PART FIVE of Six Parts
Back to the front
Basilone was in his element again, this time leading the charge amid the horror
and chaos on Iwo Jima.

The Orange County Register
By Keith Sharon
Thursday, September 23, 2004

Some of the Marines expected to die before they hit the beach.

They expected Iwo Jima to be surrounded with underwater gasoline drums the Japanese would detonate as the U.S. amphibious landing craft approached the shallow water.

Johnny Basilone and his men wiped white cream on their faces to protect against flash burns.

They looked like ghosts.

If the drums didn’t get them, the Marines were told to be prepared for a Japanese charge.

The opening minutes at Iwo Jima would be hard-fought hell, the Marines believed.

Instead, they were met with the occasional squawk of a bird, the rhythmic lapping of waves.

The first group of Marines hit the beach, as did the second and the third. But the beach didn’t hit back.

Machine gunner Charles Tatum, who had never seen combat, wondered what the heck happened to the Japanese. Maybe the pre-invasion bombing, completed as the Marines were still in their boats, had scared the Japanese into retreat.

Johnny was in the fourth group. He was so amped-up that he was firing his .30-caliber machine gun into the Iwo Jima landscape as his boat approached the shore.

But there was no need.

It was as if the Americans had won by forfeit.

All Johnny could see was a steep, black-sand beach, and, in the distance to his left, Mount Suribachi, an extinct volcano that loomed like an angry god.

The first time he put his foot down on Iwo Jima, it sunk 6 inches into the sand. Moving quickly would be tough.

Tanks and troops milled around the beach looking for something to shoot. Johnny watched one tank head off course and into a minefield, the first evidence that the Japanese had prepared any resistance at all.

Though it wasn’t his job, Johnny walked into the minefield and guided the tank out.

It was 10 a.m. before the Americans heard the first Japanese shot, “the banshee wail of an incoming shell,” Tatum later described in his book “Red Blood, Black Sand.”

The Japanese, history would reveal, had amassed 21,000 troops on the tiny island. They had dug 1,500 caves and built 750 blockhouses, which were nests for machine guns. Their strategy can be described in one word:

Ambush.

The Japanese had allowed the Americans to build up troops and equipment on the beach so they would be an easier target.

Suddenly, banshee wails drowned out the sound of the ocean. Shells rained from every which way. Everybody upright on the beach went down, digging holes for cover.

Tatum was so petrified he could barely force himself to reach for the pack on his back to get his shovel.

When he turned around, he saw one Marine standing:

Johnny Basilone.

Helmet unbuckled and askew. Curly black hair escaping onto his forehead.

Tatum remembers thinking the strangest thing: Gunny Basilone has ears like Clark Gable.

“Move out,” Johnny yelled, kicking the butts of buried Marines.

The Marines could barely see through the smoke. The beach was chaos. None of the choreographed invasion was happening as planned.

Still, Johnny was determined to execute his orders: to capture Motoyama Airfield No. 1, a few hundred yards off in the distance.

He whacked Tatum on the helmet and signaled “Follow me.” It didn’t matter that Tatum was no longer in Johnny’s machine gun platoon. Tatum said he would have followed Johnny anywhere.

Johnny could see that one particular blockhouse machine gun was wreaking incredible havoc on the beach. Johnny ordered Tatum to fire at the blockhouse, but the shots ricocheted harmlessly away.

Johnny signaled Tatum to move to the right.

With a better angle, Tatum’s shots slammed through the hole from which the enemy gun protruded.

The enemy gun stopped.

Johnny quickly found a demolition unit on the beach. He raced with them toward the blockhouse. He ordered a flamethrower to open fire.

Nine Japanese soldiers raced out of the blockhouse. Human fireballs, their bodies were ablaze with napalm.

Johnny was waiting for them. He grabbed Tatum’s gun and killed them all before they could burn to death.

“It was a mercy killing,” Tatum said.

Johnny Basilone spent his military life defying the danger around him – his pitch-black repair of a jammed machine gun, his unarmed race through enemy lines to retrieve ammunition, his walk through a minefield and now his annihilation of a Japanese blockhouse.

So, on Feb. 19, 1945, under a barrage of Japanese shells, Johnny ordered 20 men to follow him across open terrain toward Motoyama Airfield No. 1 – straight to the feet of Mount Suribachi, what amounted to a 550-foot-tall sniper’s tower.

Johnny ordered his machine guns to set up in a crater at the edge of the airfield. Realizing his position was vulnerable, Johnny took off toward the beach to get more men.

Tatum braced himself for the worst.

It was 10:45 a.m., 105 minutes since Johnny’s wish to be back on the front lines had been consummated.

Tatum and his fellow gunners smiled when they turned and saw Johnny. He was coming back with reinforcements, like John Wayne leading the cavalry.

Five other men trailed him. Nothing was going to stop Johnny from taking Motoyama Airfield No. 1.

Johnny must have heard the sound, a low whir that grew in speed and force as it came.

Tatum heard it, too.

The shell landed at Johnny’s feet.

PART SIX, FINAL EPISODE, COMING FRIDAY: LEAVING A FINAL LEGACY
Johnny could hear the sound of an enemy mortar seconds before it landed at his feet.

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