The Last Lieutenant: A Foxhole View of the Epic Battle for Iwo Jima

Notes on Abbreviations

Note on Abbreviations In describing individual Marine units I occasionally use standard Marine designations used by the Corps in World War II. BLT 3/24 is the unit designation for the 3rd Battalion Landing Team of the 24th Marines, to distinguish it from the 3rd Rie Battalion of the 24th Marines, “3/24.” A battalion landing team was composed of the three rie companies of a battalion in addition to associated supporting units. Other times I make a reference to RCT 24, Regimental Combat Team 24. RCT 24 consisted of the three rie battalions of the 24th Regiment of the 4th Division plus associated attached units including a tank battalion, engineers, a medical corps, a war dog platoon, artillery, a scout and sniper platoon, a replacement draft, and other ancillary units needed to reinforce the regiment. D-Day is the military term for the unnamed day on which an operation or a military offensive is to be launched. Subsequent days are referred to as “D plus an integer.” Days leading up to the D-Day are designated “D minus an integer.” Using the same schema, H-Hour is the hour the battle or operation is to commence and time before and after H-Hour is H plus or minus time in minutes or hours. For example, two days before D-Day is designated as D-2 and two days after D-Day is D+2. One hour before landing is designated H-1. The military refers to time using a 24-hour clock to avoid possible confusion . Midnight is 2400 and is pronounced “twenty-four hundred hours” and 1:45  is designated 0145. Noon is 1200, and 3:30  is designated 1530. TheLastLieutenant ...