James Goodrich wanted to join the Marine Corps as soon as he saw his first Marine Corps poster. He also enjoyed the color of the Marine Corps uniform. He and three of his buddies decided to join because they were not doing well in school. Goodrich was sent to Amarillo, Texas and then eventually was sent to Oklahoma City. He was initially turned away from the Marines because he was too young. His father was working the oil fields in Texas but the rest of his family worked in Oklahoma City. He had his father sign for him attesting that he was 17 years old but he was really 16. His birthday was 8 May. He tried the Marines again. Goodrich's father expressed his reservations about his son joining the Marine Corps. He threatened his father by telling him if he did not sign then he was going to go to Canada and join the navy. His father again expressed reservations about his son potentially joining to fight with Canada. He tried to not look anxious for his second attempt at joining the Marine Corps. Goodrich passed his physicals and was sworn in. The recruiter asked him when he would like to leave. He did not have an answer so the recruiter asked if he would go the following day. Goodrich was sent to San Diego. On his way there they passed through Mexico. Kids were running up to the side of the train asking for candy. They finally got to San Diego where a Navy chief boatswain's mate boarded the train and asked the naval personnel to go with him. Goodrich thought that the service would not be too bad until a drill instructor came aboard and immediately began to yell for all of the Marine personnel to get off of the train and line up. That is when he realized it was for real. They were put on a bus and taken to the Marine Corps Depot. The recruits were taken to a barracks where they spent the night. The following day they were given shots, issued uniforms, and assigned to Quonset huts. His boot camp training lasted eight weeks. Goodrich's drill instructors were two corporals and a platoon sergeant. The platoon sergeant was Platoon Sergeant Parker and the two corporals were Thorpe and York. They were mean. They made sure that the recruits had no spare time. If the men messed up the drill instructors would have them cleaning the wooden walkways with a tooth brush. While standing in formation, a fly landed on Goodrich's nose. When he shook his head to get the fly off, the drill instructor hit him in the head with a swagger stick. Then he scratched Goodrich's face.

After eight weeks of boot camp, James Goodrich was sent to Camp Elliot. Camp Pendleton was not around at that time. Goodrich was put in Company L, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines [Annotator's Note: Company L, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division] which had just come back from Iceland. There, he was taught by Marine veterans of Iceland and his platoon sergeant who was a China Marine [Annotator's Note: Marines who served in China before the war were referred to as China Marines]. The platoon sergeant treated his men like they were his kids and the Marines loved him. They called him Pappy. He was still the same even after they landed on Guadalcanal. Goodrich trained at Elliot for about a month and a half. He and his outfit then boarded an old Dutch liner manned by Dutch officers and a Javanese crew who did not speak English. The only armament on the ship was a three inch gun on the fantail. The Marines aboard set their machine guns up on the sides for antiaircraft defense. The trip to Wellington, New Zealand took about 26 days. The ship went alone without an escort. Goodrich's unit took over Camp Paekakariki and trained there from the time they arrived in October until December [Annotator's Note: December 1942] when they left for Guadalcanal. Goodrich was in Texas when he found out about Pearl Harbor. He had just come out of church and one of his friends shouted out that the Japs [Annotator's Note: derogatory term for Japanese] had bombed Pearl Harbor. No one knew where Pearl Harbor was. People were lined up at the post office waiting to sign up. The first time that he went to the Marine Corps to sign up he did so without his father's blessing. He was underage and when a captain discovered that he was sent home. He had heard about Wake Island before he enlisted and it only strengthened his resolve to join. Wake Island became like the Alamo. After the island fell people began using the slogan "Remember Wake Island." Goodrich has a friend who had been a crewman on one of the guns on Wake that had sunk a Japanese destroyer. He was captured when the island fell. They also learned of the Bataan Death March which caused their morale to drop somewhat.

James Goodrich thinks that people had a greater hatred for the Japanese than the Germans in America. He credits hearing about the Japanese for a longer period of time than the Germans as the reason for the hatred. They had seen the newsreels of the atrocities the Japanese were committing [Annotator's Note: in China]. When they took bayonet training the targets had Japanese faces on them. The hatred building up made it easier for the Marines to shoot the Japanese. All of the Japanese in California had been interned when Goodrich first went out to San Diego. When Goodrich and his friends would go into town they saw Asian restaurants that had signs expressing that the owner was Chinese not Japanese. The Consolidated aircraft factory there was making Liberators [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bombers]. The factory was camouflaged and had barrage balloons strung up around it. In California, Goodrich was on call constantly in the event that the Japanese decided to attack there. Goodrich and his men got to Guadalcanal late and were mostly relegated to mop-up duty. It was the only time that he landed unopposed. The first time Goodrich saw dead bodies was when he walked past a tent full of men killed in action who were enclosed in mattress covers waiting to be buried. When the Army came in, the Marines had to unload the ship. The soldiers stood onshore watching the Marines working. That was the first time the Marines had seen M1 rifles [Annotator's Note: rifle, caliber .30, model M1, also referred to as the M1 Garand]. They were carrying the 03 Springfields [Annotator's Note: rifle, caliber .30, model M1903, also referred to as a Springfield or simply and 03]. The Marines would watch the soldiers and when a soldier would lay his M1 down, a Marine would take it and leave his 03 in its place. Goodrich was carrying an old BAR [Annotator's Note: Browning Automatic Rifle] which had been made right after World War 1. He followed a soldier carrying a new one around hoping he would put it down but he never did. The M1 made a difference. The M1 fired eight shots where the 1903 fired five. Many times the Japanese would count the five shots and would then get up and charge. The guys carrying M1s had three extra shots. Goodrich went on a combat reconnaissance patrol. He originally was not supposed to go but was added at the last minute because he had a BAR. They were not expecting to see any Japanese. They came up to a camp and surprised a few Japanese soldiers. Goodrich opened fire and the group fell back into some tall grass. Their lieutenant and platoon sergeant were both hit in the stomach. Another man had been killed. The men tried to make a stretcher to carry the lieutenant back because his insides kept falling out. They got back to the camp around midnight. The Japanese had followed them back and Goodrich could hear them the whole way. The lieutenant died the next day. The sergeant was evacuated and Goodrich never heard about him again. They later found the body of the Marine who was killed during the firefight and he is buried in the Punchbowl [Annotator's Note: the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii]. The corporal who had led them back to their lines was awarded the Navy Cross. The elements were bad. Goodrich and his foxhole buddy came down with malaria. All of the Marines were sick.

James Goodrich and his buddy dug a foxhole. His buddy put a big branch across the top of the hole. Later that night while Goodrich was trying to sleep he was awoken by an explosion. When he asked his buddy what had happened his buddy told him that he tried to throw a hand grenade but his arm hit the branch and the grenade landed right in front of their foxhole. He stayed on Guadalcanal until early February [Annotator's Note: February 1943]. When he left, he had been there for two or three months. When they left the island they returned to New Zealand. The first Japanese soldier that Goodrich killed was while he was out on patrol. A Japanese officer came out from behind a tree as he and his buddy were patrolling a path. At first he could not pull the trigger. After his buddy, who was carrying a shotgun loaded with 00 buck shot, fired at the enemy officer Goodrich opened up with his BAR [Annotator's Note: Browning Automatic Rifle] and ripped the man right his side and killed him. Goodrich was 16 years old at the time. Goodrich learned that there was not fair play when it came to the Japanese. They found one of their sergeants tied to a tree and saw that he had been used as bayonet practice by the Japanese. He was mutilated beyond belief. This was the kind of fighting that infuriated the Marines. At that point Goodrich made up his mind that the Japanese would not capture him. He would do himself in before he let them take him. After they left Guadalcanal, they had to take some time to heal up and get healthy before they were healthy enough to train. Goodrich suffered 13 attacks of malaria there. Some Marines had malaria so bad that they were sent home. They finally got some replacements, many of who had been in brigs around the United States. When the men were in better shape they made a practice landing at Hawk's Bay, then returned to camp. When it was apparent that they could make a landing they were shipped to Efate Island. Eventually, they landed at Tarawa. The Japanese defenders were members of an Imperial Japanese Navy Special Naval Landing Force. Goodrich called them Imperial Marines. Goodrich remembers distinctively that these soldiers were a lot bigger than the average Japanese. These men would kill themselves before they allowed themselves to be captured. There were also a lot of Korean laborers on the island. The island was well fortified. The battle only lasted 72 hours but almost 3,000 Marines were killed.

As the 6th Marines [Annotator's Note: 6th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division] were going in [Annotator's Note: on Tarawa] on their Higgins boats [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP], the landing craft James Goodrich was aboard got hung up on a reef about 1,000 yards offshore. The door to the landing craft dropped and they had to wade in waist deep water all the way to the beach. They advanced inland to a seawall. That night they defeated a banzai attack launched by the Japanese. The Marines advanced to the airfield and captured it. Then they attacked the blockhouse where the Japanese command post was located and knocked it out by pouring napalm down the air vents and lighting the gas on fire. After taking out the blockhouse, they secured the end of the island and killed over 600 Japanese in the process. Goodrich remembers a moment when he was looking at the big guns the Japanese had brought in from Singapore. One of his buddies called him over to look at something and as Goodrich sat down he heard a shot and the man directly behind him was shot between the eyes. After fighting on Tarawa, they went back aboard ship and were sent to secure the island of Apamama. When they got there they were told that the island was already secured. A scout-sniper unit had cleared the island the night before. A few days later they went back aboard ship and headed for Hawaii. There, they were based at Camp Tarawa. At Camp Tarawa he was told that he and three of his buddies from his company [Annotator's Note: Company L, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division] were awarded passes to go home. They grabbed their gear and were taken by boat to Pearl Harbor where they boarded the USS Midway (CVE-63) which was there on its shakedown cruise. They arrived at North Island and were sent from there to Camp Elliot. Since they had not been paid, they went to the Red Cross to borrow some money to go home on. The Red Cross gave them some money and sleeveless sweaters. They were wearing the camouflage uniforms that they had been issued for Tarawa. That was the first time they had used camouflage so everybody knew they had been on Tarawa. Goodrich spent his 30 days in Oklahoma City with his step mother. While in Oklahoma City a lady asked him if he was in the British Army because he was wearing his Marine greens.

After his furlough, James Goodrich was told to report to Camp Pendleton. At the time Goodrich did not know what or where Camp Pendleton was. He and his buddies got to San Diego and were taken by bus to Camp Pendleton. They were taken to the 5th Marine Raider Battalion. Goodrich did not volunteer for it but stayed there for about three or four weeks. While there Goodrich and his friends had to take part in the training that was taking place. The training was difficult for Goodrich and his friends because they were suffering from malaria and were in pretty bad shape. The other Marines in the training were all fresh out of boot camp. An instructor gave Goodrich a BAR [Annotator's Note: Browning Automatic Rifle] and asked him if he knew anything about it and was surprised when he replied that he did. Goodrich told the instructor that he had been carrying one overseas for the past 16 months. He and his three Marine friends were assigned to the 5th Marine Division. The 5th Marine Division was made up of Raiders, paratroopers, and members from the 1st and 2nd Marine Divisions. In Goodrich's opinion, the 5th Marine Division was the finest division to be sent overseas because the NCOs [Annotator's Note: non-commissioned officers] were all veterans. The rest of the Marines filling out the division were all fresh out of boot camp. Goodrich had been on patrols carrying a BAR and he wanted to get rid of it. He requested and was assigned to a machine gun section. Goodrich was issued a carbine and put in charge of a 12 man machine gun squad. The only man in his squad with combat experience was his first gunner, Henry. Henry had been wounded on the first day of the fighting on Guadalcanal. When they landed on Iwo Jima, Henry was hit in the leg on the first day again. Even though Goodrich joined a division with a lot of combat experience they continued to do lot of training. They trained at Camp Pendleton and at Camp Tarawa in Hawaii. There were rumors abounding as to where they were going to land. Goodrich did not keep in touch with the men in his old outfit because the men he was best friends with had left the division with him. Goodrich's friend Phil who had been shot was sent to Treasure Island [Annotator's Note: Treasure Island, San Francisco, California] and did not have to go back overseas. The group promised to stay in touch and came up with a code so Phil would know where they were. Phil stayed on Treasure Island as a sergeant and Goodrich and Dave went overseas together. Dave had a squad in the same machine gun section as Goodrich. Dave was the guy who got married during their long furlough. On Iwo, every morning Goodrich and Dave would shout over to the other's hole to make sure each had made it through the night. One morning Goodrich called over and found out that his friend had been shot in the leg. It turned out that he would be alright. Goodrich did not see Dave again until years afterward. Dave, whose real name was Tom Davis, was a good friend of Goodrich and Goodrich was glad to have a friend to ship back overseas with. Goodrich and Dave grew up together in the service. Goodrich went into the Marines at 16 years old and Dave went in at 17. Phil Clemmens was with them until he was wounded and reassigned to Treasure Island. They all stayed in touch after the war. Phil was from Kansas City. A lot of guys in the 6th Marines were from Kansas City.

In Hawaii, they [Annotator's Note: James Goodrich and the rest of the 5th Marine Division] trained for the landing on Iwo Jima. The Marines practiced taking a spot of high ground which was supposed to simulate Mount Suribachi. The terrain in the mountains of Hawaii was similar to west Texas. In Honolulu they picked up the rest of the fleet and the battleships and cruisers that would take them across. While waiting to leave, the men were given recreational liberty. While playing on the beach, Goodrich ran into a friend he had gone into the Marine Corps with, a guy named Goodyear. The only other time Goodrich saw Goodyear was on Iwo Jima during a brief rest from the front lines. The morning of the landing on Iwo Jima, Goodrich was woken up at three in the morning to prepare for the landing. They had changed ships at Saipan from a transport to an LST [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank]. Their amphibian tractors [Annotator's Note: Landing Vehicle, Tracked or LVT] were in the belly of the LST. They had steak and eggs for breakfast. After breakfast they got their packs together and checked their rifles. All of the men were loaded up into their amphibious tractors. That was Goodrich's first time on an amphibian tractor and he did not think it would be able to float. At six in the morning they opened the ramp and were put into the water. They rendezvoused and circled until they were instructed to head in towards the beach. When the flag was dropped they were to head in. Goodrich was circling right under the guns of the battleship Tennessee [Annotator's Note: USS Tennessee (BB-43)]. The Tennessee's guns were firing into Mount Suribachi and on targets on the island. When the flag was dropped they went in. Iwo Jima was the only landing that Goodrich made without getting his feet wet. When they hit the beach the back of the amphibian tractor was dropped and the Marines ran out. Some of Goodrich's friends were killed as they were getting out or shortly after. As Goodrich made his way up the beach, John Basilone ran into him and asked him if he had a machine gun. Goodrich told him he did have one and asked if Basilone needed it. Basilone told him that there was a Japanese pillbox holding the advance up and that he may need a machine gun to put some fire on it. Basilone found his gun and told Goodrich not to worry about it. He then took his five men up to take care of the pillbox. As Basilone's group advanced toward the enemy position a shell went off killing all of them including Basilone. Basilone had been awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions on Guadalcanal and did not have to return to a combat outfit but volunteered to go anyway.

James Goodrich landed [Annotator's Note: on Iwo Jima] on Red Beach 1 with the 2nd Battalion [Annotator's Note: 2nd Battalion, 27th Marine Regiment, 5th Marine Division]. Their objective was to cut the island in half which they did. The 28th Marines [Annotator's Note: 28th Marine Regiment , 5th Marine Division] landed on Green Beach, which was to the left of Goodrich, and their objective was to ring and capture Mount Suribachi. They captured Suribachi after five days. Goodrich was one of the few Marines who made it across the island and cut it into two pieces on the first day. The enemy fire Goodrich experienced on the beach was small arms fire. Once they had made their way inland a little, the Japanese opened up with artillery. There were a lot of casualties. Goodrich lost three of the 12 men in his squad on the first day. The night of the first day there were a lot of enemy infiltrators that were trying to get through their lines. Goodrich does not know if they were coming from Suribachi or going to Suribachi. Suribachi was dotted with caves. Some of them were as deep as eight stories. To Goodrich it was pointless to get into a hole to hide because the Japanese were in the mountain above them and would shoot right down into the holes. The Japanese were not on Iwo Jima, they were in it. As a result of the defenses on Iwo Jima, Goodrich felt as if he never saw a live Japanese soldier but he was constantly receiving fire. It was a frustrating feeling. On Guadalcanal and Tarawa they would see the Japanese running out of pill boxes. On Iwo Jima the Japanese were hiding in spider traps all over the island. The Japanese tried to kill ten Marines for every Japanese casualty. The guy who got Goodrich had hit five Marines. Goodrich does not know how many the enemy soldier had gotten before that. Another Marine threw a hand grenade at the Japanese soldier and killed him. The infiltrators would try to engage the Marines in hand to hand combat at night. Goodrich could hear the sound of bayonets clanking at night. On the first or second night, Goodrich was in a hole with one of his gunners. Goodrich looked up and saw a Japanese soldier standing over their hole just as his gunner shot him with his .45 caliber pistol, killing him before he hit the ground. Goodrich did not get much sleep on Iwo Jima. He would catch a 15 to 20 minute nap when he could. It was surprising how little sleep they could get by with. Goodrich usually dug in with his machine guns so he had his gunners around keeping watch. Goodrich was the youngest man in the squad and he was the squad leader. He was also, with one exception, the only man in the squad with combat experience. They had lost so many men on Iwo that they were sending truck drivers, cooks, and even members of the band up to the front. It was a concern to him because he had to fight next to these men who had no training. Goodrich could only give them advice.

One of the replacements sent to James Goodrich's squad was killed before Goodrich ever got his name because he did not listen to the advice that Goodrich gave him. It would have saved his life. This was the toughest part of the job for him because he did not know a single thing about this man who was killed. Goodrich tried to not think about things like that. Goodrich constantly had the feeling on Iwo Jima that he was going to get hit. This feeling was with him constantly because of what he was witnessing with his own eyes. The odds were against him. The day that he did get hit there were only 16 able bodied men left in his company. The beach on Iwo Jima was littered with the debris of the invasion. One night, the Japanese hit the 5th Marine Division ammunition dump and the fireworks were incredible. A lot of tanks were knocked out of the battle by the Japanese. If Goodrich saw a tank he would get away from it because it drew a lot of fire. He remembers the Zippo tanks and their ability to throw flame over 150 yards. The fighting on Iwo Jima was yard for yard. If a unit made 500 yards in a day they were doing a great job. The battle on Iwo Jima lasted 26 days. Goodrich lasted about 20 days on the island before he was hit. He had one day off of the front line. They were pulled back and issued new socks and dungarees then sent back up. When Goodrich was heading back up, he passed General Howlin Mad Smith [Annotator's Note: USMC General Holland McTyeire Smith, commonly referred to as Howlin Mad Smith] and Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal watching the Marines pass by on their way back up to the front. In other places, the guys could fall back to get off of the line. On Iwo Jima there was no place to go. The whole island was a beach. Even when they were pulled off of the line they still took artillery fire. The only place they could go was to dig a hole and get in it. The holes they dug were hot because of the sulphur. Iwo Jima means Sulphur Island. The heat from the ground was so intense that they could heat ration cans just by setting them down in a hole. When they dug a hole they had to wait for it to cool down before they got into it.

[Annotator's Note: James Goodrich served in the US Marine Corps as a machine gun section leader in the 27th Marine Regiment, 5th Marine Division.] The Marines advanced yard by yard despite the casualties they were taking. The 4th and 5th Marine Divisions had landed on the island [Annotator's Note: Iwo Jima]. Two regiments from the 3rd Marine Division came in later. General Smith [Annotator's Note: USMC General Holland McTyeire Smith, commonly referred to as Howlin Mad Smith] took a lot of flak because of his decision to hold a regiment of the 3rd Marine Division in reserve. In Goodrich's company [Annotator's Note: Company E, 2nd Battalion, 27th Marine Regiment, 5th Marine Division] there were only 16 out of an original strength of 250 remaining. Goodrich's lieutenant, Medal of Honor recipient Jack Lummus [Annotator's Note: Andrew Jackson Lummus, Jr.], had his legs blown off when he stepped a land mine. Lummus had been a professional football player for the New York Giants. As he was dying, his last thoughts were that the Giants had lost one hell of a receiver. When they were in Hawaii Lummus played touch football with his men. Lummus stepped on the mine while leading his men in an attack on a pillbox. Goodrich was hit the day after Lummus. A new lieutenant came in to replace Lummus and called a meeting with his NCOs [Annotator's Note: non-commissioned officers]. The lieutenant asked Goodrich where his guns were. Goodrich could account for five of them but did not know where the last one was. The lieutenant told Goodrich to go find it. Goodrich took off to look for his gun. He carried a hand grenade with the pin pulled out of it so he could throw it at the gun position if the Japanese had captured it. Goodrich came across a log lying across the trail he was on. He decided to jump over it rather than go under it. When he jumped up he was shot in the stomach. When he went down he could see the sand kicking up around him as the enemy soldier was still trying to get him. Goodrich crawled into a shell crater and was helped out by a corpsman [Annotator's Note: a Navy medic]. The corpsman put a bandage and sprinkled some powder on the wound. He gave Goodrich a shot of morphine then left to help another wounded Marine. Goodrich was picked up by stretcher bearers who dropped him when the sniper who shot him started shooting at them. Goodrich was evacuated back to a couple of aid stations before finally ending up on the beach near the base of Mount Suribachi. He and the other wounded men he was with were loaded onto a Higgins boat [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel, or LCVP] and taken to a hospital ship out in the bay. The boat crew was told to bring the wounded men back to the beach because there was no more room. They were returned to the beach to be treated on shore. Goodrich was approached by a doctor who started tending to him. At the same time they were approached by an Army doctor who asked if he could be of any assistance. By this time, P-51 Mustangs [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft] were already landing on the island and the doctor had come from the airfield. The doctor working on Goodrich told the other doctor that they did need help. When Goodrich heard this, he looked at his doctor and asked if he was going to give him to the Army. He was assured that he would not be given to the Army. Goodrich was taken to a hospital tent and operated on. The last thing he remembered before going under from the ether was telling the corpsman that he was with the 27th Marines. Goodrich stayed there for about three days. The area was still under enemy shelling and when rounds hit close by he could see the shrapnel tearing holes in the tent he was in and he could see sunlight coming in through the holes. After about three days, a hospital ship arrived and Goodrich was taken to Guam.

James Goodrich was taken from Iwo Jima to a hospital on Guam. He was on Guam for about 12 or 13 days before being evacuated by C-47 [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain cargo aircraft]. The reason he was there for so long was that his chart was mislabeled and stated that he also had a chest wound. Goodrich finally convinced a C-47 pilot to take him off of the island. Goodrich was flown to Johnson Island and from there to Pearl Harbor. An ambulance picked Goodrich up when he arrived at Pearl. The other wounded man in the ambulance with him was a sailor who had been aboard the Franklin [Annotator's Note: USS Franklin (CV-13)] and had a massive hole in him from shrapnel. Goodrich does not know if the wounded sailor made it or not. After a few days, the wounded were put aboard the SS Lurline and steamed to San Francisco. The trip back to the States took five or six days during which the wounded lay in army cots on the floor of the ship's ballroom. When Goodrich landed in San Francisco his friend who had been assigned to Treasure Island was waiting for him with a uniform adorned with all of the ribbons Goodrich had earned. Goodrich was taken down to San Diego to Camp Pendleton. When he got there he was offered convalescent leave. After 30 days of leave Goodrich was assigned as Sergeant of the Guard to the Marine Corps Depot. After 30 days as Sergeant of the Guard, Goodrich was granted another furlough. He had more time off than he knew what to do with. When Goodrich returned from this furlough, he was assigned to a replacement battalion and was preparing to ship out to combat for a third time. Before he could ship out, the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Goodrich had orders to go to Tientsin, China, however, once the war ended his orders were rescinded and his outfit, the 5th Marine Division, was sent instead to Sasebo, Japan. Goodrich did not go with his outfit. By the end of the war Goodrich had accumulated more than enough points to go home. Unfortunately for him, he had signed up for four years so the Marine Corps held him to it. Goodrich served for four years and one day. After being discharged from the Marine Corps he went to Midland, Texas. The only job Goodrich had ever held before the war was bagging groceries. Goodrich's father worked in the oil fields and got him a job.

Many years after the war, James Goodrich went back to Iwo Jima. The visit helped him a lot with his own feelings about his experience on the island and World War 2. Goodrich never talked to anybody who had ever been back to Iwo Jima and he had only had one flashback after the war. During the war, Goodrich had a fear of being bayoneted. He would dream about being bayoneted in the back and could feel it going in. He knew a lot of other guys who had problems. When he came back from Hawaii, Goodrich saw one of his old platoon sergeants standing near a tank. When he yelled out to the man, another Marine told him that a shell had exploded next to the sergeant killing several of his men and that the sergeant did not even know who he was. Goodrich looked the man right in the eyes and it was like he was looking right through him. Goodrich saw that some men could take more pain than others. Goodrich is very glad that he went back to Iwo Jima. He met a lot of good people, including the interviewer. The trip was also educational and gave him a new insight to the Japanese. One of the men he met was the son of the Japanese general [Annotator's Note: Japanese Imperial Army General Tadamichi Kuribayashi] who had commanded the forces on Iwo Jima. [Annotator's Note: Goodrich also refers to General Kuribayashi's relative as his grandson]. The General's body was never found. The Japanese plan to restrict what visitors to Iwo Jima can see when on the island. There are memorials all over the island and over 11,000 people still unaccounted for.