Japanese Couldn’t Believe He Built a Gun From Aircraft Parts — Until He Killed 20 of Them

At 0900 on February 19, 1945, Corporal Tony Stein crouched behind a shallow depression in the black volcanic sand of Iwo Jima, gripping a weapon his sergeant had called a stupid idea three months earlier. He was twenty-three years old, with six combat missions behind him but zero conventional kills. The Japanese had fortified every meter of this eight-square-mile rock with eleven miles of interconnected tunnels, 17,000 dedicated defenders, and overlapping fields of fire that turned the beach into a meat grinder.

Stein was among the first men from Company A, 1st Battalion, 28th Marines to establish a position beyond the initial beachhead. Around him, Marines were pinned down by concentrated machine gun and mortar fire from heavily camouflaged pillboxes they could not even see. By mid-morning, the 5th Marine Division had already lost forty-three men, and dead Marines lay scattered across the terraced beach, their bodies twisted in the dark volcanic ash.

The standard-issue Browning M1919 machine guns were effective, but they weighed thirty-one pounds empty and fired 400 rounds per minute, which was good for defense but terrible for a rapid assault. Stein had been well aware of this problem for months. Back in November 1944 at Camp Tarawa in Hawaii, he had watched machine gun crews struggle during training exercises.

The gunners simply could not keep up with the advancing rifle platoons. They had to set up, fire, and then spend precious minutes breaking down the heavy weapon and moving forward, by which time all tactical momentum was lost. Tony Stein was a natural toolmaker, born in Dayton, Ohio, to Austrian Jewish immigrants who had fled anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe.

He had spent his teenage years working a lathe at Patterson Field and then as a tool and die maker at Delco Products. He understood machines deeply; he understood what they could do and what they could not. When he joined the Paramarines in September 1942, that sharp mechanical mind went with him into the Pacific.

On Bougainville, he had killed five Japanese snipers in a single day, but it was his unique ability to modify equipment that caught the attention of Sergeant Mel Grevich. Grevich had been experimenting with something highly unusual during the Bougainville campaign in 1943, having salvaged an AN-M2 aircraft machine gun from a crashed Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bomber.

The AN-M2 was designed specifically for aerial combat, weighing only twenty-one pounds, which was ten pounds lighter than the standard ground M1919. More importantly, it could fire 1,200 to 1,500 rounds per minute, which was three times faster than the infantry version. However, there was a major problem: the AN-M2 had spade grips designed for aircraft mounts, meaning it had no traditional stock, no sights, and no way for a single Marine to carry it and fire accurately while advancing.

When Grevich approached Stein in November 1944, the Paramarines had just been disbanded, and both men had been reassigned to the 28th Marines, 5th Marine Division. They were preparing for a massive operation that the high command would not name yet, but everyone knew it would be exceptionally ugly. Grevich showed Stein the salvaged weapon, and Stein immediately saw the raw potential hidden within it.

They worked late at night in a dark maintenance shed, where Stein cut down an M1 Garand wooden buttstock, hollowing it out to accept the machine gun’s buffer tube. He fabricated a custom solenoid trigger mechanism from sheet metal scraps, while Grevich welded a Browning Automatic Rifle bipod to the front of the assembly. They added BAR rear sights for aiming, creating a crude but terrifying weapon.

The finished hybrid gun weighed twenty-five pounds, was fed by a 100-round ammunition box, and was capable of emptying that entire box in just five seconds of continuous fire. They called it the Stinger. Stein built six of them in total: one for each of Company G’s three rifle platoons, one for the demolition section, one for Grevich, and one for himself.

The reaction from the other Marines was highly mixed, as some called it a brilliant innovation while others deemed it a dangerous death trap. One sergeant looked at the improvised weapon and predicted it would jam on the very first burst, while another claimed the thin barrel would melt after just two magazines. A platoon commander from the 2nd Battalion even remarked that only an idiot would carry an airplane gun into an infantry fight.

However, when Stein test-fired it on the training range, emptying a full box into a target at 200 yards in under six seconds, the skeptics went entirely quiet. The company commanders approved it, the battalion approved it, and the Stinger was officially going to war. Now, on the lethal beach at Iwo Jima, Stein tightened his grip on the weapon as the Stinger’s barrel grew warm.

Around him, Marines were dying rapidly because they could not locate the hidden Japanese positions. Standard operating procedure was to call for tanks or naval gunfire, but the tanks were bogged down in the soft volcanic ash, and naval shells could not hit what observers could not see. Stein made a definitive choice.

He stood up fully upright in the middle of a beach where Japanese machine gunners held perfectly overlapping fields of fire. Corporal Tony Stein deliberately exposed himself to draw enemy attention, needing them to reveal their positions so he could see the telltale muzzle flashes. Bullets snapped directly past his head, and mortar rounds detonated in the heavy ash nearby.

PART 2

Then, Stein saw it: a pillbox seventy-five yards northwest, camouflaged with volcanic rock and sand, with the barrel of a Type 92 heavy machine gun protruding just inches from a slit. Stein lowered the Stinger, aimed carefully, and squeezed his custom solenoid trigger. The weapon roared to life instantly, unleashing its terrifying rate of fire.

The pillbox seemed to disintegrate under the immense torrent of .30-caliber rounds as 1,200 bullets per minute hammered the volcanic rock and sandbags. The Type 92 heavy machine gun fell completely silent. Through the rising dust and smoke, Stein could see brief movement inside the position, and then nothing.

He immediately shifted his aim to a second pillbox forty yards to the left and unleashed another devastating five-second burst of continuous fire. The concrete structure absorbed some rounds, but the sheer volume of fire was overwhelming, and the Japanese machine gun crew inside stopped shooting. Around Stein, Marines began to move again, seeing the enemy positions suppressed.

Riflemen advanced from their shallow depressions in the sand while sergeants shouted orders, and the stalled assault began moving forward. Stein charged the first pillbox, as the Stinger was light enough that he could run with it at full speed. He reached the position in seconds, finding three Japanese soldiers lying dead inside.

The extreme rate of fire had simply cut through everything in its path. He moved quickly to the second pillbox with the exact same result, finding two enemy soldiers down and the position completely destroyed. But then, Stein felt the Stinger go dangerously light in his hands as the ammunition box emptied.

A hundred rounds had vanished in less than ten seconds of actual trigger time. He had anticipated this problem during training in Hawaii, but experiencing it in actual combat was entirely different. The Stinger was incredibly devastating, but it was also impossibly hungry for ammunition.

Stein looked back toward the beach, a distance of 200 yards, where the ammunition resupply point was located near the waterline. Landing craft were still trying to unload supplies under sporadic mortar fire, meaning he would have to cross open ground fully exposed to get more linked ammunition. He started running.

The heavy volcanic sand made every single step incredibly difficult, as the ash was loose, terraced, and gave way constantly underfoot. Marines described it as trying to run through loose ball bearings, and Stein’s boots sank three inches into the earth with each stride. Halfway to the beach, he passed a wounded Marine private first class from the second platoon.

The man had a severe shrapnel wound to his left leg; he was conscious but entirely unable to walk. Stein grabbed him, slung him over his shoulder, and kept running without a second thought. The wounded Marine weighed 160 pounds, the Stinger weighed twenty-five, and Stein’s combat pack added another thirty.

He was carrying over 215 pounds of total weight through thick volcanic ash while Japanese mortars bracketed the beach area. He reached the supply point at 0945, where corpsmen quickly took the wounded Marine while Stein grabbed four fresh ammunition boxes. He stuffed two boxes into his pack, carried one in each hand, and turned back toward his platoon’s position.

The return trip took three agonizing minutes as Japanese snipers started targeting Marines moving between the beach and forward positions. Bullets kicked up black ash right around Stein’s boots, and a mortar round detonated thirty yards to his right, throwing volcanic rock and shrapnel into the air, but he did not stop. When he reached Company A’s position, his platoon sergeant pointed to a third pillbox.

PART 3

This one was larger, made of reinforced concrete, and featured a Type 96 light machine gun covering the direct approach to the airfield. Two previous American assaults had failed, leaving four Marines dead in front of it. Stein loaded a fresh ammunition box into the Stinger and checked the belt feed.

The weapon was already hot from the previous engagement, but the thin aircraft barrel could handle more. He stood up and advanced on the pillbox entirely alone. The Type 96 opened fire immediately, sending rounds snapping past Stein’s head and chest, but he kept walking forward with the Stinger raised to his shoulder.

At fifty yards, he opened fire, and the weapon’s rate of fire was so high that the Japanese gunner could not adjust his aim fast enough to counter it. Stein’s rounds found the narrow firing slit, and the enemy gun went silent. He charged the final twenty yards and dropped a grenade through the opening, killing the three-man crew inside.

Stein turned back to reload, but the ammunition box was empty yet again. He had been in combat for forty-six minutes and had already gone through 300 rounds of ammunition. The Stinger was proving its immense worth, but the logistical problem was becoming painfully clear.

This weapon could suppress and destroy enemy positions faster than any standard machine gun, but it required a constant, grueling resupply. He started his second run back to the beach. On the way down, he encountered two wounded Marines: one had a sucking chest wound, and the other had lost part of his right hand to shrapnel.

Stein could not carry both at the same time, so he took the critical chest wound case first, ran him to the corpsmen, grabbed more ammunition, and made a third trip specifically to retrieve the second wounded man. By 1030, Stein had made four trips to the beach and back, carrying a wounded Marine to safety each time and returning with more ammunition.

His platoon had successfully advanced 200 yards inland, destroying seven enemy positions, and Stein had personally killed at least fifteen Japanese soldiers. However, the Stinger was starting to suffer under the strain. The barrel was discolored from the intense heat, the solenoid trigger was starting to stick, and Stein’s boots were disintegrating from the volcanic ash.

He looked down at his feet and realized the soles of his boots were nearly gone, with the leather cracked and torn. Running in them was becoming excruciatingly painful, sending sharp pains through his arches with every step. Stein made a radical decision.

He unlaced his ruined boots and kicked them off, choosing to go barefoot in the volcanic ash. The decision seemed completely insane, but Stein understood the physical mathematics of the situation: every second counted, and his heavy, ruined boots were adding friction and slowing him down. The ash was abrasive, but it was not unbearably hot in the shaded areas, and he could run much faster without them.

He also removed his heavy helmet, as the M1 steel pot weighed two and a half pounds, which was not much on its own, but combined with the boots, he was shedding nearly five pounds of equipment. This allowed him to move much faster between the beach and his platoon. His fifth run to the beach took just two minutes and forty seconds.

Barefoot, he could actually gain better traction in the loose volcanic sand. His feet sank into the ash, but without the rigid boot soles, he could feel the terrain and adjust his stride perfectly. It was painful, as the coarse ash felt like running on broken glass, but it was undeniably faster.

He grabbed another wounded Marine on the way down who had suffered shrapnel wounds to the abdomen and was unconscious. Stein carried him over his shoulder, delivered him to the corpsmen, loaded up on fresh ammunition, and ran straight back to Company A’s position. By 1100 hours, Stein had made six full trips to the beach.

He had carried six wounded Marines to safety, brought back 600 rounds of ammunition, and personally destroyed five more enemy positions. His platoon had advanced 300 yards from the beach and was approaching the first airfield, where Japanese resistance was intensifying significantly. The enemy had constructed a dense defensive network of pillboxes, spider holes, and underground bunkers connected by tunnels.

When one position was successfully destroyed, enemy soldiers would simply emerge from another hidden location and resume firing. The Stinger was the only weapon in Company A that could deliver enough volume of fire to keep multiple positions suppressed simultaneously. When Stein opened up on one pillbox, the sheer, terrifying sound of 1,200 rounds per minute was enough to make adjacent positions hesitate.

That brief hesitation gave the American riflemen time to advance and throw grenades. However, the weapon was taking severe structural damage, and the barrel was now visibly glowing after sustained fire. The thin, aircraft-grade steel was never designed for prolonged ground combat; it was built to be cooled by 300 mph slipstreams during high-speed dive-bombing runs.

On the ground, there was no airflow, only trapped heat. The solenoid trigger mechanism was also degrading rapidly. Stein had fabricated it from basic sheet metal in Hawaii, and while it worked, it was not as reliable as a factory-built trigger group.

Sometimes it would stick, and sometimes it would fire only one round when he wanted a full burst, forcing him to tap it hard with his palm to reset it. Despite these growing mechanical issues, the Stinger remained effective. At 1120, Stein’s platoon encountered a heavily reinforced Japanese position that had stopped the advance of two other companies.

It was a large concrete bunker with three firing slits positioned to cover the approach to Airfield Number One. Multiple Type 96 light machine guns inside provided deadly interlocking fields of fire. Two American tank destroyers had tried to knock it out, but both were hit by concealed 47mm anti-tank guns and forced to withdraw.

An airstrike was called in, but the bombs missed by fifty yards, leaving the bunker fully operational. Stein studied the position carefully and noted that the firing slits were narrow, perhaps eight inches wide and four inches tall. They were incredibly difficult targets, but the Stinger’s rate of fire meant that if he aimed at a slit and held the trigger, some rounds would statistically get through.

He advanced entirely alone, and at fifty yards from the bunker, he went prone and opened fire. The Stinger emptied its 100-round box in just seven seconds, and at that close range, at least thirty rounds went directly through the firing slits. The Japanese guns inside went completely silent.

Stein reloaded and charged the bunker, dropping grenades through the slits to kill the five-man crew inside, allowing Company A’s advance to resume. His seventh trip to the beach came at 1150. This time, he carried a Marine who had lost both legs below the knee to a landmine.

The man was still conscious and screaming as Stein ran the entire 200 yards while the Marine bled heavily into his uniform. The corpsmen said later that if Stein had been thirty seconds slower, the Marine would have died from massive blood loss. On the return trip, Stein encountered something unexpected: another Marine carrying a Stinger.

It was one of Grevich’s other gunners from Company G, but the man’s weapon had jammed permanently after overheating, causing the barrel to warp. He was carrying it back to the beach to see if an armorer could salvage it. Stein looked at his own Stinger and saw the barrel was discolored a deep purple from the heat.

The wooden furniture on the Garand stock was starting to char, and the bipod was loose, but it still fired. He made his eighth trip to the beach at 1230, carrying another wounded Marine and returning with another heavy load of ammunition. By now, other Marines had started to notice the barefoot corporal making repeated runs under heavy fire.

Some thought he was completely crazy, while others thought he was the bravest man on Iwo Jima. Stein did not think about bravery at all; he thought only about the mathematics of survival. His platoon needed ammunition, wounded men needed immediate evacuation, and he was simply faster without his boots.

The Stinger gave him the raw firepower to suppress enemy positions while he moved, and everything else was just execution. But on his eighth return trip, something changed. A Japanese sniper had moved into a position overlooking the supply route.

As Stein ran back toward Company A with four ammunition boxes, a high-velocity round snapped past his head, missing him by perhaps six inches. He dropped flat into the volcanic ash, his Stinger landing beside him. For the first time that day, Tony Stein was completely pinned down.

The sniper was highly skilled, and though Stein could not see the position, the angle of the shot told him it was somewhere on the ridgeline 200 yards to the east, probably in a spider hole or behind a volcanic rock. The Japanese trained their snipers well: they were patient, disciplined, and willing to wait hours for a single high-value target. A Marine making repeated trips across open ground was definitely a high-value target.

Stein lay motionless for thirty seconds, carefully controlling his breathing because he knew the sniper would be watching for any sign of movement. The volcanic ash around Stein’s position offered zero actual cover, leaving only flat, open terrain between the beach and the forward positions. Another round cracked loudly overhead, but it hit where Stein had been, not where he currently was.

That meant the shooter had not acquired his exact new location yet, giving Stein perhaps ten seconds before the sniper adjusted his aim. He rolled sharply to the left, grabbed the Stinger, and came up running, but not toward his platoon. He ran directly toward the sniper.

The mathematics were simple: running perpendicular to the sniper’s line of sight would make him a much harder target than running away, and if he could close the distance, the Stinger’s rate of fire would overwhelm a bolt-action rifle. Three more shots were fired, all misses, as Stein sprinted barefoot through the volcanic ash with the Stinger in his hands and ammunition boxes bouncing in his pack.

At 150 yards, he spotted brief movement—a figure in a spider hole partially concealed by volcanic rock. Stein dropped to one knee and opened fire, and the Stinger roared at 1,200 rounds per minute, shredding the rock and the surrounding terrain. The sniper’s position disintegrated completely, and when the ammunition box ran empty, there was no return fire.

Stein reloaded and approached the position carefully to confirm the sniper was dead, finding the Type 97 rifle lying beside him. Stein took the rifle’s telescopic sight as a trophy and continued toward Company A. When he reached his platoon at 1300 hours, the situation had deteriorated significantly.

Company A had been pinned down by a complex of fortifications that included at least eight pillboxes arranged in a deadly semicircle. Their interlocking fields of fire meant that any Marine who stood up was immediately engaged by multiple positions simultaneously. The company had taken twelve casualties in the past twenty minutes trying to advance.

The company commander had called for tank support, but the M4 Shermans were still bogged down near the beach because the volcanic ash was too soft. The tanks kept throwing tracks or getting stuck deeply, and artillery support was limited because forward observers could not get clear lines of sight to the enemy positions. Stein moved to the forwardmost position and assessed the situation.

The eight pillboxes formed a tight arc about 100 yards ahead, and Japanese soldiers were also moving through trenches connecting the positions. It was not just a static defense; it was a highly coordinated system. The Stinger’s advantage was its pure volume of fire, and Stein calculated that if he could suppress multiple positions simultaneously, the riflemen could advance under that suppression.

But doing so would require exposing himself yet again. He stood up and opened fire on the leftmost pillbox, unleashing a five-second burst of 100 rounds that forced the position silent. He shifted his aim to the next pillbox, unleashing another burst into it.

He was methodically working his way across the arc, suppressing each position in sequence. Japanese soldiers in the trenches began firing back at him with Type 99 rifles and Type 96 light machine guns, kicking up ash around his bare feet. One bullet struck the Stinger’s barrel with a sharp metallic clang, but the weapon kept firing.

Stein emptied his ammunition box and dropped flat to reload, and while he did so, riflemen from Company A advanced fifty yards. When Stein stood up and resumed firing, they advanced another fifty yards. The coordination between them was entirely instinctive, requiring no formal orders.

The Marines understood perfectly that when the Stinger was firing, they could move safely. By 1330, Company A had broken completely through the defensive arc. Five of the eight pillboxes were destroyed, the other three were abandoned, and seventeen Japanese soldiers were confirmed dead.

Company A had lost three more Marines, but the advance continued. Stein’s Stinger was now critically damaged, as the barrel was bent slightly from the bullet strike, the bipod had broken off completely, and the Garand stock was charred black, but it still fired. At 1345, during the assault on the sixth pillbox, something happened that Stein had trained for but hoped would never occur.

He was firing a sustained burst when a Japanese Type 96 machine gun scored a direct hit on the Stinger itself. The impact was violent, ripping the weapon from Stein’s hands and throwing it six feet backward into the volcanic ash. Stein dove for cover behind a low ridge of rock, finding himself completely unarmed.

The Stinger lay in open ground between his position and the active enemy pillbox. Japanese soldiers had seen it fall and knew he was disarmed, so they waited for him to try to retrieve it. Stein looked at the weapon lying in the ash as its barrel smoked.

He could see that the belt feed mechanism was visibly damaged, meaning that even if he retrieved it, the Stinger might not fire at all. But he had carried that weapon through eight grueling trips to the beach, using it to destroy more than fifteen enemy positions and keep his platoon alive. Stein prepared to run into the open to get it back.

He sprinted into the open, and the Japanese machine gun opened fire immediately, sending rounds snapping past his head and torso. Stein ran in a tight zigzag pattern to make himself a harder target. It took three seconds to reach the Stinger, and he grabbed it, rolled behind another ridge, and checked the weapon.

The belt feed was jammed because a round had struck the mechanism and bent the guide rails. Stein pulled out the damaged belt, cleared the jam with his fingers, and loaded a fresh ammunition box. The weapon fed correctly this time, and he test-fired a quick three-round burst to ensure it worked.

It did. He stood up and emptied the entire box into the pillbox that had shot the weapon from his hands, sending 100 rounds in seven seconds. The position was utterly obliterated, and the Type 96 that had nearly killed him fell silent permanently.

Stein reloaded and continued the assault. By 1400 hours, Company A had advanced 400 yards from the beach, destroying twenty-three enemy positions, with Stein personally accounting for at least twelve of them. His barefoot runs to the beach had saved nine wounded Marines, and the Stinger, despite being shot, overheated, and mechanically abused, was still firing.

However, the weapon’s condition was critical, as the barrel was now visibly bent and the rate of fire had decreased to maybe 900 rounds per minute. The solenoid trigger was firing in erratic bursts of three to five rounds even when Stein wanted continuous fire, and the wooden stock was so charred that it was starting to crumble. At 1430, during an assault on a fortified trench system, the Stinger was hit a second time.

This time, a Type 99 rifle round struck the receiver directly, and the violent impact knocked the weapon from Stein’s hands for the second time, sending it landing ten feet away in a shell crater. Stein was now completely exposed with no cover and no weapon. Japanese soldiers in the trench were firing at him with rifles and throwing grenades, and he could see at least six enemy combatants.

He ran for the Stinger anyway, and a grenade exploded five yards behind him, throwing volcanic ash and shrapnel into the air. Fragments hit his left leg and back—small wounds that were painful but not incapacitating. He grabbed the Stinger and dove into the crater.

The receiver had a deep gouge where the bullet had struck, and Stein cycled the action manually, finding it stiff but functional. He loaded a fresh belt, aimed at the trench, and fired. The Stinger worked, though barely.

The rate of fire was down to maybe 600 rounds per minute, which was half its original capability, but 600 rounds per minute was still faster than anything else on the battlefield. Stein suppressed the trench while riflemen advanced with grenades, and the position was cleared with six Japanese soldiers dead. Company A’s advance continued.

By 1500 hours, Stein had made his eighth trip to the beach and back, having fired over 2,000 rounds of ammunition. He had carried wounded Marines on every single return trip, and his feet were bloody from running barefoot through the coarse volcanic ash. His uniform was soaked with sweat and the blood of the wounded men he had carried, and the Stinger was barely functional.

The weapon’s barrel was bent at a five-degree angle, the stock was held together by friction and hope, and the solenoid trigger fired randomly. Sometimes it fired one round, sometimes five, and sometimes nothing at all, forcing Stein to manually cycle the action between bursts. But Company A had finally reached its objective.

They were at the base of Mount Suribachi, the volcanic peak that dominated the southern tip of the island. The mountain rose 550 feet above sea level, allowing Japanese observers on the summit to see every American position on the beach and direct deadly artillery fire. The mountain had to be taken at all costs.

At 1700 hours, Stein’s platoon was ordered to establish a defensive perimeter and hold their position overnight, as the main assault on Suribachi would begin the next morning. For now, Company A needed to consolidate their lines, resupply, and prepare for night counterattacks. Stein finally had time to assess his own physical condition.

His feet were badly torn and bleeding, and the volcanic ash had worked its way into every cut, turning them into potentially infected wounds. He had shrapnel fragments in his left calf and lower back—minor wounds, but they would need medical treatment. His hands were blistered from carrying the hot Stinger, and he was utterly exhausted.

He had been in continuous combat for eight hours, running approximately three miles total across those eight trips to the beach while carrying wounded men and heavy ammunition under fire, all while barefoot. The Stinger lay beside him in the fighting hole, completely destroyed. The barrel would need replacement, the receiver was heavily damaged, the stock was burned, and the trigger mechanism was unreliable.

But it had done its job: it had kept Company A moving forward when conventional weapons would have left them pinned down on the beach. Other Marines started calling him the barefoot corporal, with some thinking he was insane while others called him the bravest man they had ever seen. Stein did not care about either assessment because he had simply done what needed to be done.

The mathematics had been simple: his platoon needed fire support, the Stinger provided it, and everything else was irrelevant. That night, while Stein tried to sleep in his fighting hole, Japanese infiltrators began probing Company A’s perimeter. Small groups of two or three soldiers tested the defenses, looking for weak points.

Stein grabbed the Stinger, because despite its heavy damage, it still held one clear advantage: volume of fire. When a Japanese soldier appeared thirty yards from his position, Stein fired a quick burst. The weapon worked, and the infiltrator died instantly.

By dawn on February 20, Stein had been awake for twenty-two consecutive hours. The assault on Mount Suribachi began at 0800, as Company A, along with the rest of the 28th Marines, began the climb up the steep volcanic slopes. The terrain was brutal, consisting of loose ash, no vegetation, and exposed ridges where Japanese observers could see every movement.

The enemy had fortified the mountain with over sixty pillboxes, bunkers, and cave positions, with every approach covered by interlocking fields of fire. Japanese soldiers had spent months preparing these defenses, stockpiling ammunition, food, and water inside the mountain’s vast tunnel system, intending to make the Americans pay for every yard. Stein carried the Stinger up the mountain.

An armorer had worked on it overnight, replacing the most damaged components. The barrel was still slightly bent, but a new belt feed mechanism had been installed, and the solenoid trigger was more reliable. The weapon would fire, but it was no longer the devastating tool it had been on February 19.

At 0930, Company A encountered a reinforced bunker complex halfway up the southern slope. It featured four concrete bunkers connected by trenches, multiple machine gun positions, and mortar crews firing from concealed pits, which caused the 28th Marines’ advance to stall. Stein moved forward with the Stinger.

He identified the primary bunker and opened fire. The damaged barrel meant the weapon’s accuracy had decreased, but at close range, the sheer volume of fire still mattered. He suppressed the position long enough for demolition teams to move forward with satchel charges, destroying the bunker and allowing Company A to advance another fifty yards.

At 1015, Stein’s luck changed when a Japanese grenade landed three feet from his position. He saw it and tried to move, but the grenade detonated before he could get clear. Shrapnel hit his right arm, right leg, and torso—multiple wounds, none immediately fatal, but he was bleeding heavily.

Corpsmen reached him within minutes, quickly bandaging the wounds and calling for immediate evacuation. Stein refused to leave because his platoon was still heavily engaged and the Stinger was still needed. He continued fighting for the next two hours.

Stein provided critical fire support while bleeding heavily through his bandages, and the Stinger continued to function despite the beating it had taken. Every time a pillbox opened fire on advancing Marines, Stein suppressed it, and every time Japanese soldiers appeared in the trench systems, he cut them down with sustained bursts. But by 1230, Stein’s wounds had worsened significantly.

He had lost a large amount of blood, causing him to become lightheaded as his vision narrowed. The corpsmen told him he needed immediate evacuation or he would die on the mountain. This time, Stein did not argue; he handed the Stinger to another Marine in his squad and allowed the corpsmen to carry him down the mountain to the beach.

From there, he was loaded onto a landing craft and transported to a hospital ship anchored offshore. On February 21, while Stein recovered on the hospital ship, the 28th Marines continued their fierce assault on Mount Suribachi. The fighting was savage, as every cave had to be cleared with flamethrowers and explosives, and every trench had to be taken in close combat.

The Japanese soldiers fought to the death rather than surrender. On February 23, at 1020 in the morning, a patrol from Company E successfully reached the summit of Mount Suribachi. They raised a small American flag, and photographer Joe Rosenthal captured the historic moment.

Later that afternoon, a larger flag was raised, and Rosenthal photographed that as well, creating the most iconic photograph of the Pacific War. Stein was not present for the flag raising, as he was still on the hospital ship receiving treatment for his wounds. Doctors removed shrapnel from his arm, leg, and torso, treating him for blood loss and infection.

They told him he would be sent to a rear-area hospital in Hawaii or possibly back to the United States, meaning his war was effectively over. But on February 25, news reached the hospital ship that hit Stein harder than any enemy grenade. The 5th Marine Division had moved north from Suribachi toward the center of the island.

They were assaulting a heavily fortified position designated Hill 362A, and the fighting was brutal. The 28th Marines were taking catastrophic casualties, and Company A had lost thirty percent of its strength in just two days. Stein’s platoon sergeant was dead, his squad leader was dead, and Marines he had trained with in Hawaii were dying on a nameless hill in the center of Iwo Jima.

On February 26, against strict medical orders, Tony Stein left the hospital ship. He climbed down into a landing craft returning to the beach, telling the boat crew he had been officially cleared to return to duty. He had not been cleared at all; he was AWOL from the hospital ship, but in the chaos, nobody stopped him.

He reached the beach at 1400 hours and found a supply sergeant, where he requisitioned new boots. His feet were still heavily bandaged, but he could walk. He grabbed a standard M1 Garand rifle from a supply dump, as the Stinger was gone—either destroyed or being used by another Marine.

It did not matter to him; Stein was determined to go back to his unit. He walked north across Iwo Jima, traveling six miles through the thick volcanic ash and past destroyed Japanese positions. He walked past burned-out tanks, scattered equipment, and Graves Registration teams collecting the American dead.

He finally reached Company A’s position at Hill 362A on February 27. The company had been reduced to just sixty-three men from its original strength of 240. The survivors were utterly exhausted, having been fighting continuously for eight days with no rest and no relief, engaged in endless combat against an enemy that refused to surrender.

Stein reported to the company commander and was put back on the line immediately, as Company A desperately needed every rifle. For the next two days, Stein fought in the brutal, close-quarters combat around Hill 362A. He had no Stinger this time, using just an M1 Garand and hand grenades.

The fighting was different without the improvised machine gun—slower and more deliberate—but Stein remained highly effective. On March 1, 1945, Company A was tasked with a reconnaissance patrol to locate a complex of Japanese pillboxes that had been harassing the regiment’s advance. The patrol consisted of nineteen Marines, and Corporal Tony Stein was designated as the assistant patrol leader.

Their mission was to move forward approximately 400 yards, locate the enemy positions, and return with actionable intelligence. There was to be no assault, just pure reconnaissance. At 0700 on March 1, the patrol moved out quietly from Company A’s lines.

The terrain consisted of volcanic ridges and deep ravines, which were perfect for an ambush. Japanese soldiers had established concealed positions throughout the area, with snipers, machine gun nests, and mortar teams all hidden in caves and spider holes. The patrol moved slowly: twenty yards, then stop, observe, and listen, before moving twenty more yards.

The Marines knew that Japanese defenders were watching them closely, and the only question was when the enemy would choose to open fire. At 0745, the patrol reached a ridgeline overlooking a small valley. Stein moved to the front to get a better view of the terrain ahead.

Through the volcanic rock formations, he could see what looked like camouflaged positions—possibly pillboxes or cave entrances. The patrol needed to move closer to confirm what they were seeing, so Stein signaled the patrol to advance. He stepped forward with his M1 Garand at the ready.

His feet, still bandaged from the barefoot runs eight days earlier, ached with every step, and the shrapnel wounds in his right arm and leg had not fully healed. But he moved forward anyway, because that was what needed to be done. At 0752, a single shot rang out across the valley.

The bullet struck Tony Stein in the head, and he dropped instantly. The shot had come from a concealed position approximately 200 yards to the northeast—either a spider hole or a cave entrance that the patrol could not see. Corpsmen reached Stein within seconds, but there was absolutely nothing they could do.

The wound was fatal, and Corporal Tony Stein, aged twenty-three, died on the volcanic ash of Iwo Jima at 0753 on March 1, 1945. The patrol immediately returned fire toward the suspected sniper position, and Marines called in heavy mortar support to saturate the area with high explosives. Whether the sniper died in the bombardment was never confirmed, as Japanese soldiers rarely left bodies behind where Americans could find them.

The patrol completed its mission, identifying the pillbox complex and returning to Company A with the intelligence, but they carried Tony Stein’s body back with them. News of Stein’s death spread quickly through the 28th Marines. They remembered the barefoot corporal who had made eight trips to the beach on February 19, the Marine who had refused evacuation after being wounded, and the toolmaker from Dayton who had built a weapon from salvaged aircraft parts and used it to destroy more enemy positions than anyone could count.

On March 2, Stein was buried in the 5th Division Cemetery on Iwo Jima. A simple wooden cross marked his grave, displaying his service number, his rank, and his unit. There was no mention of the Stinger, and no mention of the Medal of Honor that would later bear his name.

The battle for Iwo Jima continued for another twenty-four days after Stein’s death, and the fighting remained incredibly brutal. The 28th Marines pushed north, clearing cave complexes and fortified positions as American casualties mounted. By March 26, when the island was finally declared secure, nearly 7,000 Americans were dead and 20,000 were wounded.

Japanese casualties were even worse: of the 21,000 defenders, fewer than 1,000 survived, while the rest died in their positions or committed suicide rather than surrender. The vast tunnel systems beneath Iwo Jima became mass graves. But on February 19, during those first eight hours of combat, Tony Stein and his improvised weapon had made a massive difference.

His barefoot runs had saved nine wounded Marines who would have otherwise died on the beach, and his suppressive fire had allowed Company A to advance when other units were completely pinned down. His mechanical ingenuity had given the Marine Corps a weapon that, for one critical day, changed the tactical equation on the ground. The five other Stingers built by Mel Grevich and John Little also saw heavy combat on Iwo Jima.

Two were destroyed by enemy fire, one jammed permanently from overheating, and the other two survived the battle but were lost in the chaos of equipment disposal after the war. None of the original six Stingers exist today, as they were field modifications and non-standard equipment—the kind of weapons the military typically destroys rather than preserves. But the legend of the Stinger lived on vividly in Marine Corps history.

Armorers and mechanics passed down the story of the toolmaker from Ohio who salvaged aircraft machine guns and turned them into infantry weapons. They told of the man who ran barefoot through volcanic ash to keep his platoon supplied, who refused evacuation when wounded, and who returned to combat when he should have been safe on a hospital ship. In May 1945, Lieutenant Colonel Chandler Johnson submitted an official recommendation for Tony Stein to receive the Medal of Honor.

The recommendation detailed Stein’s extraordinary actions on February 19: the eight trips to the beach, the wounded Marines evacuated, the enemy positions destroyed, and the barefoot runs under fire. The recommendation was endorsed by every officer in the chain of command, from the regiment and division up to the Fleet Marine Force Pacific Command. Everyone who reviewed the after-action reports agreed that Corporal Tony Stein had demonstrated conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life, above and beyond the call of duty.

On February 19, 1946, exactly one year after Stein’s historic actions on Iwo Jima, his widow, Joan, received his Medal of Honor in a ceremony at the Ohio State House. Ohio Governor Frank Lausche presented the medal, and Joan Stein stood in his office, overwhelmed by the weight of the decoration and the memories it represented. Tony’s mother, Rose, also attended the ceremony, with tears streaming down her face.

Her son, the child of Austrian Jewish immigrants who had dropped out of high school to work as a toolmaker, had received the nation’s highest military honor. The Medal of Honor citation read, in part: “The first man of his unit to be on station after hitting the beach in the initial assault, Corporal Stein, armed with a personally improvised aircraft-type weapon, provided rapid covering fire as the remainder of his platoon attempted to move into position. When his comrades were stalled by a concentrated machine-gun and mortar barrage, he gallantly stood upright and exposed himself to the enemy’s view, thereby drawing the hostile fire to his own person and enabling him to observe the location of the furiously blazing hostile guns. Determined to neutralize the strategically placed weapons, he boldly charged the enemy pillboxes one by one and succeeded in killing twenty of the enemy during the furious single-handed assault.”

The citation continued for three more paragraphs, detailing each of his eight trips to the beach, the wounded Marines he evacuated, and his refusal to seek medical treatment despite his wounds. It explicitly mentioned the personally improvised aircraft-type weapon, though it did not use the informal name Stinger, as that name existed only in Marine Corps oral history. Tony Stein’s remains stayed on Iwo Jima until 1948.

In December of that year, his body was returned to Dayton for burial with full military honors. The ceremony at Our Lady of the Rosary Church drew hundreds of mourners: veterans, family members, and civilians who had never met him but understood exactly what he represented. He was buried in Calvary Cemetery in Dayton, the only Medal of Honor recipient from that city in World War II.

His grave marker lists his rank, his unit, and the high decoration he earned, and visitors still leave coins and small American flags at the site to this day. In 1972, the United States Navy commissioned the USS Stein, a Knox-class frigate, in his honor. The ship served for twenty-one years, participating in numerous operations across the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

It was officially decommissioned in 1993 and eventually scrapped, but the name Tony Stein lived on permanently in naval records. The Marine Corps preserved his story in training materials and historical accounts. At Parris Island, the recruit depot where new Marines begin their service, instructors teach recruits about the importance of improvisation and adaptation in combat, using Tony Stein’s story as part of that core curriculum.

They learn about the toolmaker who built a weapon from salvaged aircraft parts and the Marine who ran barefoot through volcanic ash to save his brothers. The Stinger itself became a enduring legend in military firearms history, with historians documenting the weapon’s design and history. The Canadian Historical Arms Museum even built a functional replica for educational purposes.

That replica demonstrated exactly what Stein and Grevich had accomplished with basic tools and raw mechanical knowledge. They had taken an aircraft machine gun designed to be cooled by 300 mph airstreams and successfully adapted it for ground combat, solving the Marine Corps’s firepower problem with salvaged parts and pure ingenuity. Military historians sometimes debate whether the Stinger was truly tactically significant on a large scale, noting that six weapons across one regiment had a limited impact on the overall battle.

But those six weapons made an immeasurable difference to the individual Marines who fought right alongside them. The suppressive fire allowed critical advances that would have otherwise stalled completely, and the psychological impact of 1,200 rounds per minute kept enemy heads down at critical moments. What remains entirely undebatable is Tony Stein’s immense courage.

His eight trips under direct fire, his nine wounded Marines evacuated, his barefoot runs through volcanic ash, and his refusal of evacuation when wounded showed his character. He returned from a hospital ship to rejoin his unit, ultimately leading a patrol that cost him his life. The barefoot corporal from Dayton represents something fundamental about the Marine Corps ethos: improvise, adapt, and overcome.

When standard equipment fails, you build something better; when wounded, you keep fighting; when ordered to rest, you return to your unit; and when faced with impossible odds, you charge forward. Tony Stein was only twenty-three years old when he died, having been a Marine for just two years and five months. He fought bravely on two islands, killed more enemy soldiers than official records could count, saved nine lives on a single day, and did it all with a weapon he helped build in a maintenance shed in Hawaii.