Kelly O’Hara
Canes, Mark C. Garraty, John A. “The American Nation, A History of the United States.” New York: Longman, 2003.
· Japanese fought for every piece of ground.
· “They had to be blasted and burned from tunnels and concrete pillboxes with hand grenades, flamethrowers, and dynamite.”
· Kamikazes-suicide pilots who crashed bomb-laden planes against American warships.
Cook, Diane. “USMC War Memorial.” 9 Oct. 2001. National Park Service. 18 Apr. 2006 <http://www.nps.gov/gwmp/usmc.htm>.
- On the morning of February 23, Marines of Company E, 2nd Battalion, started the tortuous climb up the rough terrain to the top. At about 10:30 a.m., men all over the island were thrilled by the sight of a small American flag flying from atop Mount Suribachi. That afternoon, when the slopes were clear of enemy resistance, a second, larger flag was raised by five Marines and a Navy hospital corpsman: Sgt. Michael Strank, Cpl. Harlon H. Block, Pfc. Franklin R. Sousley, Pfc. Rene A. Gagnon, Pfc. Ira Hayes, and PhM. 2/c John H. Bradley, USN.
- News-photographer Joe Rosenthal caught the afternoon flag raising in an inspiring Pulitzer Prize winning photograph. When the picture was later released, sculptor Felix W. de Weldon, then on duty with the U.S. Navy, was so moved by the scene that he constructed a scale model and then a life-size model of it. Gagnon, Hayes, and Bradley, the three survivors of the flag raising (the others having been killed in later phases of the Iwo Jima battle), posed for the sculptor who modeled their faces in clay. All available pictures and physical statistics of the three who had given their lives were collected and then used in the modeling of their faces.
- Once the statue was completed in plaster, it was carefully disassembled and trucked to Brooklyn, N.Y., for casting in bronze. The casting process, which required the work of experienced artisans, took nearly 3 years. After the parts had been cast, cleaned, finished, and chased, they were reassembled into approximately a dozen pieces--the largest weighing more than 20 tons--and brought back to Washington, D.C., by a three truck convoy. Here they were bolted and welded together, and the statue was treated with preservatives.
Halasz, Robert. “The U.S. Marines.” Brookfield: Millbrook Press, 1993.
- 1,152 Marines died at Guadalcanal
- 23,000 Japanese defenders at Iwo Jima, most hidden in caves and tunnels
- 3rd, 4th, and 5th divisions fought at Iwo Jima
- Fifth day at Iwo Jima was when 6 men planted American flag at the summit of Mount Suribachi(photo taken by Joe Rosenthal and probably most famous photograph ever)
- After 25 days of fighting the Marines declared the island secure
- 6,000 dead and 26,000 casualties and almost all Japanese dead
- Okinawa-last battle consisting of 1st, 2nd, and 6th divisions, 82 days of fighting, 19, 231 Japanese casualties and 3, 277 died.
- 86,940 battle casualties in all for the Marines in WWII, including 19,733 dead
Warner, J.F. “The U.S. Marine Corps.” Minneapolis: Lerner Publications Company, 1991.
- Longest battle for Marines was Guadalcanal-6 months.
- Japanese commander of Betio said that his air base on Tarawa “could not be
taken by one million men in one hundred years.” A single division of marines
around 20,000 men, captured the island in 76 hours!
- Victories at Bougainville, Tarawa, Makin, New Georgia, Choiseul, Kwajalein, Eniwetok, Tinian, Saipan, and Peleliu.
- Shot down 2,300 enemy planes
- Marine Corps born 7 months after Battles of Lexington and Concord
“United States Marine Corps.” 17 Apr. 2006. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 17 Apr. 2006 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Marine_Corps>.
- The Marine Corps is the second smallest of the five branches (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard) of the U.S. military, with 180,000 active and 40,000 reserve Marines as of 2005. Only the United States Coast Guard, part of the Department of Homeland Security, is smaller. In absolute terms, the US Marine Corps is nonetheless larger than the armed forces of many major nations; for example, it is larger than the British Army, or all of the Canadian Forces put together.
- The Marine Corps, originally created as the "Continental Marines" during the American Revolutionary War, was formed by a resolution of the Continental Congress on November 10, 1775, and first recruited at Tun Tavern in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by Samuel Nicholas. They served as landing troops for the recently created Continental Navy. The Continental Marines were disbanded at the end of the war in April 1783 but re-formed on July 11, 1798. Despite the gap, Marines worldwide celebrate November 10 as the Marine Corps Birthday. U.S. Marines raise the American Flag on Iwo Jima on February 23, 1945.
- During the battle of Iwo Jima, Raising of the Flag on Iwo Jima, a famous photograph of five Marines and one Navy corpsman raising the American flag on Mt. Suribachi, was taken. Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, who had come ashore earlier that day to observe the progress of the troops, said of the flag raising on Iwo Jima, "...the raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next five hundred years." The acts of the Marines during the war added to their already significant popular reputation, and the USMC War Memorial in Arlington, VA was dedicated in 1954. By the war’s end, the Corps had grown to include six divisions, five air wings and supporting troops totaling about 485,000 Marines. Nearly 87,000 Marines were killed or wounded during WWII and 82 received the Medal of Honor.
- The Marine motto "Semper Fidelis" means "Always faithful" in Latin. This motto often appears in the shortened form "Semper Fi" It is also the name of the official march of the Corps, composed by John Phillip Sousa. Another motto commonly used in recruiting is The Few. The Proud. The Marines.