Sept. 2, 2021

The Long Blue Line: “Hot Rocks”—a Coast Guardsman on the beach at Iwo Jima

[This essay was excerpted from the book chapter of the same name: “Hot Rocks,” Sea, Surf and Hell: The U.S. Coast Guard in World War II (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1945), 276-79.]Because of the concentrated mortar fire, which the Japanese are laying down on this landing area, it is one of the bloodiest of all the assault beaches in the Pacific War to