPTER TEN — Attack for O-3 146

D PLUS 12 146

THE ATTACK STALLS 149

THE ATTACK RENEWED 154

D PLUS 16 156

FIGHTING TRIPLETS 159

CHAPTER ELEVEN — A Final Pocket Forms 163

FLANK ATTACK 166

D PLUS 23 166

DEAD OR DEAD TIRED 166

BEGINNING OF THE END 166

INTELLIGENCE 166

SURRENDER APPEAL 166

TO THE DEATH 166

BEHIND THE LINES 166

END OF THE POCKET 166

BREAKTHROUGH 166

CHAPTER TWELVE — The Price of Victory 166

CHAPTER THIRTEEN — Return to Hawaii 166

OPERATION SHAKE-DOWN 166

SENATE RESOLUTION 166

CHAPTER FOURTEEN — Arrival in Japan 166

OCCUPYING THE CITY 166

THE JAPANESE CIVILIAN 166

GETTING SETTLED 166

CHAPTER FIFTEEN — Spread of Our Occupation 166

FUKUOKA 166

ISLAND HOPPING 166

MOVEMENT EAST 166

TSUSHIMA 166

OITA-BEPPU 166

CHAPTER SIXTEEN — Japan under the Occupation 166

LIBERTY 166

CIVIL AFFAIRS 166

NEW MISSIONS 166

REPATRIATION 166

SLEUTHING 166

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN — End of a mission 166

FAREWELL TO JAPAN 166

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 166

CHAPTER ONE — Forging the Spearhead

THE 5TH MARINE DIVISION was activated on Armistice Day of 1943 in compliance with orders dated November 11 from Marine Corps Headquarters in Washington to the Fleet Marine Force, San Diego, California, and Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

By that day of that year nearly four hundred thousand men of the United States Marine Corps were driving steadily forward in the great amphibious struggle to reach the Japanese homeland. The 1st Marine Division was almost ready, in its advance staging areas on Goodenough Island and New Guinea, to begin the Cape Gloucester campaign. The 2nd Division was on its way to Tarawa. The 3rd was fighting through the jungle swamps of Bougainville. And the 4th, still in the United States, would soon leave there for the Marshall Islands and the Roi-Namur assault.

But four Marine divisions were not enough in a war whose end was not then in sight, and so the 5th Marine Division came into being on November 11, 1943.

On December 1, the Division Headquarters Battalion officially began operating at Camp Pendleton, California. In ten more days the 26th and 27th Marines (infantry) and the 13th Marines (artillery) were organized.

Trainload after trainload of men and materials of combat for the 5th Division came down the winding spur of the Santa Fe into Camp Pendleton. Trucks and buses rolled up Highway 101 from San Diego with similar loads. From the boot camps at Parris Island and San Diego, from the training centers of Camps Elliott and Lejeune and Pendleton itself; from the schools at the Quantico barracks and ship detachments of the fleet—from every available source, men and officers streamed into the Division.

Finally, many hundreds of veterans of earlier Marine campaigns arrived for duty with the Division, some on transports from the Pacific combat areas, others from hospitals and from sick leave. These officers and men brought with them combat experience and practical knowledge of the jungle and the Jap, which would add immeasurably to training realism and efficiency.

The official activation date was January 21, 1944. For two weeks after this Brigadier General Thomas A. Bourke was the acting Division Commander. Then on February 4, Major-General Keller E. Hockey came from his former post as Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps to assume command. General Bourke then became the assistant Division Commander of the 5th, and Colonel William A. Worton its Chief of Staff.

By February 8 the Division Commander had placed a training schedule in the hands of his regimental and battalion commanders, directing every unit of the Division to complete its activation and then to begin training at once. It directed that squad, platoon, company, battalion and regimental training would follow in regular succession. The final preparation tor island campaign and battle would consist of amphibious assault exercises, By the time this start work order was in effect, other Division components—engineer, artillery and medical units formed at Camp Lejeune—had reached the West Coast and joined the 5th.

The rest of the main combat units of the 5th were activated on February 8—the 28th Marines and Division service troops. The 28th completed the Division’s complement of infantry. Into it went most of the Marines of the 1st Parachute Regiment, which had seen action in the Solomons and had later been ordered back to the States for conversion into division troops. The 28th, under Colonel Harry H. Liversedge, soon moved to Tent Camp No. 1 in Las Pulgas Canyon for lack of space in the Pendleton barracks areas.

The Division began its training quickly and efficiently, which surprised no one. For the 5th, in contrast to the four Marine divisions which had preceded it, was beginning from scratch according to a detailed activation plan worked out months before the official orders were out. The Division had been built from the top down. From the moment he learned that the new command was his, General Rockey began informally to pick his key men.

He was helped in this early stage by a number of able planners. Colonel Worton, who would become the Division’s chief of staff, recommended certain outstanding instructors and students to be drawn from the Marine Corps Schools. Colonel Ray A. Robinson, then in charge of operations and training for the Marine Corps; Colonel Benjamin W. Gally, chief of the detail branch at Marine Corps Headquarters which controlled all personnel assignments; his assistant. Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas A. Wornham, who handled enlisted assignments; and Colonel John Beckett, who later became G-1 of the 5th—all worked with General Rockey to help him pick at an early date the regimental commanders of the Division soon to be formed, and the key members of its general and special staffs.

These officers then began to line up their own sub-ordinates, The Commandant of the Marine Corps released a number of officers, previously frozen in their staff jobs, for duty with the new Division. Capable young officers and NCOs available for later assignment to the 5th were ordered to specialist schools. When they joined the Division later they brought with them a thorough knowledge of the latest training ideas at Marine Corps schools, and the knowledge that enabled them to get their units working without a great deal of wasted effort. The same thing may be said of the graduates from the enlisted schools who filled key positions in the Division.

THE 5th’s FIRST HOME

CAMP JOSEPH H. PENDLETON, the first home of the 5th Marine Division, was named for the late Major-General Uncle Joe Pendleton, who had been the father of Marine Corps activities on the West Coast. It was ideal for combat training, for it had rolling hills, higher mountains, broad valleys, steep-sided canyons, and wooded areas with swampy stream beds with undergrowth as thick as any jungle. The area extended to the California coast where canyons notched the high cliffs above the beaches that stretched for eighteen miles from Oceanside north to San Onofre.

The main camp lay within a saucer-shaped plateau some ten miles in from the ocean. It was divided into self-contained areas, each with its barracks, administration buildings, storerooms, sick bay, theater, post exchange, and athletic facilities. Spreading out to the north were the tent camps, equipped as billets for regiments and battalions, and units of similar strength Beside Lake O’Neil stood the U.S. Naval Hospital, Santa Margarita Ranch. In area and in population, Camp Pendleton was the largest of all Marine Corps training centers.

THE SPEARHEAD DIVISION

AS TRAINING went on and the Division became more and more closely knit, a contest was held to decide on its shoulder insignia. The 5th had adopted Spearhead as its nickname, in view of its probable role in future battles, and the insignia that was chosen from 588 entries was symbolic of the name. The winning design, submitted by Lt. Fergus Young, was a scarlet shield and gold V, pierced by a spearhead of blue.

Inevitably, motor vehicles, tanks, even artillery pieces, were named with appropriate ceremony. Most jeeps were named for wives and sweethearts. One private changed the name of his jeep from Frances to Ella Mae, and when asked why said, Frances got married. But there was a wide variety of other nicknames. Communications jeeps and trucks showed up with such names as Short Circuit, Send-by-Wire, and Wig Wag. Some outfits named their transportation for famous Marine Corps battles. It took two lines for one Marine to put a name on his jeep. It was Huma-huma-nuka-nuka-a-pu-aa—which is a tiny Hawaiian fish. But the best known jeep at Camp Pendleton was named O’Malley—for Gen. Hockey’s favorite comic character.

As the Division grew. Marine Corps Headquarters set up a $25,000 Division recreation fund. This money, with added profits from the post exchange, went for athletic equipment, dances, moving pictures, stage shows, the library, musical instruments, equipment for chaplains, and thousands of other items from acey-deucey to radios.

The American Red Cross unit assigned to the 5th was under Field Director Bruce Thomas, The unit made furlough loans to Marines, sponsored dances, established and equipped fifteen recreation rooms throughout the camp, and issued comfort supplies for overseas and combat use.

SNAPPING IN

THE MASTER TRAINING SCHEDULE prescribed the first serious training of the 5th—to familiarize the individual Marine with his tools of war. Soon the crack of rifles, carbines, pistols, BARs and machine guns, and the thumping Impact of exploding mortar shells could be heard echoing from every part of the Pendleton reservation. Heavier pieces—the 37s, 75s and 105s of weapons companies and tank and artillery units—furnished a deeper, heavier chorus to the sharper noises of the lighter weapons.

Once they had gained some knowledge of their own weapons, infantrymen began to operate in fire teams, and drill in the assault tactics of squads and platoons. In April, company commanders took their units into the field for unit training, which included six hours a week of night work, firing problems with live ammunition, stiff tactical marches, and three-day bivouacs.

Most realistic of all the training was the infiltration course. Night after night, as machine-gun bullets cracked inches over their heads, the Leathernecks bellied across the course. It was a crawl of a hundred yards over an area filled with explosive charges and criss-crossed with barbed wire. It was an experience as close to that of combat as possible, and its completion gave a mail a certain amount of confidence in his ability to move under fire. No one doubted the great value of this particular training. The close whine of the live ammunition, the shock of detonation of the buried explosive charges, and the flying debris these charges rained upon the advancing Marines left no doubt in their minds that war was a business in which a man could get hurt. And it showed every man clearly that thorough training for what might come in war could indeed mean the eventual difference between life and death in battle.

All other units in the Division had begun training in their special fields—engineer and pioneer units, motor transport, medical, tank, signal, and service units, all were hard at work. The 13th Marines, under Colonel James D. Waller, worked out extensive Held exercises on the artillery ranges of Pendleton, then moved to Camp Dunlap at Niland, California, for a week there of advanced training in massing of fire. In an organizational change, the 16th Marines was split on May 25 into the 5th Engineer Battalion and the 5th Pioneer Battalion. The two battalions went through extensive courses in demolitions, map-and model-making, bridging and crossing streams, waterproofing of vehicles, the use of land mines and camouflage, shore-party operations and other special engineer-pioneer training.

The Motor Transport Battalion, although it had to be used to some extent for current Division hauling, was still able to devote much of its time to a stiff training schedule that included road and cross-country driving—day and night, alone and in convoy—and maintenance under all sorts of ground and weather conditions.

Lieutenant-Colonel William R. Collins’ 5th Tank Battalion, Once it had built and improved its tent camp out near the coast, took its thirty-eight training tanks through firing and tactical exercises in varied simulations of combat. Men came to this unit direct from the tank school at the training center of Camp Elliott.

No division can operate without its communications. The Division Signal Company and the communications sections of all the regiments and battalions gradually became expert at handling all types of communications facilities. They fed out networks of wire until at times it seemed that a telephone hung from every tree on the Pendleton reservation. Radio men sent and received dummy radio messages on all sorts of radios, from big vehicle-mounted sets to walkie-talkies. Many of the radio men had been ham or experienced commercial operators before the war and were equally at home in code or voice transmission. Every message center kept up its flow of practice traffic, and also handled the administrative messages needed from unit to unit in the daily training operations.

The Division military police also got on-the-job as well as special training. They controlled the heavy traffic of the camp area and enforced camp and unit regulations; they aided the civilian police of Oceanside and San Clemente, and went through special courses in their combat duties. The Division Reconnaissance Company spent much time in the field on practice scouting and intelligence missions in nearby Cleveland National Forest and later at Santa Catalina Island, where it learned to make its way in and out of the surf of the ocean beaches in its rubber boats and other special reconnaissance equipment.

Continuous training was also going on in every executive and special staff echelon. Clerks, bandsmen, ordnance men, supply men, and all the other headquarters specialists kept pace with the general preparation for entry into combat.

By early summer every infantryman of the 5th Marine Division, well aware that he would have a frontline job in combat, realized too that he would have powerful support from every other unit in the Division.

This first became evident in the battalion and regimental training phases, when commanders began integrating supporting weapons—mortars, machine