From Hastings to Iwo Jima

A Young Man From Hastings

Ronald John M. “John” Haynes was born on December 15, 1925, and grew up near Hastings, Michigan, in the quiet country around Long Lake and Cloverdale. Before he was a Marine, before Iwo Jima, before Mount Suribachi became one of the most famous names in American military history, he was a young man from Barry County who graduated from Hastings High School in 1943.

Family memory says he joined the United States Marine Corps at only seventeen. That detail matters. It places him among the generation of young Americans who left farms, small towns, factories, schools, and families to enter a war already raging across the world. For Haynes, the war would carry him from Michigan to Marine training, across the Pacific, and finally onto the volcanic ash of Iwo Jima.

The Record And The Assumptions

Some details of his service are firmly supported by public records. His obituary identifies him as a Marine who served in World War II, fought in the Pacific, and was present at Iwo Jima. A public roster of the 26th Marines, 5th Marine Division lists “Haynes, Ronald M, Pfc.” That makes the most likely official frame for his combat service: Private First Class Ronald M. Haynes, 26th Marines, 5th Marine Division.

Other details come from family memory and must be treated with care. His obituary states that he served as a machine gunner and munitions carrier, fought at Guam and Iwo Jima, helped take Mount Suribachi, and was present when both flags were raised. The Iwo Jima connection is strongly supported. The exact company and battalion have not yet been confirmed by a muster roll.

The best working assumption, based on the public roster and the flag-raising witness accounts, is that he may have served with 2nd Battalion, 26th Marines, possibly Company D. That assumption fits the story, but it should remain labeled as an assumption until confirmed by Marine Corps muster rolls or his official service record.

Training For The Pacific

The likely path from Michigan to combat began with recruit training. For a Marine from Michigan in 1943, San Diego is a plausible training location, although not yet confirmed in his individual record. There, young men were stripped of civilian habits and remade into Marines. They drilled, marched, learned discipline, fired rifles, studied basic tactics, trained with bayonets and grenades, dug fighting positions, and learned the habits of survival expected of infantrymen in the Pacific war.

If Haynes followed the path of the 26th Marines, the next major stop was Camp Pendleton, California. The 26th Marines became part of the newly formed 5th Marine Division, a division created for the final and most brutal phase of the Pacific campaign. The men trained for amphibious assault, landing craft operations, small-unit movement, weapons employment, and the close combat that Marine planners knew would define the coming battles against Japan’s island defenses.

The Guam Question

The 26th Marines originally moved west under the shadow of the Guam campaign. This is where family memory and unit history become complicated. Haynes’ obituary says he fought on Guam. The official unit history shows that the 26th Marines was sent west for possible use in the Guam operation, but while the regiment was en route, the situation on Guam changed. The operation was progressing well enough that the additional regiment was no longer needed, and the 26th Marines was diverted to Hawaii.

That means the family memory of Guam may reflect several possibilities. Haynes may have been attached elsewhere before joining the 26th Marines. He may have been part of the force staged and prepared for Guam without actually landing there. Or the memory of his Pacific route may have compressed “sent for Guam” into “fought on Guam.” Until a muster roll or service record confirms the exact sequence, the most honest version is this: family memory placed him at Guam, while the 26th Marines’ official record shows the regiment was prepared for possible use there but diverted before commitment.

Camp Tarawa And Island X

In Hawaii, the 5th Marine Division trained at Camp Tarawa on the Big Island. Camp Tarawa was not the tropical paradise men may have imagined when they heard the word Hawaii. It was a rough training ground set in the high ranch country near Kamuela, with dust, lava rock, wind, and cold nights. For Marines preparing to invade a volcanic island fortress, it was useful terrain. It hardened feet, lungs, and tempers.

By late 1944, the division knew its next target only by a code name: Island X. That island was Iwo Jima.

The strategic reason for Iwo Jima was simple to state and terrible to execute. The island sat between the Mariana Islands and the Japanese home islands. By early 1945, American B-29 bombers were flying long missions from bases in the Marianas to strike Japan. Iwo Jima gave Japanese forces radar warning, fighter fields, and a forward base from which to threaten American air operations. If captured, Iwo Jima could serve the United States as an emergency landing field for damaged B-29s, a base for fighter escorts, and a stepping stone in the tightening ring around Japan. It would also help protect the flank of the coming Okinawa campaign.

In other words, the Marines were not being sent to seize black sand and rock for symbolism. They were being sent to remove a Japanese outpost that threatened American bombers and to create a forward base that could save aircrews who otherwise might ditch in the Pacific. The strategic objective was airpower, reach, rescue, and pressure against Japan itself.

For the Marines who would land there, none of that made the beach easier.

Landing On Iwo Jima

The 5th Marine Division moved from Hawaii through the final staging points of the Central Pacific. The assumed route for Haynes, if he remained with the 26th Marines, was from Camp Tarawa to embarkation, then to Pearl Harbor, rehearsals near Maui and Kahoolawe, then across the Pacific through Eniwetok and Saipan. From Saipan, the invasion force sailed toward Iwo Jima.

On the morning of February 19, 1945, the Marines came ashore.

Iwo Jima was unlike the earlier jungle islands many Americans associated with the Pacific war. It was a volcanic fortress. The beaches were made of loose black ash that swallowed boots, bogged down vehicles, and made movement exhausting. The Japanese defenders, under Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, had prepared the island with caves, tunnels, pillboxes, artillery positions, mortars, mines, and interlocking fields of fire. They did not intend to throw the Marines back into the sea in one wild counterattack. They intended to bleed them slowly from hidden positions.

The 26th Marines landed later on D-Day after the first assault waves. By the evening of February 19, the regiment was ashore and moving into the fight. For a machine gunner or ammunition carrier, the battle would have been physical in a way hard to imagine from a map. Machine gun ammunition was heavy. Mortar rounds were heavy. Water was heavy. Everything useful had to be carried forward through loose ash, under fire, through confusion, smoke, shell bursts, screams, and the constant pressure of not knowing where the next round would come from.

Family memory says Haynes was both a machine gunner and a munitions carrier. That combination rings true for the battlefield. A Marine might serve a gun, feed ammunition, haul belts and boxes forward, help move weapons, carry supplies to an exposed platoon, or do whatever the moment demanded. On Iwo Jima, job titles mattered less than survival and momentum. If the gun needed ammunition, someone carried it. If an assault team needed grenades, satchel charges, or belts of machine-gun ammunition, someone moved through fire to bring them forward.

Suribachi And The Flags

During the first days of the battle, the Marines split their effort. The 28th Marines drove south toward Mount Suribachi, the volcanic cone dominating the southern end of the island. Other elements, including the 26th and 27th Marines, fought northward across the island’s central terrain and toward the airfields and defensive belts beyond.

This is where Haynes’ story touches one of the most famous moments in American history. The actual flag raisers on Mount Suribachi were from the 28th Marines, not the 26th. But Marines of the 26th were close enough to see what happened. A Marine Corps account places Captain Thomas M. Fields of Company D, 2nd Battalion, 26th Marines, in a position where his men saw the first flag go up and shouted for him to look. That account gives weight to the family memory that Haynes saw the flags raised.

If Haynes was indeed with Company D, 2nd Battalion, 26th Marines, then he may have been among those Marines who paused in the middle of the fight, looked south toward Suribachi, and saw the flag rise.

The first flag went up on February 23, 1945. Later, a larger flag was raised, producing Joe Rosenthal’s famous photograph. That image became a national symbol almost immediately. But for the Marines on the island, the flag did not mean the battle was over. It meant the southern landmark had fallen. The killing still lay ahead.

The Fight North

For the 26th Marines, the fight moved north into increasingly savage ground. The regiment fought through terrain where Japanese defenses were dug into caves and ridges, often invisible until they opened fire. Progress was measured in yards. Tanks, artillery, naval gunfire, flamethrowers, bazookas, demolitions, grenades, rifles, and machine guns all became part of the same close fight. The enemy was not simply in front of the Marines. He was below them, beside them, behind them, hidden in tunnels, firing from holes, disappearing, and reappearing.

The fight around Hill 362B became one of the brutal episodes in the 26th Marines’ campaign. By early March, the regiment was deep in the northern struggle. Marines assaulted caves and pillboxes under machine-gun and mortar fire. They used flame and explosives to clear positions that could not be taken by rifle fire alone. Casualties mounted. Units shrank. Companies that had landed with strength were reduced by wounds, exhaustion, and death.

If Haynes was with 2nd Battalion, 26th Marines, and especially if he was with Company D, then his Iwo Jima was not limited to the famous view of Suribachi. His war was the black sand, the wet ash, the broken weapons, the ammunition runs, the blast of machine guns, and the grinding northern advance after the photograph had already gone home to America.

That contrast is important. To the public, Iwo Jima often became a single image: six Marines raising a flag. To the men still fighting there, it was a month of attrition. The flag was real. The pride was real. But the island was not won in a moment. It was won by Marines like Ronald Haynes carrying ammunition, holding positions, moving forward, and enduring a battlefield designed to consume them.

Survival And Memory

The campaign lasted thirty-six days. Thousands of Marines and sailors were killed. Many more were wounded. The cost was staggering. But the island was taken, and its airfields became part of the final American air campaign against Japan. Damaged B-29s did use Iwo Jima as an emergency landing field. Aircrews who might have been lost at sea had a place to land. Fighter operations gained reach. The Japanese warning and defense network was pushed back.

Ronald Haynes survived.

That fact should not be treated as a small thing. Many men in the 5th Marine Division did not come home. Many who did carried Iwo Jima with them for the rest of their lives. Haynes returned to Michigan, to family, to work, and to the long ordinary life that combat veterans often fought quietly to preserve. He married, raised a family, and lived for decades after the war. But the memory of Iwo Jima remained attached to him. Later memorial references remembered him specifically as a United States Marine of World War II and Iwo Jima.

For his family, the story became more than dates and units. It became the story of a seventeen-year-old from Hastings who entered the Marine Corps and crossed the Pacific. It became the story of a machine gunner and ammunition carrier who endured one of the hardest battles in Marine Corps history. It became the story of a man who, according to family memory, helped take Mount Suribachi and saw the flags rise over Iwo Jima.

What Remains Unconfirmed

The careful historian must still say what remains unconfirmed. His exact company has not yet been proven by a muster roll. The Guam portion of his service remains unresolved. The strongest available lead points to the 26th Marines, 5th Marine Division, with 2nd Battalion and Company D as the best working assumption because of the flag-raising witness connection. A Marine Corps muster roll from early 1945 would likely settle the matter.

But the larger story is already clear. Ronald John M. “John” Haynes was part of the generation that carried the war across the Pacific. He left Michigan as a teenager, trained as a Marine, crossed the ocean with the 5th Marine Division, and fought at Iwo Jima in the 26th Marines. His work was not glamorous. Machine guns, ammunition, ash, caves, and survival rarely are. But that work was essential. The strategic objective was to seize an island that could support the air campaign against Japan and save American aircrews. The human objective was simpler: get the job done, protect the Marine beside you, and make it home if you could.