DON MARSHALL'S ACCOUNT (10): "THE FLAG! THE FLAG!"

"The terrific pounding kept our beachhead pinned down. The fleet's constant bombardment inland gave us a little relief."
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AFTER THE BATTLE, NUMBER 82.
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Under heavy fire Don reached the airfield. He met a buddy, Private Thurman Mott, and stayed in his hole for the night. They felt hot magma underneath, "another worrisome danger, but we welcomed the warmth it provided."
"Try as we might (so sehr wir es auch wollten?), neither one of us succeeded in staying awake."
Then, all of a sudden, Don awoke, hands gripping him by the throat. A Jap was kneeling on his chest. Don tried to get out his "45 automatic", but he couldn't, for he was blocked. So Don gave him a blow with his kneee. Finally, he took his gun and aimed at him, but the Jap vanished in the darkness.
"Mott slept soundly on."
The next day he met Corporal B. K. Keagan, another buddy. Constant enemy fire of snipers behind them. Above them, a Marine Corsair firing. Don and his buddy diving for cover.
They realized the enemy had put the front line marking strips to their rear, but the trick didn't work. Then, a Marine yelling and waving: "The flag! The flag!"
"Every head turned to Mount Suribachi. There, barely discernible, flew a small flag, the Stars and Stripes."
The firing slowed, men were cheering. Shrill whistles from hundreds of ships "amid the constant din of exploding shells and screaming bullets."-"The noise was music to our ears! Suribachi had fallen!"
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photo of a Japanese tank: "Don Marshall recalls that 'only five tanks managed to crawl from their places of concealment and three were quickly dispatched (erledigt) by ground troops. The remainder were finished off by 20 mmm fire from two planes that happened to be overhead.'"
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photo a bottom of page, left: "And it was on March 4th that Sergeant Bill Genaust was killed...When unable to shoot pictures because of weather, cameraman Genaust doubled as a rifleman."
Genaust and another soldier were killed "in a bypassed cave."
About his army career: "Genaust, who wanted to fight, enlisted at age 36. He was wounded at Saipan, recommended for the Navy Cross, got the Purple Heart and two Bronze Star medals and died at the age of 38."
photo, right side: It was captioned "Hill 382, scene of cave area where Genaust was killed".
"but look at the name on the rear of the belt of the Marine on the right. Could this be Bill Genaust himself, photographed by his colleague, moments before he entered the cave? Bob Campbell was only 15 feet away when Genaust was struck by a burst of automaic fire at point-blank range (kürzeste Entfernung): 'I could readily see the bullets cut him down', wrote Campbell later."
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"The cave was blasted shut by Marines, the body buried under tons of earth. It was never recovered."
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