I don't know how I did it. I had one thing in mind--getting off that hill.
--Private Douglas Jacobson
Three days after Iwo Jima's famous flag raising over Mount Suribachi, Jacobson, a 19-year old from Long Island, carried out one of World War II's most unimaginable feats.
During an assault on Hill 382 an event occured so bloody that the sector was later nicknamed The Meat Grinder. On February 26, 1945 when his platoon's advance ground to a stop Jacobson ..."grabbed a bazooka and a satchel of explosives from a fallen Marine. The bazooka was designed to be weilded by two men, but he carried it alone....First he destroyed a 20 millimeter aircraft gun and wiped out its crew. Then he knocked out machine gun positions, two large blockhouses and seven rifle emplacements After that he destroyed a tank and continued his attack on blockhouses."*
All told when Jacobson finished single handedly storming the enemies position, 16 fortifications had been demolished and 75 Japenese soldiers had been killed. Four days later Hill 382 was captured.
Douglas Jacobson recieved the Medal of Honor for his heroism and succumbed to congestive heart failure and pneumonia near North Port, Florida at the age of 74 on August 20, 2000.
He conquers who endures."
-Persius