World Battlefronts: It Was Sickening to Watch ...

On Iwo Jima last week at least 40,000 Marines fought to the death with 20,000 entrenched Japanese in an area so constricted that the troops engaged averaged twelve men to an acre. Ashore with the marines, TIME Correspondent Robert Sherrod radioed his account of the battle:

At the end of six days of bitter fighting, the men of the 3rd Marine Division (Major General Graves B. Erskine), the 4th (Major General Clifton B. Cates) and the 5th (Major General Keller E. Rockey) hold approximately 40% of Iwo Jima, including half of Airfield No. 2, the...

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