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Al And his bride Ellie after the war.
 I have included stories about the battle for the Roi Namur in the Marshal Islands, Saipan and Tinian in the Marinans and Iwo Jima in the Bonins. We sailed from San Diego in the U.S. on January 13, 1944 to the Marshal Islands. The trip was about 5000 miles and we arrived at the Marshals on February 1, 1944. We were the first marine division to go directly into combat from the U.S. The day was perfect, from our troop transport we could see in the distance the islands we were supposed to take from the Japanese, Roi-Namur. The islands were beautiful, large palm trees swaying in the bright sunlight. The Navy was blowing the islands to pieces. There were two islands connected by a sand spit. Roi was where the Japanese had a large airport. Namur was a tropical Island where the Japs lived. As the sun started to come up, we had our regular “condemned man's breakfast", steak and eggs. Most of us would throw this up, as we were scared and seasick as we headed to the beach in our Higgins boat. We had all covered our faces with camouflage paint. As we started in the paint that we had put on our faces started to run down into our eyes. I could not see a thing. The camouflage paint was burning our eyes. It occurred to me that maybe we had bought the paint from the Japs. Try as I did I could not clear my eyes.
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A. Duncan and Al Perry after 10 days of fighting
on the "meatgrinder" on Iwo Jima
Our Higgins boat was headed toward the largest building that we could see on the Namur, a squat cement building. As our boat ran up on the beach of the island and the coxswain lowered the ramp the concrete building blew up. My squad leader corporal Quinn, who was directly in front of me, was hit by a large piece of cement and metal. Blood was streaming from his arm, which looked as if it was hardly attached to his shoulder. (We later learned that a marine had thrown a satchel charge into this building that was used to store Jap torpedoes. This was the largest explosion the 4th Division would ever see.) I moved past him and went running as fast as I could to get beyond the open beach. I hit the deck and lay there trying to get the camouflage paint out of my eyes. Suddenly a Jap machine gun opened up. I wondered if he was shooting at me. It didn’t take long to figure this out. I looked down to my BAR and I could see the reflection of tracers passing directly over my head. I put my head into the grass and tried to wipe the burn from my eyes. I lay there for about fifteen minutes and couldn’t see any of the men who had landed with me. What to do, just lay here until dark. The Jap had my number. Suddenly I heard the loud roar of a plane coming in very low overhead. I turned my head just enough to look up and saw a Navy Hell Cat flying directly over me. I heard him open up with his guns, the Jap machine gun stopped. This was the first time I had ever seen a Hellcat. I thought to myself that with this plane on our side the battle would soon be over. I found out later that we had lost our battalion commander, Colonel Dyess. The Colonel was a great leader. He had bright red hair and wore a red bandana around his neck. He was a marine’s marine. He was killed by machine gun fire near the end of this battle. Colonel Dyess was posthumously awarded the military's highest honor, the Medal of Honor. I also lost my new squad leader corporal, Cecil Lewis, who was taken out by a sniper. I lost two squad leaders in one morning.
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