Hell's Distant Shore

The LST-715 groaned and shuddered as it scraped onto the black volcanic shore, steel hull grinding against stone and ash.

When the ramp dropped, it slammed into the soft earth with a sound like a cannon shot.

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De Witt didn’t wait for orders.

He tightened the strap of his helmet, slung his pack, and ran down the ramp into the hell waiting for them.

The ground gave under his boots, swallowing his ankles. The ash was deeper, thicker than he imagined. It dragged at every step, like some invisible hand trying to pull him into the island itself.

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The smell hit him next. Not just sulfur from the volcanic rock. No, this was worse. Burnt flesh, cordite, rotting seaweed, and the sickly-sweet stink of death. It filled his nostrils, coated his tongue, got into his very lungs.

Above them, artillery thundered. Small arms fire cracked constantly, somewhere inland.

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De Witt stumbled into the line forming off the ship, a long human chain, Navy men and Marines alike, passing crates of ammunition, gas cans, and mortar shells hand-to-hand across the ash to supply points deeper inland.

It was dirty, mindless work. And it saved lives.

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He planted his boots wide, took the first crate offered, passed it along, reached for the next without missing a beat.

Shells. Gasoline. Water. Bandages. More shells. Over and over.

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The ash worked its way into his gloves, his mouth, his eyes. His hands bled where the crates bit into his palms. His knees ached from bracing against the shifting ground. But he didn’t stop.

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The volcanic ash was a weapon all its own. Tanks bogged down halfway up the slope, treads spinning uselessly. Jeeps sank up to their bumpers. Wounded Marines lay where they fell, too broken to crawl forward.

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Every breath De Witt took burned. Ash coated his teeth. It ground into his boots, his rifle, his very soul.

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Sniper fire snapped overhead sporadically. Mortars thumped from the cliffs. Somewhere behind the beach, a fuel truck exploded, sending a mushroom cloud of oily black smoke towering into the sky.

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And still, the chain moved. One box at a time. One step at a time.

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Because stopping wasn’t an option.

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Later that afternoon, a Marine was dragged back to the ship. He was shell-shocked, eyes wide and glassy, muttering nonsense under his breath. De Witt helped lift him into a stretcher aboard the LST-715. The man thrashed weakly, trying to fight invisible enemies.

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Doc Bonn sedated him, and De Witt helped carry the stretcher down to the LCVP that would ferry him to the USS Mercy, the floating hospital anchored offshore.

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As the boat pushed away, De Witt watched it disappear into the smoke. Part of him envied that Marine. At least he was leaving this place, even if he wouldn’t remember it.

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By the third day, the fight for Mount Suribachi was visible to the naked eye.

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Between shifts, De Witt would sit on a stack of empty ammo crates, helmet tilted back, boots half-buried in the ash, and just... watch.

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The battle never really stopped.

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He watched the Marines crawling up the broken ridges of Mount Suribachi, their bodies barely visible against the black rock, like ants under a magnifying glass. Small figures burdened by heavy packs, rifles, and the invisible weight of death stalking every step.

Every few feet, one would drop — sometimes scrambling back, sometimes not moving at all.

He watched as the flamethrowers went to work.

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Big, tank-strapped Marines staggered forward with no cover but guts and luck, squeezing the triggers that unleashed streams of liquid fire into the mouth of hidden caves. The fire roared like a living thing, licking at the rock walls, chasing shadows into oblivion.

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Every now and then, charred figures stumbled out of the smoke — some Japanese soldiers already aflame, throwing themselves into the ash in a desperate, hopeless attempt to smother the inferno. Their screams barely rose above the constant crack of rifles and mortars.

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And the mortars —God, the mortars never stopped.

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Hidden up in the cliffs, the Japanese rained down shells in savage, ceaseless rhythm. Puffs of gray smoke dotted the slopes like diseased sores. One hit, and three or four Marines would simply vanish, swallowed by the blast, the ground itself betraying them.

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De Witt gritted his teeth until his jaw ached, his fists clenched on his knees. He wanted to scream, to throw something, to run up there and haul those boys back by their collars. But there was nothing to do but watch. And pray.

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Every crater. Every flash. Every body sliding back down the slope made it clear. This wasn’t a fight for ground.

It was a fight for every inch of life they had left.

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A few days later, De Witt was hauling crates again when the shout went up.

“Hey — look! Look up there!”

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Every head on the beach snapped upward. There, at the summit of Suribachi, barely visible through the haze, a small shape wavered.

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An American flag.

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Tiny, defiant, impossibly bright against the blackened sky. For one long, perfect heartbeat, the world stopped. The beach erupted into cheers, whistles, claps.

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Some men dropped to their knees. Some wept openly. De Witt just stood there, heart hammering, ash streaking his face like war paint.

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They had done it.

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They had taken the mountain.

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Even if they all died tomorrow, they had planted the flag.

They had said: We are here. You will not break us!

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It was real. It was beautiful. It was an encouragement to keep fighting! That flag came at a price they were only beginning to understand.

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That night, De Witt wandered about a hundred yards up the beach. No farther.

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He passed the makeshift pens where Japanese prisoners huddled behind barbed wire. They were dirty, wounded, and defeated. He stepped carefully around the bodies still waiting for burial, faces frozen in screams or silence.

The sand was littered with broken rifles, shattered helmets, and dog tags. He found a canteen, a snapped K-bar knife, a bloodied photograph of a woman and child.

He didn’t know whether it had belonged to a Marine or a Japanese soldier.

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It didn’t matter.

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The island had claimed them all the same.