Book Review: Tank Warfare On Iwo Jima by David E. Harper; Squadron Signal No. 6096, Squadron Signal Productions, Carrollton, TX 2008; 96 pp. with photos and illustrations; price US$19.95 (ISBN
978-0-89747-559-3)Advantages: first dedicated, clear cut view of Marine Corps tank operations on Iwo Jima; covers all three Marine tank battalions in action as well as some Japanese tank activity; detailed information on differences among tanks and tankers=92 uniforms
Disadvantages: some lack of framework and perspective makes it difficult to understand USMC tank operations in late Pacific War battles
Rating: Highly Recommended
Recommendation: for all Sherman and USMC fans and historians
When it comes to the use of the M4 series Sherman tanks, the US Army gets the lion=92s share of the coverage, as it was heavily involved in Europe and Africa. Next the coverage goes to the Allies who used the Sherman, especially the Commonwealth, as they too made extensive use of the tanks in the same theater. But while the Marine Corps also used the Sherman in its Pacific combat, they tend to have been ignored and even in coverage of the battles there more coverage in print thus far has gone to Army tank battalions and not the Marine ones.
This book goes far to correct some of the imbalance, and while it focuses on only one battle =96 but the biggest and most costly one of any fought by the Marines =96 it provides a great deal of insight into Marine Corps operations and the tanks they used.
As this book shows, the Marine Corps put a considerable amount of armored vehicles ashore on Iwo Jima to include three complete tank battalions =96 3rd Tanks, 4th Tanks, and 5th Tanks. As 3rd Tanks was the oldest, it was still equipped with the diesel-powered M4A2 variants of the tank, whereas the newer 4th and 5th Tanks were equipped with M4A3 tanks. While the 3rd Tanks ran their vehicles =93stock=94 the other two had added locally designed protection packages of wood and sandbags, as well as screens and other standoff means, to protect them from Japanese improvised antitank means (showing the concept of what are now called IEDs has been around for a very long time, and was just as effective in 1945 as it is today). The Marine tank losses on Iwo seem to have gone to either point-blank broadside hits by Japanese 47mm antitank guns from either concealed positions or Shin-Hoto Chi-ha tanks, or to IEDs made from items such as 500 lb bombs buried along the main avenues of approach for tanks. With the former the improvised armor protection does not seem to have worked, as photographic evidence in this book shows.
The author has done an excellent job of sorting out whose tanks are whose (the 3rd Tanks vehicles being very easy to spot) as well as the modifications to each one, as well as the supplementary flamethrower tanks used by each of the battalions. Unlike the Army units, the Marines believed in very close support and as a result all of their tanks were fitted with an external telephone box for intercommunications with the tank=92s crew for pinpoint target suppression. (The Army picked up on this one later and as such most tanks through the M1 series had a telephone box installed at the factory.)
The book is primarily oriented on the modeler. Using a series of screen captures and what color photos were taken at the time, the color schemes for each battalion and the markings are identified and covered in detail. Of interest is the fact that the 4th and 5th Tanks vehicles were camouflaged, the add-on armor packages added, and then the camouflage paint added to the new items, so that when the add-on armor packages were damaged the original tank still shows the camo scheme.
What the book does not do is put things in context. Marine tank battalions were not identical to their Army counterparts nor was their organization the same, and the reasons for the different types of tanks is not explained very well. To really get the best out of this book (unless simply using it for a =93monkey-see-monkey-do=94 painting and finishing reference for a specific model) it should be read together with the excellent =93US Marine Corps Tank Crewman 1941-1945 Pacific=94 by Kenneth W. Estes (Osprey Warrior No. 92, Osprey Publishing 2005, ISBN
1-84176-717-4). This book shows the organization and evolution of USMC tank units and explains many of the details found in Mr. Harper=92s book in greater detail; taking both books together will give a very detailed picture for the level of heroism and achievement of these units.Overall, as noted above, this is a great book for modelers and provides a wealth of photo information for the historian.
Cookie Sewell