The Japanese defenders waiting for the advance of the V Amphibious Corps were well armed and confident. Occasionally Kuribayashi authorized company-sized spoiling attacks to recapture lost terrain or disrupt enemy assault preparations. These were not suicidal or sacrificial. Most were preceded by stinging artillery and mortar fires and aimed at limited objectives. Kuribayashi’s iron will kept his troops from large-scale, wasteful _Banzai_ attacks until the last days. One exception occurred the night of 8 March when General Senda grew so frustrated at the tightening noose being applied by the 4th Marine Division that he led 800 of his surviving troops in a ferocious counterattack. Finally given a multitude of open targets, the Marines cut them down in a lingering melee. For the first week of the drive north, the Japanese on Iwo Jima actually had the attacking Marines outgunned. Japanese 150mm howitzers and 120mm mortars were superior to most of the weapons of the landing force. The Marines found the enemy direct fire weapons to be equally deadly, especially the dual-purpose antiaircraft guns and the 47mm tank guns, buried and camouflaged up to their turrets. “The Japs could _snipe_ with those big guns,” said retired Lieutenant General Donn J. Robertson. The defenders also had the advantage of knowing the ground. [Illustration: _The drive north by the 3d Battalion, 28th Marines, enters rugged terrain. Under heavy Japanese fire, this attack netted only 200 yards despite supporting fires._ Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 111988 ] Not surprisingly, most casualties in the first three weeks of the battle resulted from high explosives: mortars, artillery, mines, grenades, and the hellacious rocket bombs. _Time_ correspondent Robert Sherrod reported that the dead at Iwo Jima, both Japanese and American, had one thing in common: “They all died with the greatest possible violence. Nowhere in the Pacific War had I seen such badly mangled bodies. Many were cut squarely in half.” Close combat was rough enough; on Iwo Jima the stress seemed endless because for a long time the Marines had no secure “rear area” in which to give shot-up troop units a respite. Kuribayashi’s gunners throughout the Motoyama Plateau could still bracket the beaches and airfields. The enormous spigot mortar shells and rocket bombs still came tumbling out of the sky. Japanese infiltrators were drawn to “softer targets” in the rear. Anti-personnel mines and booby traps, encountered here on a large scale for the first time in the Pacific, seemed everywhere. Exhausted troop units would stumble out of the front lines seeking nothing more than a helmet-full of water in which to bathe and a deep hole in which to sleep. Too often the men had to spend their rare rest periods repairing weapons, humping ammo, dodging major-caliber incoming, or having to repel yet another nocturnal Japanese probe.