February 20th, 1945.
The volcanic ash beneath Lieutenant Yamada’s boots crunches like broken glass as he peers through the concrete observation slit of pillbox 247.
The morning sun casts long shadows across Euima’s northern sector and black smoke trails from something approaching through the sulfur stained landscape.
At first glance, it’s just another American Sherman tank.
Olive drab paint.
Familiar silhouette.
The same machines that have been dying in the volcanic sand for 2 days.
But something feels different.
Yamada adjusts his field glasses, studying the approaching vehicle.
Tank number 431, moving with deliberate caution through the ash drifts that swallow men to their knees.
Inside the concrete fortress he’s helped build over the past year, the lieutenant allows himself a moment of confidence.
This bunker can withstand direct hits from 16in naval guns.
Its 4ft thick walls are reinforced with steel rods salvaged from abandoned construction projects.
Machine gun ports offer interlocking fields of fire with neighboring positions.
Below his feet, tunnels connect to an underground network 11 miles long, seven stories deep, and subterranean city designed to make every American yard cost rivers of blood.
General Kuribashi’s strategy is working perfectly.
Let them land.
Let them bunch up on the beaches, then make them pay for every inch with mathematical precision.
One American dead for every yard gained.
10 American casualties for every Japanese defender lost.
The mathematics are simple and brutal.
But as tank 431 closes to 125 yd, Yamada notices something that makes his stomach tighten.
The turret is traversing toward his position with mechanical precision.
But where the familiar 75 mm main gun should be, there’s something else.
a modified barrel, a nozzle.
What is the sound hits him first? Not the thunder crack of a tank cannon or the chattering of machine guns, but something entirely new.
A mechanical hiss like compressed air escaping under enormous pressure.
Then comes the sight that will haunt his dreams for the next 40 years.
A torrent of burning liquid erupts from the American tank, arcing through the Pacific morning like liquid hellfire.
The stream stretches impossibly far.
150 yards of napalm thickened death, painting a blazing line across the volcanic landscape.
It strikes the concrete aperture of the neighboring pillbox with devastating accuracy, splashing through the machine gun port and flowing inside like molten lava, seeking the lowest ground.
The screams last only seconds.
Yamada’s field telephone crackles with panicked reports from positions across the sector.
Strange American tanks.
Something different.
They’re burning us out.
His hands shake as he reaches for the receiver, watching black smoke pour from defensive positions that were supposed to be impregnable.
Inside tank 431, Staff Sergeant Robert Misa’s voice cuts through the engine noise.
Gunner, traverse, right 30°.
Next target, pillbox, fire.
How could they have known that eight modified Sherman tanks created in secret by Navy CBS working 20our days in Hawaiian warehouses were about to transform the nature of warfare forever? How could anyone have prepared for weapons that turned Japan’s greatest defensive strength, their underground fortress, into a crematorium? 5 months earlier, the story began in a classified workshop at Scoffield Barracks, Hawaii, where the sound of welding torches filled the tropical air 20 hours a day.
Machinist Mate first class A.
Riker wipes sweat from his forehead, leaving a streak of grease across his brow as he examines the CBH1 flamethrower system, taking shape inside the turret of Sherman tank number 431.
The same tank that will soon terrify Lieutenant Yamada.
“We’re not just building a weapon,” Riker tells his partner.
Electricians mate Secondass Joseph Kyle as sparks cascade around them.
“We’re building something to save Marine lives.” Every bunker this thing burns out is a bunker our boys don’t have to die taking.
The two CBS have been living beside their welding equipment, sleeping in shifts, driven by reports from Pleu and Saipan, where Marines died by the thousands trying to assault fortified positions that artillery couldn’t touch.
The math is simple and heartbreaking.
Portable flamethrower operators have a 70% casualty rate.
Some units lose 92% of their flame operators.
Boys with 70 lb fuel tanks on their backs approaching concrete bunkers at ranges where Japanese machine gunners can see the whites of their eyes.
Colonel George F.
Unm paces between the eight tanks taking shape in the warehouse.
Each conversion requiring 1,200 man-hour and 150 specially machined parts.
At 64 years old with 44 years of military service, he understands that wars are won by innovation, not just courage.
His CBH one system combines the best elements from British, American, and captured German flamethrower designs into something unprecedented.
A weapon that can project napal thickened fuel 150 yards with the accuracy of a tank cannon.
300 lb per square inch of pressure.
Um explains to a visiting Marine officer, triple the pressure of previous designs.
The fuel mixture burns at 1500° F.
Most critically, it can traverse 270° and elevate from -10 to positive 35° through the tank’s existing fire control systems.
But the real innovation is psychological.
These tanks look identical to regular Shermans until the moment they open fire.
No special markings, no indication of their terrible purpose.
To enemy observers, they appear ordinary until it’s too late.
Meanwhile, 8,000 m away, General Tatamichi Kurabayashi stands in the command bunker beneath Hill 382, studying maps marked with precise defensive calculations.
Every approach route has been measured.
Every kill zone registered with artillery spotters.
His 21,000 defenders have spent the entire year of 1944 carving an underground empire from volcanic rock.
1,500 fortified positions connected by tunnels large enough to shelter entire battalions.
Do not die until you have killed 10 Americans, his standing orders read.
Every soldier will maintain position until overrun, then fight with grenades, bayonets, and finally bare hands.
The general’s mathematics are elegant in their brutality.
21,000 defenders multiplied by 10 American casualties each equals 210,000 enemy losses, far more than the entire invasion force.
The Americans may take Euima, but the cost will be so catastrophic they’ll abandon their plans to invade the Japanese homeland.
Japanese intelligence reports have analyzed every American weapon system.
They know about portable flamethrowers, dangerous to the operators, limited in range, vulnerable to concentrated small arms fire.
Special training emphasizes anti- flamethrower tactics.
Target the distinctive twin tanks.
rush positions during the weapon’s minimum range exploit the operator’s vulnerability while reloading.
But all Japanese planning assumes flamethrowers will be carried by infantry.
The concept of armored flamethrowers, tanks that can approach fortified positions under cover of their own armor while delivering accurate incendiary attacks at unprecedented range has never been considered.
Private Takahashi Toshiharu crouches in a spider hole near the base of Mount Suribachi.
A 20 kg bomb strapped to his back.
At 31, the engineer from Kochi Prefecture has volunteered for the ultimate mission.
Infiltrate enemy tank positions at night and detonate himself against American armor.
He’s written his final letter home apologizing to his wife and children for not returning alive.
There is no water, no bullets, no way I can live, he whispers to his seven companions, all carrying identical explosive charges.
We are going to death with justice.
But Takahashi has been trained to attack conventional tanks.
His tactical manual describes Sherman armor thickness, weak points in the track system, blind spots where a determined soldier can approach undetected.
Nothing in his training covers tanks that can fire liquid death at 150 yard range.
Weapons that turn defensive advantages into killing grounds.
Staff Sergeant Robert Misa checks his watch as Tank 431 idles near Ewima’s black sand beaches.
Around him, the 8 M4 A3R3 flamethrower tanks sit among regular Shermans, their terrible secret hidden until the moment of engagement.
His crew, Driver Private James Morrison, Assistant Driver Private Robert Chen, Loader Corporal Anthony Vatelli, Gunner Corporal Thomas Carlson.
You represent months of specialized training on equipment that’s never been tested in combat.
Remember, Misa tells his men over the intercom, “Surprise is our only advantage.
We look like every other Sherman until we fire.
After that, every Japanese gun on this island will be aimed at us.” Through his periscope, he can see Marines dying by the hundreds, trying to advance against invisible Japanese positions.
Conventional tactics are failing catastrophically.
Naval gunfire can’t penetrate bunkers buried under 10 ft of volcanic rock.
Artillery shells explode harmlessly against positions designed to withstand direct hits from battleship guns.
The first day’s casualties are staggering.
2,420 Marines killed or wounded for less than 700 yards of territory gained.
But what if eight tanks could change everything? At exactly 1420 hours on February the 20th, 1945, the sound that would echo through military history forever breaks the volcanic silence of Ewima’s northern sector.
Inside tank 431, Staff Sergeant Misa’s voice cuts through the engine noise with mechanical precision.
Gunner, flamethrower.
Pillbox, fire.
Corporal Thomas Carlson’s finger finds the trigger and the CBH1 system erupts with a sound witnesses will later describe as the devil’s own blowtorrch.
The compressed nitrogen system operating at 300 lb per square in propels a stream of napalm thickened fuel oil in a perfect arc through the Pacific morning.
The burning liquid strikes the concrete pillbox aperture with devastating accuracy, splashing through the machine gun port and flowing inside like molten lava, seeking every corner, every hiding place.
Lieutenant Yamada watches in paralyzed horror from his observation position 200 yd away.
The temperatures inside the neighboring bunker soar past 1,500° F in seconds.
The oxygen is consumed so rapidly that Japanese soldiers suffocate before the flames reach them.
Those who survive the initial blast attempt to flee through rear exits only to discover that liquid fire has flowed through ventilation shafts, turning their carefully constructed fortress into a crematorium.
My god,” whispers Private Morrison, the tanks driver, as screams cut through the morning air.
Brief, terrible sounds that end almost as quickly as they begin.
But there’s no time for reflection.
Japanese anti-tank guns have identified the threat, and a 47mm shell strikes Tank 431’s frontal armor with a sound like the world’s largest hammer hitting an anvil.
The tank shutters, steel ringing against steel, but the shot ricochets skyward.
The Sherman’s armor holds.
“Traverse right 30°,” Meza orders, his voice steady despite the chaos erupting around them.
“Scox, continuous fire.” Carlson triggers another burst, maintaining the flame for 15 agonizing seconds until black smoke billows from every aperture of the fortification.
Through the smoke and sulfur fumes, they can see Japanese soldiers emerging from positions, not in organized retreat, but in panicked flight, something no American has witnessed in 3 years of Pacific warfare.
They’re running, Chen reports from his position at the bow machine gun, disbelief clear in his voice.
They’re actually running away.
Radio chatter explodes across marine communications networks as reports flood in from across the front.
Flame tanks operational.
Japanese positions neutralized.
Enemy abandoning fortifications without direct assault.
Tank number 434 supporting the 23rd Marines near the Eastboat Basin has developed what crew commander Sergeant William Patterson calls corkcrew and burn tactics, approaching in a spiral pattern to avoid anti-tank fire while maintaining continuous flame suppression.
In one afternoon, his tank destroys four fortified positions that had stopped an entire battalion’s advance for two days.
But it’s Tank 432’s demonstration near Mount Surabachi that reveals the weapon’s true psychological impact.
Patterson orders his driver to stop 100 yards from a complex of interconnected caves where dozens of Japanese soldiers watch from the darkness.
Through his periscope, Patterson can see their eyes reflecting like animals caught in headlights.
He triggers a short burst of flame into the air, not at enemy positions, but skyward as a demonstration of what could happen.
The effect is instantaneous and unprecedented.
Japanese soldiers begin fleeing from rear exits, abandoning positions they’ve been ordered to defend to the death.
These are men who have survived the SinoJapanese War, who have been trained from childhood that death before dishonor is the warrior’s only choice.
Yet, they’re running from the threat of burning alive.
Marine riflemen, positioned to exploit exactly this moment, are so surprised they initially failed to fire on the retreating enemy.
In 30 minutes, an entire defensive sector collapses without the tank firing a shot directly at enemy positions.
Private Takahashi Toshiharu, crouched in his spider hole with the suicide bomb strapped to his back, watches tank 437 approach his position.
His tactical manual has prepared him for this moment.
Wait for the tank to close within 10 meters, then rush forward with the explosive charge.
Simple mathematics.
One Japanese life for one American tank.
But as the Sherman closes to 50 m, something impossible happens.
The turret traverses toward a bunker 80 yard to Takahashi’s left and liquid fire erupts from where the main gun should be.
The napalm stream arcs through the air like a flaming river, striking the bunker and flowing through every opening.
The screams that follow are unlike anything in his experience, not the quick death of bullets or shrapnel, but the prolonged agony of men being burned alive in their own fortress.
The enemy was burned out with a flamethrower, he will later write in his journal.
The flame is dark with black smoke.
I could not see even an inch ahead because the first tank was done.
The enemy must have been angry.
The second tank is headed for us and shoots with a cannon and dashing with a machine gun.
Awesome.
Tank 437 closes within 30 m.
Close enough that Takahashi can see the crew commander periscope tracking back and forth, searching for targets.
This is his moment, the distance his training manual specified for a successful suicide attack.
But as he prepares to rise from his concealment, the tank’s turret swings 180° and fires directly behind itself, incinerating a squad of Japanese soldiers who were attempting their own suicide charge.
The tactical revolution is complete.
Unlike conventional tanks that can only fire forward, the CBH1’s full traverse capability allows it to engage targets in any direction.
The weapon that was supposed to have limited fields of fire can now create a complete circle of death around itself.
Takahashi remains frozen in his spider hole as the tank passes overhead.
the weight of 35 tons compressing the volcanic ash around his hiding place.
Through the ground, he can feel the vibrations of the Sherman’s tracks, the rumble of its engine, the mechanical sounds of a machine that has just redefined warfare.
There are strange things and miracles in the world, he writes.
It is a miracle that I am now writing such things at a time like this.
It is surprising.
By nightfall on February 20th, the numbers tell a story that will reshape Marine Corps doctrine forever.
47 fortified positions destroyed by eight tanks in one day.
Marine casualties in flame supported sectors down 40% from the previous day.
600 yard of territory gained in areas that had been static for 48 hours.
But the most significant statistic is psychological.
For the first time in Japanese military history, significant numbers of soldiers are abandoning positions rather than dying at their posts.
General Kuribashi, monitoring the battle from his command bunker deep beneath Hill 382, receives reports that shatter his carefully calculated defensive mathematics.
Positions that were designed to hold for weeks are falling in ours.
The underground fortress that was supposed to be impregnable has become a death trap with liquid fire flowing through ventilation shafts and tunnel connections like molten rivers seeking the lowest ground.
His emergency orders that night designate flame tanks as priority targets for all available 47mm anti-tank guns.
Special assault teams are organized.
volunteers who will attack with explosive charges strapped to their bodies, but the fundamental problem remains insurmountable.
The flamethrower tanks look identical to regular Shermans until they fire, and by then it’s too late.
Radio operator Corporal James Martinez, monitoring Japanese communications from a intelligence post near the beach, picks up frantic transmissions in broken code.
New American weapon, impossible to counter.
Liquid fire flows like water.
Our positions become crematoriums.
The translation confirms what Marine commanders are witnessing firsthand.
The Japanese defensive doctrine refined over centuries of warfare is collapsing in the face of a weapon system created by Navy CBS working 20our days in a secret Hawaiian warehouse.
Tank 431.
Its armor now scarred with fresh dents and burn marks from near misses.
Idles behind a destroyed Japanese pillbox as Sergeant Messa surveys the transformed battlefield.
Smoke rises from a dozen positions that had seemed impregnable that morning.
Marine infantry moves forward in the wake of the flame tanks, advancing across ground that had caused hundreds of casualties just hours before.
We did what we had to do, Mesa will tell his grandson decades later.
Those tanks saved a lot of marine lives.
That’s what I try to remember.
40 years after that February morning, two old men stand together on Ewima’s black volcanic sand where tank 431 first opened fire.
Former Staff Sergeant Robert Mesa, now 73 with trembling hands, faces former Lieutenant Koshi Yamada, who witnessed that first flame tank attack from his concrete bunker.
“I hated you for 40 years,” Yamata says through an interpreter, his voice barely audible above the Pacific wind.
“The flame tanks killed my friends in ways I cannot forget.
But I understand now.
War makes monsters of us all.
You did what you had to do as did we.
Mesa responds simply.
We were all just boys trying to survive.
I’m glad we both lived to stand here today.
The two warriors embrace as Mount Suribachi rises behind them.
The volcanic peak where Marines raised the flag on the same day Tank 431 pioneered a new form of warfare.
Their reconciliation represents more than personal healing.
It acknowledges the transformation that eight modified Sherman tanks created in military history.
The statistics remain staggering even by modern standards.
Those eight flamethrower tanks consuming 360,000 gallons of napalm thickened fuel over 36 days of combat destroyed over 1,000 fortified positions and reduced American casualties by an estimated 5,000 men.
They had broken the deadlock of what could have been a monthsl long siege, proving that technological innovation could overcome even the most fanatical human resistance.
But the personal cost haunted everyone involved.
Tank crews reported severe psychological trauma from their role in what witnesses described as industrial scale incineration.
Corporal Thomas Carlson, the gunner who fired that first shot, testified years later.
You could hear them screaming when the flame hit.
Not for long, but you heard it.
Sometimes at night, I still hear it.
We did what we had to do, but I’ll never forget the smell.
Burning flesh mixed with sulfur from the volcanic rock.
The revolution extended far beyond Euima.
The Marine Corps immediately requested 54 additional flamethrower tanks for future operations.
Colonel George Unm’s team at Scoffield Barracks working with AAA Priority, the same level assigned to the Manhattan project, developed the improved CBH2 model.
By June 1945, 70 new flame tanks were ready for Operation Downfall, the planned invasion of Japan.
The weapon that began as a lastminute improvisation became standard equipment throughout the Pacific.
During the Battle of Okinawa, Army flame tanks consumed 200,000 gallons of fuel mixture, proving equally effective against Japanese cave complexes.
The CBS who created these machines, machinist Mate Riker and electricians Mate Kylle returned to civilian life after the war.
Their names forgotten except in obscure technical reports.
Yet their innovation had saved thousands of American lives.
General Kuribashi’s final assessment transmitted just before his death in late March 1945 proved remarkably preient.
The Americans have not just defeated us with superior numbers or firepower.
They have defeated us with superior imagination, turning our greatest strength, our underground fortifications, into death traps.
Future wars will belong to nations that can imagine new forms of warfare, not those who perfect old ones.
His prediction echoes through today’s military thinking where technological innovation continues to defeat traditional tactics.
From precisiong guided munitions to cyber warfare, the principle remains constant.
Imagination triumphs over convention.
Adaptation overcomes entrenchment.
Today, tank 434, the sole survivor of those original eight flame tanks, sits in the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia.
Its scarred armor tells the story of volcanic rock and shell impacts, of a weapon that changed warfare forever.
The small plaque notes specifications and battle history, but cannot convey the sound of compressed nitrogen releasing.
the sight of liquid fire arcing through Pacific mornings or the transformation of underground fortresses into crematoriums.
Veterans often pause longest before this exhibit, some saluting, others staring in silent remembrance.
School children ask their uncomfortable questions.
Why would anyone create such a horrible weapon? The answer lies not in glorification of war, but in recognition of war’s terrible necessities and the courage of young men who wielded these machines to save their brother’s lives.
The last reunion of Ewima flame tank veterans was held in 2015, attended by only three crew members, all in their 90s.
They gathered at the museum, sharing memories with historians desperate to preserve firsthand accounts before they were lost forever.
The age of the warrior had ended in flames on a volcanic island in the Pacific.
The age of technological warfare had begun, echoing still in every conflict where innovation meets desperation, where the marriage of American industrial might and battlefield necessity transforms the impossible into the inevitable.
