The Last Lieutenant

Iwo Jima: two words that will forever bring to mind the thirty-six days of continual, chaotic combat in which the U.S. Marines fought the entrenched Japanese for every inch of the tiny volcanic island. When it was over, more than twenty-six thousand Americans were killed or wounded, and only slightly more than two hundred Japanese defenders survived. Twenty-seven Medals of Honor were awarded—many posthumously.

Jim Craig was a platoon commander with the Marines on Iwo Jima. This is his story, as told to his nephew John C. Shively. In a particularly vivid and exciting account of some of the most intense fighting of the Pacific War, the immediacy of the story is heightened by the detail that Shively’s research has added to Craig’s recollections. The result will pull you onto the beach, into the foxhole, and over Mount Suribachi with those who lived, fought, and died on Iwo Jima.