The Medal of Honor recipient who became a ‘One-Man Regiment of Iwo Jima’
By Claire Barrett
Feb 19, 2026, 08:00 AM
Medal of Honor recipient Wilson Watson. (Naval History and Heritage Command)
It had been one week since roughly 60,000 service members rushed ashore the sulfurous outcropping that was Iwo Jima.
Despite the island being barely 10 square miles in area, “assault troops,” writes the Naval History and Heritage Command, “were to be subjected to a step-by-step battle of attrition, slowly progressing from one well-defended killing zone to the next.”
American air superiority by this late state of the war left the Japanese ground forces virtually unprotected, forcing them into the earth. On Iwo, a system of mutually supported network of caves, tunnels, concrete pillboxes and fortified strongpoints and artillery positions allowed for the dug in enemy to simply await the Americans.
The honeycombed defensive positions often meant that naval support and Army air power were negligible, meaning that “small teams of Marines — or even individuals — armed with flame throwers, satchel charges and hand grenades (“blow torches and corkscrews”) were those who were instrumental in destroying Japanese strongpoints,” writes the NHHC.
It was within these conditions that Pvt. Wilson “Doug” Watson found himself in.
https://www.militarytimes.com/veterans/military-history/2026/02/19/the-medal-of-honor-recipient-who-became-a-one-man-regiment-of-iwo-jima/
