WWII veteran Bob Ludick recalls war's horror
MANSFIELD -- Bob Ludick's small black-and-white photos from Iwo Jima are not for the faint of heart.
Ludick, a Marine veteran of the battles on Guam and Iwo Jima says he tossed most of those photos away.
The few he still has of dead and mangled bodies are a reminder of what war is really all about.
"Some people have crazy ideas about what war is all about," he said. "In simple terms, it's kill or be killed."
There were 38 men in Ludick's platoon on the day they stepped off landing craft at Iwo Jima.
When it was over, there were only seven men left and one of them, Ludick, was in a hospital in Saipan.
"We were in the first wave that landed on the second day of the battle," he said. "Our first objective was to take an airfield. Then another and then another."
"The worst things were the banzai charges. The Japs would get high on sake and then come at us in waves," he said. "We would shoot them and shoot them and shoot them until the barrels of our guns were red hot.
"But we couldn't kill them fast enough. When the Japs surged through our front line, a lot of my buddies were shot or bayoneted."
Later in the battle, Ludick, a newly promoted squad leader, led his men up the steep side of a ridge to knock out a trio of Japanese anti-aircraft guns.
"They weren't shooting at our planes. They lowered the barrels and they were shooting at us," he said.
He said one of his men, a man named Wilson who operated a bulky Browning Automatic Rifle, won a Medal of Honor during that fight.
Once on top of that ridge, Ludick and three men were all that was left. Even Wilson was missing.
"A runner told us we had to hold the ridge at all costs. But if the Japs charged, we'd be wiped out. Fortunately they never did that," Ludick said.
The most famous moment during the battle was the raising of an American flag on Mount Surabachi, but Ludick never saw it happen.
"We were fighting on the other side of the island," he said.
He said tanks were landed and were next to useless when it came to fighting off the Japanese.
He said the tank gunners were firing too low and hitting Marines instead of Japanese.
Ludick raced over to one of the tanks to tell the gunners to raise their aim when one of the guns went off. It was the last thing Ludick remembered about Iwo Jima.
"When I woke up, I was in a hospital in Saipan. The concussion had me knocked out for days," he said. "The first thing I saw was a nurse, a beautiful blonde with blue eyes. I though I had died and St. Peter had made a mistake and let me into heaven.
Pictures Of Iwo Jima - News
The stories are archived on our website. MANSFIELD -- Bob Ludick's small black-and-white photos from Iwo Jima are not for the faint of heart. Ludick, a Marine veteran of the battles on Guam and Iwo Jima says he tossed most of those photos away.
LST 641 had the most notable history, including landing at Iwo Jimo, Okinawa and Bougainville. Dad did not speak too much about his service; however, I do remember him telling me this: When they were unloading tanks and bulldozers on Iwo Jima,
Inside the carefully organized binders were pictures of the ruins of Nagasaki after the atomic bomb was dropped, Marines landing at Green Beach on Iwo Jima, the Japanese surrender on the USS Missouri. Some were taken by other photographers,
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And finally, he says he found the film's structure appealing: It's told through a series of interviews of Iwo Jima survivors by the son of one of the flag-raisers. (The film was adapted by William Broyles Jr. and Paul Haggis from James Bradley and Ron
Pictures Of Iwo Jima - Bookshelf
Iwo Jima, uncommon valor, common virtue
Each of all the photos adds its small sliver of insight to the whole. No single person's experience captures the full dimension of the IwoJima story, ...Iwo Jima, Portrait of a Battle: United States Marines at War in the Pacific
Most troop-carrying amtracs were conveyed to Iwo Jima in the same LSTs in ... Officio/ USMC Photos Marines also embarked on the last leg of the journey to ...The ghosts of Iwo Jima
Staff Sgt. Lou Low- ery's pictures of the journey up Suribachi and the first flag-raising, which had inspired American fighters at Iwo Jima, received scant ...Immortal images, a personal history of two photographers and the flag-raising on Iwo Jima
The stories of the still and motion picture photographers who captured the historic flag raising on lwo Jima.The Battle of Iwo Jima, a resource bibliography and documentary anthology
Pamphlet and photo album. ISBN: 4-9900359-4-1. Includes photos of Iwo Jima taken during the 50th anniversary commemoration. 129. ...Casual Articles Directory
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The Picture - Iwo Jima
My father was on Iwo Jima but it was just after the main battle. ... If you have any pictures of iwo jima, i would be grateful if i could view them. ...
Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mount Suribachi is the dominant geographical feature of the island of Iwo Jima. ... Lowery's most widely circulated picture of the first flag raising. ...
Iwo Jima Picture
The Iwo Jima Memorial in Arlington, Virginia is across the Potomac ... This is the intersection of two streets near the entrance to the Iwo Jima Memorial. © 2011 VisitingDC.com ...
Iwo Jima.com
Offers articles, photographs, maps, and more devoted to the battle that took place from February 19 to March 26, 1945.