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Show Local U. S. Marines Land on Iwo Jima (By Sergeant Phillip Jeaihim, of Washington D C, a Marine Corps Combat Correspondent.) "WE GOT BACK, WE'RE THE LUCKY ONES" Thus did ihree Marines who manned an amphibian tractor in the first wave to hit the Japs on Iwo Jima sum up their impressions impres-sions of three days of "living hell." The men. Sergeant William H. Shaw, of 1312 Idaho street, Lew-iston, Lew-iston, Idaho, Private First Class Bruce Martindale of 224 G street, Salt Lake City, Utah, and Private John R. Turner, of Chicago, 111., were crewmen aboard an amphibian amphi-bian tractor. The amtrac is now at the bottom bot-tom of the sea. But she put up a real fight, while she lasted, against a combination of extremely extreme-ly rough seas and "Japanese shells which rained down like confetti." We managed to reach the beach at Iwo, Sergeant Shaw explained, but other troops were so close behind us we were ordered order-ed to move out so as not to in-terfere in-terfere with their landing. That was our first ticklish spot. We had cluch trouble and the amtrac wouldn't run. Natnrally, the crew jumped for cover, and the Japs tried for two and a half hours, but could not knock her out. Final ly, when she cooled, we scrambled back in and headed for the rest of the unit which had moved near the foot of Mt. Suribachi to blast the Japs who had come down from their cavess to the shoreline shore-line to avoid the heavy Navy shelling; Navy shfps were pasting that peak harder than Dempsey hit Firpo. When darkness came, the out- fit was ordered to the beach and spent the night a sleepless one with mortar shells landing in the water nearbp. We were parked park-ed about one hundred yards from one of our own ammunition dumps, Shaw went on. "Fortunately "Fortuna-tely for my crew, we were ordered order-ed out into the water to make way for more troops coming ishore, We'd gone about 300 yards when the Japs hit the dump We shook all over, but were at a fairly safe distance. We looked back and could see about twenty other vehicles burning from explosives ex-plosives which fell on them. "Wn pulled back r"d began shelling the enemy's volcano pos- ' itions again, keeping th-i.t un until ( nightfall. All the time there was more traffic on that bea"h than New York's times Square e'v-er saw. Tpt nitrht Shaw's avmo'ed i tractor went back to a mother ship to reload. The rough seas were tossing the heavy tank like 2 feather in the wind. The vehicle banged so hard against the ramp of the big ship that dangerous hole was torn just over the motor, Sea water began to pour in and flood the engines. ! "Of a1'! times, that. hn'l-Jo he the one for a Japanese air atack. -We didn't have enough gas1 to get to shore, we were taking on , water fast, and our tractor would ' not guide properly because one of our brakes was out, Sergeant Shaw said. "We did the next best thing and lashed the amtrac to the ship's side, but .that was the last of her. She broke loose and sank within half an hour.' : siww Martindale pnd Turner are resting now. Their comrades went back to battle. We're back all right, Martindale said. "But ,a lot of our buddies won't be." |