Golden Gate Wing Guest Speaker Archive

5th Joint Assault Signal Company, 5th U.S. Marine Division

 Fire support for troops on the ground has always been a challenge. Troops on the ground need identification so they won’t be targeted as the enemy they’re fighting, and clear communications between those seeking support from artillery and those giving it is essential.

Recognizing this need, the U.S. Marines created an ANGLICO, acronym for Air/Naval Gunfire Liaison Company, to handle the interactions between ships and planes and ground troops.

Fenn Wilson graduated from high school in Sacramento in 1943, having been born in California’s state capital in 1921. He already had his college degree when he attended the US Marine Corps Officer Candidate School at Parris Island, South Carolina and at Quantico, Virginia - Commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant Wilson was ordered to San Diego where he joined the 5th JASCO (Joint Assault Signal Company)

"The mission of a Joint Assault Signal Company or a naval gunfire spotter is to land on an enemy held territory, take a position where you can see into enemy areas and direct the fire of supporting ships."

To learn the fine details of directing supporting fire Wilson was sent for six months to Hawaii where he joined Battalion B, 28th Regiment of the 5th Marine Division. Wilson got practice in artillery by firing at targets on Kahoolawe Island. At the end of that half-year, he was aboard an LST headed for Iwo Jima.

"Iwo Jima lay half way between Saipan and Tokyo. It was about 650 miles from Saipan. At this time the B-29 force was accumulating on Saipan, which had been taken a year before. Planes from Saipan were being picked off by Japanese fighters from Iwo Jima, so Iwo had to be taken - - we knew it, the Japanese knew it. So the Japanese had been preparing for a year and a half for an attack."

The LST carrying Wilson had in its hold 25 amphibious tractors (LVTs) to carry Marines to the beachhead. Wilson says he awakened when the ship dropped anchor after a six-day trip from Saipan.

"I was sleeping in the cabin on the deck and I could feel the pulse of the ship coming to a halt. On deck, I could see Iwo with big, ugly Mount Suribachi sticking up at one end. We had seen it many times on maps, photos and other preparatory things."

Wilson’s team totaled seven Marines: Telephone Wiremen and Radiomen, plus a Scout Sergeant. It worked with a naval officer and a similarly equipped crew manning the Battalion command post. At H+25 hours, the team hit the beach as part of the invasion’s fifth wave. Their missions were to reach the base of Mount Suribachi, establish communications with the support ships and direct fire into Japanese emplacements.

"When the time came to land we climbed into the amphibious tractors down in the hold. When they cranked up their engines, it was kind of ‘smog city’ down there because it was very confined. We inched forward and went down the ramp into the open sea.

"Getting together and getting organized, I could see the Navy bombarding the island as they had done the previous day. There were eight battleships, nine cruisers and 44 destroyers all pounding the beach and other targets on the island.

Wilson says on the way in he could see a small amount of Japanese return artillery fire, with shells mostly splashing in the water among the amtracs and landing craft. When the amtracs hit solid ground, though, he says everything else broke loose.

"The ramp on our vehicle didn’t go down. So we had to climb over the side and pass our gear down to each other and re-pack. While we were doing that an LST on our right, about 20 yards away, was on fire. Great billows of orange and black smoke were pouring out and the ammunition was pop-pop-popping from the heat.

"We had to get out of there and I gave a favorite Marine Corps order, ‘Follow me!’ and we went trudging inland.

Wilson recalls the loose, course sand tugged at their feet as they struggled inland, making running impossible and giving the Marines the impression they were dragging their feet.

Suddenly, as he reached the top of the first beach terrace, Wilson says a burst of enemy machine gun fire hit right at his feet.

"I dove forward and fortunately fell into a hole. I was terrified. I was panting, sweating… and I just sat there for about ten minutes before I could gather my wits together. I found I was in a tank trench dug by the Japanese. It was about thirty feet long and gave us some protection for awhile."

From there, Wilson moved from rock to rock, from cover to cover until he fell into a hole at a designated point with the rest of his crew. On the beach behind him were three wounded members of his team, but the naval contingent was intact.

Wilson says his radio had a bullet hole in it, but the other radio was operational and allowed them to contact the ships to begin directing gunfire at the base of Mount Suribachi.

"You could see the smoke come out of mortars, and that told you where they were, you could actually see the flash of enemy machine guns at times, and there were a few solid blockhouses we could see. So there were lots of targets, although you could see very few individuals, and a lot of enemy you couldn’t see."

There were four types of shells fired from destroyers’ 5-inch guns - - impact high explosive rounds, airburst shells which spread shrapnel to the ground, star shells and white phosphorus.

"We’d use them intermittently and though we were trained to only shoot at good, careful targets, we had a Colonel who’d say, ‘Go ahead. That’s good for the morale.’ We’d fire at anything we thought would be useful or good for a hiding place, and it was very effective."

As night fell, and through the night, the Marines fired off star shells to illuminate the cratered moonscape. The light cast by these flares was appreciated by the Americans, despite the terrible shadows created.

"The Marines would rather have the light than not be able to see any enemy that was around."

By dawn, Wilson says the infantry was pretty well organized, and began its attack of dug-in positions, supported by naval gunfire. Wilson says they directed the ships to fire as close as 100 yards to the attacking troops, and sometimes even closer. He says on one occasion a salvo landed by accident in back of the infantry, but fortunately caused no casualties.

By the end of the first day there was little progress outside of reducing return enemy fire. The second day was about the same, but Wilson said that at least the troops moved some 50 yards closer to Mount Suribachi.

"The enemy was still very hard to find, and then it was a matter of digging them out. The infantry used flamethrowers, bazookas and lots of grenades. It was nasty, pretty close stuff and there were a number of casualties, but they did make that progress."

On the third day, the infantry enlisted the aid of flame-throwing tanks to sweep the area all the way to Suribachi. The beaches were finally secured, but that night star shells were again employed to ensure Japanese defenders couldn’t creep back into niches they’d been driven from.

"On D+4, the Colonel came by and I asked him, ’When are we going up the mountain?’ And he said, "I’ve got a patrol going up in ten minutes. Do you want to go along?’ "

Wilson, thinking about how much he’d already been shot at, responded that he was busy communicating with his ship and he was sorry he couldn’t make it.

The Marine patrol - - 44 men, including two sets of stretcher-bearers and two Marine Corps reporters - - went up the mountain to the top and scouted the rim of the volcanic crater there. They’d been there about five minutes when a group of Japanese soldiers came out of a number of cave openings. All were quickly shot dead, as was a charging Japanese officer who brandished a broken samurai sword.

The group set to raising an American flag atop the peak, using a piece of pipe from the wreckage of a Japanese radar installation. Wilson said the sight of the stars and stripes caused a celebration among the Marines below and the sailors on the ships sitting off the island.

"I wanted to get on top. It was my job to direct fire and I thought possibly from there I could see into the enemy territory on the other side of the island. The troops had advanced about a mile and half and the area where they were was enshrouded in dust and haze, so it was not a very good observation post."

Wilson said he talked to the platoon leader of that first flag-raising group, and then sat around until another group came up stringing communications wire. The first flag that was posted was not very large, so a request went back down to the beach to have a ceremonial flag sent ashore from an LST.

"I watched this, then came a group of reporters and a photographer –- the photographer being Joe Rosenthal. I didn’t know it then.

They brought the new flag, the big flag up, got another pole and prepared to hoist the flag.

As that second flag was being raised, Joe Rosenthal snapped the shutter of his camera. He didn’t see the resulting image, developed back at Saipan, until after it had been printed on the front page of nearly every newspaper in the United States. Today, the image of the Marines raising the flag over Iwo Jima is one of the world’s great icons.

Wilson says after the flag-raising, his battalion got a couple of days off before turning northward with the troops fighting their way across the rocky, moon-like landscape of Iwo Jima. That fight would continue for nearly a month, Wilson continuing to direct naval gunfire at enemy positions by calling out targets from a grid-based map of the island. Naval gunnery officers used an identical map to lob over 5-inch shells.

"We would give a coordinate designation and they would match it with theirs, fire out a round and we would adjust to that –- up fifty (yards), down fifty, left or right. Many times the ship wasn’t more than 500 yards off the beach, at that particular time. So we were able to be very accurate.

"In our training we were told originally that you would never fire any closer than 500 yards to the troops. Well, we were firing at 100 yards or even less sometimes, because the ships were so accurate and they could see so well that we could get away with it.

In the invasion of Iwo Jima, nearly 7000 Marines were killed and another 21,000 wounded. Of about 22,000 Japanese defending the island fortress, all were killed except for about 1000 taken prisoner.

Wilson says he spent five weeks on Iwo Jima. About two weeks before he left, hospital planes came into fly wounded Marines back to Saipan. Two B-29s landed shortly thereafter, becoming the first heavy bombers to start operations from the island.

Returning to Hawaii for replacements after the battle, Wilson’s JASCO 5 was next to serve six months in Japan as part of the Occupation Forces. They landed in Sasebo, on the northeast coast of Kyushu.

"We were some of the first troops to land in Japan. The Japanese were sort of hiding behind the walls, looking around the corners and were really sort of scared. They had heard the ‘red-bearded Americans’ were going to come and rape all the women and ravage everything. However, when we came and started passing out candy bars to the kids and they very quickly softened."

Wilson was soon sent to Fukuoka to manage a hotel, with an interpreter to help him.

"The people there were very friendly. I think they were actually relieved there was not going to be any more war, so we were received very, very well there. They rather quickly became very friendly."

Fenn Wilson returned to Iwo Jima ten years ago. What had been a moonscape from the Japanese having cleared trees and bushes for firing lanes, and from the heavy naval bombardment before the invasion, has now returned to being a island with tropical foliage.