Jason Redman

March 6, 1945 | D+15, Battle of Iwo Jima Two weeks after the brutal D-Day landings on February 19, and nearly two weeks since the flag rose on Mount Suribachi, the fight was far from over. Marines pushed deeper into the island's northern hellscape—volcanic ridges, fortified caves, and the notorious "Meatgrinder" around Hill 382—where every advance meant blasting bunkers, clearing tunnels with flamethrowers, and trading fire in savage close combat. Casualties mounted daily as Japanese defenders refused to yield an inch. Marine Raider Frank Wright was in the thick of it. Enlisting at just 16, he'd already survived malaria after Guadalcanal, then ferocious hand-to-hand fighting and multiple bayonet wounds on Guam. Recovering barely in time, he landed on Iwo Jima and charged into the grinder at Hill 382, a 382-foot-high fortified knob that formed the heart of this deadly complex—along with nearby Turkey Knob and the Amphitheater. This was a maze of interconnected tunnels, bunkers, pillboxes, and machine-gun nests that made it one of the toughest objectives on the island. During the intense close-quarters fighting at Hill 382, machine-gun rounds tore through Frank severely wounding him and forcing his evacuation. Despite these wounds, Frank Wright managed to survive. His raw account captures the unrelenting terror and unbreakable grit that soldiers faced during the Battle of Iwo Jima.