Artillery F/O on Iwo Jima

The following memoir was written by a member of the Fourteenth Marines, the artillery regiment of the Fourth Marine Division. He belonged to a forward observer team and was attached to Baker Company, 24th Marines, during the battle of Iwo Jima. Grammar and spelling are as in the original memoir.

Iwo Jima
by Paul Maloff
(submitted to Fourth Marine Division, published by Turner Publishing, 1992)

We witnessed the shelling on the morning of February 19, 1945. Those big battleships, cruisers, and destroyers were just pouring it on. There was so much Smoke [sic] on Iwo Jima that it seemed all the Japs had to be dead. Over the sides we went into the waiting ducks (landing crafts). There was nothing but confusion. No one, but no one, but the beachmaster knew what was going on.

We rode up to the beachmaster's ship and asked where we should land. He pointed and shouted "straight ahead." I asked if all that fire was "theirs or ours." He said, "Theirs." My God. It was raining fire. Smoke was pouring from the wrecked landing craft.

The landing craft were blowing up like toys. A lot of Marines and Navy personnel were killed before they hit the beach. I don't know how our duck made it but it did. There were dead and wounded all over. It was a sight you never forget. I still have nightmares.

A buddy of mine handed me a Jewish Bible. He took it out of the hands of a dead Marine. In it were pictures of his wife and two children. Perhaps the Bible would do me some good. It did not do so well for the last Marine who owned it. I wanted to dig a hole so deep that I would come out in the USA, but I did not know where to throw all the dirt.

You would pray for the Jap rockets to land further down the line. They sounded like flying boxcars. When they did your prayers were answered, but you knew darn well that someone else met his maker.

The first night was real bad. They must have used all the Navy's unexploded shells on us. I never slept in combat the first three or four days. You have to watch the buddy next to you. It you both fall asleep sometimes your throats are slit during the long night.

The fifth day while I was with the foreward observer party of G Battery, 14th Marines, I saw the flag going up on Mt. Suribachi. It was breathtaking. All the guys stood up and cheered.

We came off the front lines the sixth day and found that a shell landed right behind one of out 105s. Several men were killed and many were wounded. The dead were lined up in the cemetery. The wounded went aboard a hospital ship.

Our foreward observer party was assigned to B Company of the 24th Marine Regiment. Tom Collier from Milwaukee, Wisconsin was our rifleman. George Karatzou from Albany, New York our radioman, Lieutenant Zack Wallover from Beaver, Pennsylvania was in charge and yours truly was the telephone man.

We started out in a large quarry filed with giant rocks. Jap mortar shells were landing all around us. Somehow we fouled up and found ourselves 200 yards in front of the front lines. To this day I don't know how none of us were not hit.

Lieutenant Wallover directed our battery fire to land behind us. Afterwards we made a strategic withdrawal. All of the infantry guys yelled that we did a great job. Things went well for me tree days up three days back until the morning of March 10. We were in a hole. A captain came up to us and asked how we were doing. we said okay. He was carrying an 03 Rifle with a telescope sight on it. I admired that rifle. We were in a place called the ampitheater [sic]. Ten seconds later the captain lay dead 10 feet from our foxhole with a hole in his head.

New guys started to relieve the guys up front. When all of a sudden whamo! There were so many shells falling in our area that I figured that our own Navy was doing a job on us. With me in the hole was a guy named Joe Peebles from Florida and George Lambert from San Diego. I never saw so many shells fall so fast. The guys asked me to pray out loud. I did, I kept shouting "Shana Yisrora Adonoi Alohenu Adonoi Ahaud" over and over again.

A guy in B Company, 24th marines was hit at the edge of our hole. He was of Italian descent and was from Rochester, New York. I knew him from aboard ship. His guts were hanging out. A corpsman came running over and said "God be with you," and ran over to another wounded who had a chance. I'll never forget the look in that Marine's eyes when the corpsman walked away and let him die. The last words on his lips were, "I love you Mama" and he died. I reached up and closed his eyes and covered him with a poncho.

One of the sergeants from B Company jumped out of his hole and caught a direct hit. He landed face down just five yards from our hole. The shelling stopped and Frank Webber our lieutenant covered the dead Marine with his poncho. As soon as Webber got back to his hole, the shelling started again.

When I was in boot camp on Parris Island, our drill instructor told us that a shell never lands in the same place twice. I was peering out of my hole and the next shell landed right in the middle of the poncho. The body flipped over and it blew his legs off his body. The poor guy was killed twice but he never felt it the second time.

I kept shouting my prayers and in all my combat duty I've never put in 10 minutes like this. There were dead Marines in almost every hole. I kept on thinking to myself if I ever make it through this day and get back to Syracuse, New York, the first thing I would do is kiss the third step of the Snaris Hagodel Schule on Almond Street, my temple.

The shelling stopped. Peebles and Lambert both thanked me for the prayers.

An hour later B Company, 24th Marines, were moving out and forward as if nothing had happened.

A few days later Iwo Jima was declared secure and religious services were held near the cemetery. We boarded the ship in a couple of days and sailed for Maui our home base.

On the day of my discharge, November 20,1945, I left my bag at the New York Central Station and ran five blocks to the Snaris Hagodal Schule on Almond Street. I did not kiss the third step, I licked it. I sat there and my tears flowed freely for an hour. As I sat I thought of all my buddies who did not make it, and all those who were disfigured for life, my prayers went out for them too.

Perhaps a hundred thousand people participated in the taking of Iwo Jima. I'm sure there are that many stories. Now you have mine.


Paul Maloff died in Syracuse, December 2, 2005. He is buried in Quantico National Cemetery.