Latest "wwii pacific" stories

Gunboats in Hell: Battle at Iwo Jima
Feb. 17, 1945, had dawned clear and bright off Iwo Jima. At 10:45 that morning, Lieutenant (junior grade) Rufus G. Herring, aboard LCI(G)-449, peered through binoculars at the tiny island, still some distance away.
By Mitch Weiss, World War II magazine
The Battle of Iwo Jima: A 36-day bloody slog on a sulfuric island
The Japanese defending Iwo Jima on D-day displayed superb tactical discipline. As Lieutenant Colonel Justus M. ‘Jumpin’ Joe’ Chambers led his 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines, across the first terrace on the right flank of the landing beaches, he encountered interlocking bands of automatic-weapons fire unlike anything he had faced in Tulagi or Saipan. ‘You could’ve held up a cigarette and lit it on the stuff going by,’ he recalled. ‘I knew immediately we were in for one hell of a time.’
By Joseph Alexander, World War II magazine