POSTED JUNE 05, 2007
First-hand account from Iwo Jima from Navy Lt. (j.g.) Frank Jirka, member of the secretive Navy Underwater Demolition group

The following is provided by Rick Bland, Son-In-Law of Navy Lt. (f.g.) Frank Jirka.

The following text is a transcription of a speech written by Navy Lt. (j.g.) Frank Jirka for presentation before Ceska Beseda, an association of Croatian Czechs in the United States. Frank gave the speech shortly after returning from Great Lakes Naval Hospital
near Chicago where he recuperated and rehabilitated from wounds suffered at Iwo Jima. We found the speech recently after his death in 2000, and it is the only known account, either written or verbal, of his first-hand experiences at Iwo Jima.

Frank Jirka going to Iwo Iima

Good evening friends and members of Ceska Beseda. I am indeed very happy to be here this evening and hope you will bear with me while I relate to you some of my experiences and tell you a little about one of the Navy’s unknown organizations.

As you probably have been informed, I was a member of a naval organization commonly known as Underwater Demolition. Throughout the war, this organization was never publicized for reasons that you will understand as I go along.

Underwater Demolition was a very small organization that never exceeded 2500 men out of the 3.5 million men in the Navy. It was composed strictly of volunteers who could quit at any time, and was labeled “Top Secret” by the Navy Department.

Underwater Demolition, you might say, was conceived in one of the corridors of our Navy Department in Washington. It started out one day when an admiral, known for new ideas, called in a certain Commander Kaufman who at that time was in charge of the Mine Disposal School in Washington. When the commander reported to the Navy Department he met the admiral in one of the corridors as he was making his way to one of the conference rooms.

The admiral said, “Kaufman, I have a new idea that I want you to work on. You know the Japs and Germans have been placing their mines and all sorts of obstacles along possible invasion beaches. These obstacles will hamper our landing of troops when the day arrives for us to hit these beaches. So I want you to try to figure out some way of removing these hazards. »Read entire speech here

Posted by sethweathers in Home Page

POSTED DECEMBER 17, 2006
Welcome to the NEW and IMPROVED Battle of Iwo Jima tribute website.

This site is done in honor of the men and women who didn't make it home as well as those who have fought and died for our country in wars and conflicts since.

I'm currently working to grow this site and provide more useful content for our many site visitors. Our biggest new feature is the blog that will allow our site visitors to communicate with each other. If you are a veteran and would be interested in being a moderator for the blog, please contact me at seth@iwojimatribute.com

Be sure to stop by The Battle page for a full recount of the battle of Iwo Jima from the landing on. We are also looking for contributors on the heroes page so if you have any stories to share please email them directly to us.

This site is dedicated to the World War II battle of Iwo Jima that took place on February 19th at 8:59AM

Posted by sethweathers in Welcome Message

The Battle

The information provided comes from Iwo Jima, by Richard Newcomb 1982. Naval action information is from The Fast Carriers: The Forging of an Air Navy, Clark Reynolds.

*2/19 U.S Marines land on Iwo Jima at 8:59A.M.. This comes after 10 weeks of bombing from carrier based planes and medium bombers. The preliminary bombardment had been the heaviest up to that point in the war. A total of 70,000 U.S. Marines available for the invasion. Against 27,000 Japanese.
 
The operation is under the overall command of Adm. R. A. Spruance, Commander Fifth Fleet. Vice Adm. R. K. Turner is the Joint Expeditionary Force Commander and Lt. Gen. H. M. Smith, USMC, commands the Expeditionary Troops.

The Japanese tactics would be more of a defense in-depth. No suicide counter attacks.

The Japanese had built 800 pillboxes and over 3 miles of tunnels on an island that was only 8 square miles in size.
>CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL RECOUNT