New “Iwo Blasted Again” review: “The horrors of combat with a poet’s awe”
I was very pleased to receive this review of “Iwo Blasted Again” from Champaign, Ill., author Peter T. Tomaras and thought it was worth sharing his insights. Peter’s own adventure-fiction novel, “Resistors,” can be found here. The level of research he did for this work of international intrigue is impressive. I always appreciate feedback from fellow authors.
5.0 out of 5 stars Notable, Worthy Work
Reviewed on March 23, 2022
“Ray Elliott has given voice—and indelible word pictures—to the inner life of a wounded WWII warrior. No, that is too soft an adjective: ‘damaged’ warrior comes closer. Jack Britton hits the Iwo Jima beach as a teenager, and his life’s path, until then unformed, is forever afflicted.
“For anyone born after the Vietnam ‘conflict’ to take interest in this important novel about a WWII combat survivor, it is essential to understand the significance of Iwo Jima in the Volcano Islands archipelago. In its initial surges, Japan seized virtually all of the Southwest Pacific, including the Philippines. As U.S. and allied forces began to gain territory following our naval victory at Midway, dozens of Japanese-occupied islands had to be retaken or hopped if the U.S. was to overcome Japanese air superiority and mount an invasion of Japan itself. Early campaigns took Tarawa, then Kwajalein. Saipan fell in June of 1944, followed by Guam.
“Iwo’s three airfields, just 750 miles from Japan, were home to fighters that harassed U.S. bombers raiding the Japanese mainland and, if won, could then receive and launch U.S. bombers. Bataan was liberated on Feb. 16, 1945, and three days later Marines staged an amphibious landing on Iwo beaches. Military leadership felt the island, heavily bombarded by air and sea, would fall within days. However, more than 20,000 Japanese had dug caves into the rock and survived the bombardment. What followed were the bloodiest five weeks of the Pacific War, with more than 6,800 Americans (mostly Marines) killed and some 17,000 wounded—fully one-third of all Marine casualties in the Corps’ 43 months of Pacific service.
“Ray Elliott brings the tragedy of Iwo Jima home to readers as vividly as is possible without our living the horrors of seeing men, some close buddies, torn into pieces by mortars, artillery and machine guns. At night came close combat engagements with Japanese determined to fight to the death. Die they did, virtually to the last man, maniacally resisting some 70,000 U.S. combatants we ultimately committed to the mission.
“Elliott’s account is visceral, yet he renders the horrors of combat with a poet’s awe. But the novel is less about actual combat than it is about how his youthful experiences affect the ensuing decades of Jack Britton’s life. Hundreds of thousands of war veterans live through unimaginable stresses, only to rarely speak of them. But these memories are indestructible; they color (rather, discolor) the rest of the time survivors live. Elliott drives this home through the irrepressible surfacing of awful images as Jack Britton ages, not least as he approaches death.
“While ‘Iwo Blasted Again’ shows us the reality of war—the familiar phrase ‘war is hell’ falls short—Elliott’s novel is about strength: how a young man, not only crippled by war but also by the loss of his loving and accepting wife as she gives birth to their son, summons the strength to forge a life. Elliott’s characters lapse rather easily into poetry (Shakespeare’s plays, McRae’s ‘In Flanders Field’) … understandable for Britton, who post-war earns his degree and teaches high school English. After all, Marine veteran Ray Elliott did exactly this himself. The poetic references are apt, even if lengthy recitations seem a tad improbable, given the walking war wounded (physically and psychologically) who speak them.
“This is Elliott invoking a fiction author’s license and is A-OK. Certainly, I pose no criticisms of this concise, impactful novel. Elliott presents his protagonist credibly, unembellished and compassionately. Not James Jones, not Norman Mailer could have portrayed Jack Britton or his experiences more memorably.”