Greg Dills

Health Update: The latest scan (23 Mar) revealed that the four concerning cancerous lymph nodes are stable, which is to say they haven’t grown, most have decreased in activity, with no additional spread. In light of this, the plan moving forward is possible radiation and/… 1/7

Update after the first twenty

Iwo Jima Day 1 Feb 19 1945 The Marines hit the beach at about 9 o'clock and within an hour both Marine Divisions had their assault battalions ashore and fighting. One hour. That's all Tadamichi Kuribayashi gave the Americans. Then his gunners struck with all the fury of their formidable armament. Shells shrieked and flashed among the invaders, every hummock spat automatic fire while the beaches erupted with landmines showering sand, flesh and blood on the survivors. After hitting the beach, the 5th Marine Division drove across the Island cutting off Mt. Suribachi to the south. But behind them both beachheads were a bloody, smoking, burning shambles. Kuribayashi's gunners had raised their sights to the beaches. Only a few landing craft were able to penetrate that curtain of fire drawn offshore and on the beaches. Reinforcing regiments coming ashore came in riddled, forming on a battlefield more horrifying than any in the memory of the oldest salts. On the left flank, as the 5th Division was driving across the Island, Manilla John Basilone yelled, "Come on you guys, let's get these guns off the beach!" His gunners shouldered their weapons and sprinted up the beach toward the terraces. Just then a mortar round exploded in John's very footprints, and he died with four of his men. Death had been violent on Iwo Jima; few indeed were the corpses not mangled. Some were cut in half, legs, arms, heads lay everywhere, sometimes 50 feet away from the bodies from which they had been wrenched. The Marines incurred 2,420 casualties on that first day, to secure a beachhead 4,000 yards wide from south to north, 1,000 yards deep where the Island had been crossed on the left and 400 yards on the right. Of these casualties, more than 600 were dead and more were dying. The sound of battle wouldn't subside for another 5 weeks...