Sixty-six years ago today the people of Japan heard something they had never heard before in their lives — the voice of their Emperor.

Emperor Hirohito, via a recording, was telling them that World War II was lost. Japan was surrendering and that they would be "enduring the unendurable and suffering what is insufferable."

Even as people listened in stunned disbelief to the sacred "Voice of the Crane," George Sampsel and about a million other Americans were preparing  to invade Japan in what was code-named Operation Downfall. Estimates predicted as many as 260,000 of those men would die.

"Landing in Japan would've been a mess," said Sampsel, 86, a Manheim resident. "A lot of guys would've gotten killed. I might not be here."

Sampsel had already made two island landings in the war and had twice been wounded.

Sampsel joined the Marines on Sept. 29, 1943, when he was 17 because he "always thought they were rough and nasty."

His assigned weapon was the .30-caliber machine gun — "and boy, could I use it"  — he said.

After training, Sampsel was assigned to Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 6th Regiment, 2nd Division and sent overseas. On Nov. 20, 1943, he was in the first wave heading for the beach at Tarawa.

Like many Marines that day, his landing boat hung up on a submerged reef 800 yards offshore, forcing him to walk through waist-deep water under murderous Japanese fire.

"We were exposed, out in the open," said Sampsel, who was carrying his machine gun and 250 rounds of ammunition. "The Japanese were on our (behinds) all the time. They wanted to get us machine gunners."

All around him, bodies bobbed in the blood-red surf.

"We got to shore but we lost a lot of men doing it," he said.

Shortly after reaching the island, Sampsel was hit in the legs by shrapnel. Evacuated to a hospital ship, he was soon sailing for Hawaii.

After recovering, he was reassigned to Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 28th Regiment, 5th Division. There he met and befriended a Pima Indian from Easy Company named Ira Hayes.

"Ira was like a brother to me," Sampsel said.

On Feb. 19, 1945, the 28th Marines landed on Green Beach in the shadow of Mount Suribachi on the volcanic island of Iwo Jima.

"Iwo was a mess," Sampsel said. "We caught hell. When you land on an island like that, you don't have any protection. You're like a sitting duck. They could pick off anybody they wanted to."

The Japanese fought from caves and underground bunkers. Sampsel's job was to use his machine gun to lay down covering fire while other Marines, carrying flame throwers and explosives, cleared out the enemy in a technique grimly called the "blowtorch and corkscrew" method.

"That'd bring them out or burn them up," he said. "That's the only way we could get them."

Sampsel saw the first American flag raised on Suribachi. But the second and more famous flag — the one his friend Ira Hayes assisted with — went up almost unnoticed by every other Marine.

However, Sampsel did lend a hand to the man who took that famous flag-raising photo. Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal had come ashore in the same boat as Sampsel.  He told the Marine that he had lost his camera but was afraid to retrieve it due to enemy fire.

" 'I need it,' he told me," Sampsel said.

Sampsel, carrying a .45 automatic, went out and brought the camera back.

"He said 'I want to do something for you, George,' " Sampsel said. "So I said, 'How about giving me copies of some of your pictures?' And he said, 'Oh hell, yes.' He was a nice guy."

Sampsel still has those Rosenthal photos, though none are of the flag raising.

About seven days into the battle, Sampsel was hit, receiving 17 shrapnel wounds.

"It burned like hell," he said. "I thought, 'This is my time. I'll never see my 20th birthday.' "

That's the last thing he remembered until he woke up in the Naval hospital at Pearl Harbor.

Of Fox Company's 385 men, only 8 left Iwo Jima unscathed when the 36-day fight ended on March 26, 1945.

"I lost a lot of buddies," Sampsel said.

To this day, Sampsel doesn't know how he survived the war.

"I know the man above was with me," he said.

lalexander@lnpnews.com