Out of 380 flamethrower operators deployed on Iwo Jima, only 18 came out of the island alive. They had a life expectancy of just four minutes on the battlefield. They were described as both the best and the worst weapon the US Marines had there. And their story is far more horrific than it seems.
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| A Flamethrower Operator on Iwo Jima |
The Importance of Iwo Jima
When people talk about the Pacific War, places like Guadalcanal or Okinawa usually come up first. But Iwo Jima was a different kind of fight altogether.
The island itself is only about eight square miles, a small patch of volcanic rock sitting in the middle of the Pacific between the Marianas and mainland Japan. But in 1945, that tiny piece of ground became one of the most valuable in the entire war. B-29 bombers flying from the Marianas to hit targets in Japan had to pass right over Iwo Jima, which meant Japanese radar and fighters could track and intercept them. If the US took the island, they could use it as a base for fighter escorts, emergency landings, and shorter bombing missions with heavier payloads.
The Japanese knew all of this. They fully expected an American invasion. But instead of meeting it head-on at the beach like they had on other islands, they decided to do something different.
A Fortress Underground
General Kuribayashi was in charge of the defense. He was an experienced officer who understood the situation perfectly. He knew he wasn't going to win. He didn't even expect to survive. But his goal was to bleed the Americans for every inch of ground and delay their advance toward Japan for as long as possible.
He studied the previous battles at Tarawa, Saipan, and Peleliu, and realized that surface defenses simply didn't work. Naval artillery and air strikes would destroy most of them before the first wave of troops even hit the beach. So this time, they went underground.
Over eleven miles of tunnels were carved through the island's soft volcanic rock. Bunkers, pillboxes, machine gun nests, artillery positions, and storage areas, all connected through underground pathways. Every inch of the island was pre-measured. Artillery was already zeroed in on the likely landing beaches. Firing lanes overlapped and covered one another. There were no front lines in the traditional sense, just a network of positions that could support each other from different angles, with fallback routes running beneath the surface.
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| Japanese War Tunnel Systems |
American intelligence estimated about 13,000 Japanese defenders on the island. They were off by almost 10,000. And nearly all of them were dug in.
The Landing
When the US launched the invasion on February 19th, 1945, they followed the usual playbook. Days of heavy shelling and air strikes. Battleships and cruisers pounded the island with everything they had. By the time the first Marines landed, the entire coastline looked completely leveled.
But almost nothing had actually been destroyed.
The first Marines hit the shore and found themselves trudging through loose volcanic ash. A deep layer of black sand that sucked in boots, stalled vehicles, and made it nearly impossible to dig in. For nearly an hour, waves of Marines landed on the beaches and it was all quiet. No gunfire, no resistance. Just men trying to get organized and move inland.
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| Allied Troops Landing on Iwo Jima |
Then Kuribayashi gave the order.
All at once, machine guns, mortars, and pre-sighted artillery opened deadly accurate fire. Marines were hit in clusters, packed on beaches with no cover. The losses were devastating. But somehow, over the next hours, they pushed inland inch by inch. And that's when they began to realize just how bad things really were.
The Pillbox Problem
Every time Marines cleared a position with grenades and satchel charges, they'd move forward only to find Japanese troops reappearing behind them, shooting from positions that were already supposed to be secured. The tunnel system allowed defenders to move under the Marines and pop up again in cleared areas.
The biggest recurring problem was the pillboxes. Hardened concrete fortifications with machine guns, small firing slits, and overlapping fields of fire. Some were so well hidden you could walk right past them without noticing, at least not until they opened fire.
Clearing them meant crawling or rushing under fire to get close enough to toss grenades or satchel charges inside. But many of these pillboxes were built in a zigzag shape, so the blast wouldn't reach the entire interior. Blowing one up didn't always mean the job was done.
Only one weapon could deal with them more or less effectively. That's when the flamethrower came into play.
The M2 Flamethrower: Seven Seconds of Fire
The M2-2 was the standard flamethrower used by US Marines in World War II. It had two large tanks filled with thickened gasoline and a smaller center tank of compressed nitrogen to push the fuel out, connected to a long metal tube with an ignition system at the tip.
The problem was range. The effective range was only about twenty yards, and a full tank gave you roughly seven seconds of fire in total. That meant short, controlled bursts, a second or two at a time, and then you were done.
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| An M2 Flamethrower Operator on Iwo Jima |
To use it, you had to get within hand grenade range of a fortified position, use your seven seconds as effectively as possible, and then get back to safety. Except "safety" is a generous word for Iwo Jima.
The moment you fired, the bright, loud stream of flame told every defender in the area exactly where you were and what you were carrying. Japanese defenders knew what a flamethrower would do to them, so the second they spotted a Marine with that distinctive three-tank backpack moving forward, he got the undivided attention of every weapon in range.
The rest of the squad would try to suppress the enemy with rifle and machine gun fire, keeping the flamethrower operator alive long enough to get in range. But with seventy pounds of gear on your back, moving through volcanic ash toward well-constructed defenses, it was anything but easy.
A Fate Worse Than Death
Being captured alive was perhaps a bigger fear than being shot. Because of the nature of the weapon, taking someone's life in one of the worst possible ways, flamethrower operators weren't treated like regular prisoners. Execution on the spot was the best outcome you could hope for. Usually, it was something far longer and far more painful.
There's one account from Iwo Jima of a flamethrower that misfired as the Marine approached a cave entrance. Two Japanese soldiers rushed out, grabbed him, and pulled him inside. The rest of his squad could hear him from that cave for two full days. They couldn't help him or even end his suffering.
Everything about this weapon was terrible on every level. The extreme danger of the weapon itself. A sudden wind shift or malfunction could turn it against its own operator. And the psychological toll on those who survived, who had to live with what they did for the rest of their lives. At that distance, you saw, heard, and smelled the consequences of your weapon.
Tactics of Desperation
Sometimes operators used a tactic called a "wet burst." Firing a few quick shots without using the igniter, soaking the target with raw fuel, then following up with a lit burst to ignite everything at once. It increased the chance of completely neutralizing a bunker without anyone coming back later.
In confined spaces, the stream of flame would immediately raise the temperature to around 2,000 degrees and consume all available oxygen. Even soldiers who weren't directly hit by the fire had very little chance of surviving.
Looking at footage of a flamethrower firing gives nowhere near the actual impression of how loud and violent it really was. Operators were trained to take a long, deep breath before firing because they couldn't breathe during the burst.
Bringing in the Tanks
With casualty rates that high, the Marines needed something that could carry the weapon into battle with more protection and more capacity. That's when they brought in the flame tanks.
These were modified M4A3 Shermans fitted with a flamethrower system instead of a main gun. They looked like regular Shermans from the outside. Until they fired. They carried around 300 gallons of thickened fuel and could project flames up to about 100 yards, three times farther than the handheld M2.
But just like the infantry flamethrowers, the moment a flame tank opened fire, the entire front concentrated on it. Carrying hundreds of gallons of fuel inside a metal box was not exactly comforting for the crews inside.
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| A Sherman Flame Tank |
Still, flame tanks turned out to be the most effective weapon on Iwo Jima and played a major role in finally capturing the island.
Out of 380 flamethrower operators who landed on Iwo Jima, 362 never left. Four minutes of life expectancy, seven seconds of fuel, and twenty yards of range. Those were the numbers these men worked with. And yet, without them, the island might never have been taken.
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