Cpl Frank Wright, USMC, World War II, Fighting on Iwo Jima

In fact, he stayed in the fight until the very end of that battle. After the fight for Guam in the summer of nineteen forty four, Wright and the other Marines in the twenty first Regiment stayed on Guam and trained intensely for the next fight. They didn't know immediately where that would be. It would come in February nineteen

forty five at Ewojima. In this edition of Veterans' Chronicles, Frank Wright will tell us about the battle plan for Ewojima, how his landing on the beach has got delayed, the flag raising atop mountster Abaci, and the shrapnel wound to the head that other marines thought had killed him. Later on we'll hear about the fighting he did on Hisll's two sixty two A and two sixty two B and

Hill three eighty two where he was severely wounded. All of that is straight ahead, but we begin as right tells us what the plan was for the Marines heading into the Battle of Ewojima.

up to the top of it. Well, it turned out that the twenty eighth Marines were the one that was going all the way up to the top, and they twenty eighth turned out to be the people that raised the flags of the two flags on Ijima. But that was their objective, and the fourth divisions objective was to go into Airfield Number one, which is the airfield that we needed to protect the B twenty nine's that were

going and to bomb Tokyo. Anyway, that was their position, and that was their objective for the fourth division, and the fifth division was to go right straight on up Mount Sierabacci. That was full of little hills, and that's what those roads were used for with the skirt around some of those areas as they were approaching up over Serabaci. So that was the fifth and the fourth. Now it

was the twenty first Marines of the third division. The twenty first Marines objective was to go in to be a reserve for the fourth Division as they cleaned up the first airfield. Then they were supposed to go on from the first airfield over toward the second airfield and stop and they would wait for the twenty first Marines to get ashore and meet with them, because now the fourth Division had been fighting from the nineteenth that's when d Day was to meet us on the twenty first

and wait on the second airfield for us. Because we were the relief outfit, so we were charged with coming in on the twenty first February and then at ten o'clock that was our objective to land.

But the beachmaster would not let us ashore at that time because he said there was too many dead bodies on the beach where we had originally been slated to land. The beachmaster would not let us in. So the beachmaster told us that we'd have to go back long the area that we had just come from, and you go back there into our ships and stay there until further orders.

So that's what we did. After we were circling around, which went back into our ship, the Jackson went back aboard the ship, putting all of our equipment into our own bugs Higgins boats went back into the ship. We

were out of the battle. At that particular time, the commander of our unit, the twenty first, was told to put all the flamethrowers equipment and the heavy machine gun and a light machine guns in with the headquarters company because they were having problems with the heavier equipment to come to crawl over the side of the ship into those rope ladders he come down. So when they came down heavy machine guns like machine guns and flame through fuel,

et cetera. Were in with their headquarters company. They not only had their own protection, which was their grand inland. We stayed there in our own bunks board ship on the Jackson until at eight o'clock eight hundred we were whistled above board to prepare for landing, climbed down our rope ladders again and got onto the Higgins boats and went out to form a circle around to get coordinated again.

And they had come in. Well. We had already missed our ten o'clock meeting with the fourth Division as they fought through them Airfield number one, so we were day late already.

dead or really because they so I went down. I heard a bunch of screaming and yelling and howering, and the horns were blowing and out there and East Harbor and kind of woke me up. And then somebody was munking around with the knife I had on my back. Finally found out that was one of our guys, ninth Marins, I think it was. Finally the Jacks thought that all that yelling and everything that and everybody was looking towards Mounts Verboci. They started hollering about that and yelling, and

I didn't know what was going on. I borrowed the big ship binoculars that my scout had picked up on board ship, and so I hollered at him. He said that he thought I was dead already because he saw my helmet go. And I looked up over the burm that we were had there and we were stuck in, and I could see that it was something that was going on up on top of the bounce Zarabachi. I said, hell,

that looks like a flag. And so then I started yelling and hollering and all that kind of stuff on it, and with all that noise was going on, I thought sure that we had won the fight. Sarah Bashi was secure and it was ours, and the Japanese thought it was that they had won because all the people out there were hollering and yelling too. They came out of their pill boxes and we got active and we started fighting with those people. That was a hell of a

big fight there. But because both of us thought we won the fight. So when they kind of cleared up a little bit they found out that the Americans were just raising a flag, they all ran back to the pill box. They got interested. We were fighting again. Both sides thought that they had won and didn't anyway, we got going there on that fight, and we wrought with

him for several hours. Meanwhile, the twenty eighth had raised their flag, that small flag on Mount Serribaci, and some officer said, I think we should have a bigger flag because other people can't see it on the other end of the island. So they elected to have someone from the twenty eighth fought his way back down to his landing area on boards on the ship, went back on the ship and he got a larger flag from some place.

Then he came back out and went back on the beach, and then they started climbing Mount Serrabacci again, so he had to fight his way back up to the top. That took a lot of guts to go down to say, and then fight the same ones coming back. He got up there, and probably about two hours later, they found a taller piece the pipe. They wrapped a larger flag on the tip of it, and then a group of the tony eighth started poking it down into the lava,

and then they raised that second flag up. And I heard later that one of the reasons they wanted that too was because the people in the West Harbor on the other side of the island could see the flag up there. Now now they've got a one that they could see, they could and so therefore the ships started hollering and tooting their arms and stuff. So they got into the same situation on their side of the island.

They thought that the Japs had won, and the Japs thought the Americans had one, so they started fighting in So we had another fight, a big fight going on on the west side of that tip of the island, which was above the the sulfur pits. Then I could see that bigger flag a lot better. Also, about that time, we heard a plane that came in. It had our colors on it, and it came in low. And I heard later that that low flight was bringing in some

sea rashing and mail. And they picked up some mail and some sea rashing and landed it on Airfield number two, which was now holding the twenty first Marines and the Force Division. That was one of the planes that was seeking to land on Airfield number two, but it was still hot with all the firing that was going on,

so it started looking back over to airfield number one. Now, Airfield number one had been secured because the Force Division had moved off of it, but they were getting it prepared because they needed the airfield number one cleared and ready to protect to be twenty nine as they came over. The B twenty nines came over Airfield number two and headed for Tokyo and and the airfield number one. I guess, I guess he just went right home after him and

to protect him and did their assignment. When the B twenty nines came back, they led it if they could, and the fighters red tails mostly I take were signed to protect them.

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we get. We're on attack. And that brought us up into the area of hill number two sixty two A, two sixty two B, also into Odiyama Radio station and the Oriyama village. We went through two sixty two B and cleaned out that one. When we went to uh to sixty two A, we went around that, cleaned out those of pillboxes and a lot of hand and stuff in that. By that time, some of the third Marin's third Division they've had fought their way up to that

three eighty two as well as the fourth division. They were in on it as well, and the ninth I think they ninth came in and then we attacked three eighty two. They repelled us. We went up to the top or near the top one of the two and they chased us down with the mortars and hang grenades. Went on back down below the three eighty two. We did that about four times trying to get up over that damn hill, and they still took us with the

hand grenades and bannetts and all that stuff. They threw out us all they could on it, and it was one of the biggest fights on Evio records say that it was the largest single piece of work done out there. That evening of March the second, they told us to go back down to the lower part of the three eighty two, and we're going to have some more people come in to give us a hand on it tomorrow morning,

which would have been on the third. On March the third, our order was to take it, and so we started to take it during that time. That night they got reinforced again and we started up over the hill. I had my scout ba Arman and myself, a corman and guy from the fourth Sport Division. We started up over the hill and my scout got up on the top of the hill. We could see the other side of the three eighty two, which was a kind of a big deep cave and had two or three pill boxes.

A scout I didn't see anybody working in those two pill boxes, and he lived by Baar and followed and he went over the hill. Then I followed that. The corbin was right behind me, and just as I went over the hill, one of the Japs went in back into his pill box or was chased back in there, and he picked up his position with the twenty five Namboo Japanese machine gun, and as I went up over the hill, they sprayed me. The first two shots went into my right chestle a little smaller holes on as

an entry hole. It came out, and a big hole went through my clavicle or chipped off of my part went out and went into my lungs. Both sales came out and they went through that. I left arm bustle destroyed my muscle and I went down. Of course, Carmen behind me. He went up to the top and he got a hole in my blouse neck and the jacket pulled me bottled line of fire down into a shell hole. And I stayed there for a little while and pretty and they put me on a stretcher and two carmen

started working on me. They worked on my arm and worked on my entry roounds, but they didn't see the hole that it left in my chest. When the ROMs came out, they didn't see that hole because it was behind my blouse on it, and I did and he complained about that one or they. I just thought it was my arm. It was the main part because it was I couldn't move my arm at all after that because muscle was shot out.

don't know what happened to him. So we stayed there, and then the shells started coming in and the shell hold that we were laid at, and they were getting pretty fears in there. So ba Arman says, he said, can you walk right? Yeah? I said, I have to have help. He says, just get the hell out of here. Said, it's getting dangerous down and a guy could get killed. I said, align with you, said you give me a hand. So we waited a little while, and then he got

fixed and I got wrapped up again. So I grabbed a hold of his his left arm with my right hand, and we started walking out of the shellhold, walking back toward the field medical unit that was way back down there by Airfield number one. He put me on the field there for the walking wounded, and I laid on my back and the v arman would put it on his stomach and we talked and visited. Both of us started feeling the pain coming back on it. Then he came down until the barman his turn to get back

on the ship. So they put him on the LST and he walked back to LST. He got back there and I could see the top part of his head. Then they got me. They put me on a stretcher, and our state went backward. On my stretcher, they took me back to the ship, and I think it was the soul of Hospital ship. And I'm not for sure how they put me aboard ship. If he put me by a slain or up the gang plank or crane or whoever, I don't know, but anyway, I do remember waking up and stuff, and they put me into on

a bunch of guys your own stretchers. I did a lot of moaning that day. It was my turn to go into the operating room. They carried me in there and put me on a stretcher and I was out when I first went in in there, and they in the meantime. When I got back to the hot Field Hospital, they saw what they had tagged me already that I had two wounds, was my left arm. A woman was

in my entry room on it. They didn't say anything about the center, but they found out that I was really bleeding from the one that went through my lungs and stuff. Then they focused on my left arm and I woke up just about the time they were saying, Well, I says, what we'll do with the cuddy his left

arm off? Well, I was woke up quick, told they're not going to cut anything off of me, and I slung my arm around and I popped him down with my right arm, knocked him across the room over the surgical tree, fell up against the wall, off my caught. I said, you're not going to cut anything off of me. Well, I kind of convinced them that they were, so they said, we're not going to cut anything off of you. He

calmed down. So two guys came in there and put me off, got me off the floor and put me back on his sturgical cot and they worked on me. And then they took my tag at the field hospital had put it on there because what they do is when you get wounded, the first corman that gets to you does he work and he gives you shots. He puts on that tag what he had done, and there's a protection I guess to keep another corman for coming down there in giving you a double shot or something.

But anyway, he grabbed my tag and put what he had done and then throw it back on and then I went outside on laid back on the ship's dead. So I looked at the tag, and the tag said combat fatigue and for four hostels. After that, they're down to Pearl Harbor. I had gone through the ship's medical and everything now was putting the wrong lord four different places.

I still had my left arm all bandaged up, my chest was all bandaged up on and I couldn't move my arm yet, so my wounds had not been dressed or anything. After that, they and then starts stinking, and I told him about it like that, Oh, we don't do that in this wards is. We have to put you over in this other place. So they put me in and finally put me into one army doctor. He said, well, we'll do it over here. So he took me over there. He pulled it banished back and listened to my heart.

He says, I can't do it right now, but clean him up and we'll give him a tap tomorrow morning. So after he'd said all that, and then then he left and then told the nurse to prepare him. And so when he left, I told the nurse asked him, I said, what the hell's a tap is? Where I went? And they stick a long kneel in your back or on your front too, and drain all the blood out of your chest, because you've been beating you on the inside of your chest, not the outside. I said, claiming,

now I got that to worry about. So I went to sleep, and around midnight or so, I felt I was all wet, so I thought I had wet the bed. So I called a night nurse to come over, and she came over. She pulled the covers off of me and said, well, just a moment, and she went back, and she came back with another nurse and a doctor and they had lights on. Then it was blood. I had turned over and musta turned over on my stomach or something because all that wetness is coming from my chest.

I was laying there in the food of blood. Said clean me all up and everything. And he said and said, well, at least, I says, we don't have to perform a tap, asked a nurse, and she said that that's what it was. That I was laying there in the bed, laying on the stomach, and all that stuff that was in my chest drained out. So I got all drained out and cleaned up, so I didn't have to have that tap. That's how it stayed until I got in the Pearl Harbor, and then they went on with the idea that I

had it armed that I couldn't use. So he suggested at that time, the doctor that's discovered that I should have someone massage my arm all the time, get armed therapy or whatever they called it on it. So that's what I did. I had a little whack that came in and see massage my arm, and I started getting a little use out of it. And there you got it started.

I cry. I cry all the time on it. I went to the Washington Memorial out there where the flag was demonstrated. Yes, now, I thank god I was there. I saw that some again go up on I was there. I talk about not tell them on what it is like because I tried to get the veterans, and them still try to get the veterans. And the last talk I gave was was that too, and they kind of know what war is.

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