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 are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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Posted on 02/19/2003 5:36:51 AM PST by SAMWolf
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are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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in Marine Corps History On Monday, February 19, 1945, U.S. Marines hit the sands of Iwo Jima.  The Marines had overwhelming force and controlled the sea and air. The Japanese had the most ingenious and deadly fortress in military history. The Marines had Esprit de Corps and felt they could not lose. The Japanese fought for their god-Emperor and felt they had to die fighting.  The Marines were projecting American offensive power thousands of miles from home shores with a momentum that would carry on to create the Century of the Pacific. The Japanese were fighting a tenacious defensive battle protecting the front door to their ancient land. The geography, topography and geology of the island guaranteed a deadly and bizarre battle. The large numbers of men and small size of the island ensured the fighting would be up close and vicious. Almost one hundred thousand men would fight on a tiny island just eight square miles. Four miles by two miles. If you're driving 60 miles an hour in your car, it takes you four minutes to drive four miles. It took the Marines 36 days to slog that four miles. Iwo Jima would be the most densely populated battlefield of the war with one hundred thousand combatants embraced in a death dance over an area smaller than one third the size of Manhattan island.  From the air the island looked like a bald slice of black moonscape shaped like a porkchop. All its foliage had been blown off by bombs. The only "life" visible on the island were puffs of "rotten egg" stinking sulphur fumes coming from vents that seemed connected to hell. Correspondents in airplanes could see tens of thousands of Marines on one side of the island fighting against a completely barren side of stone. On foot it was a morass of soft volcanic sand or a jumble of jagged rock. The Marines sought protection in shell holes blasted by the bombardment. Foxholes were impossible to dig, either the sand collapsed in on you or your shovel failed to dent the hard obsidian floor. Bullets and mortars would come from nowhere to kill. The Marines would come across a cave or blockhouse and shoot and burn all its defenders to death. They would peer into the cavern and assure themselves no one was left there to hurt them. They'd move on only to be shocked when that "dead" position came alive again behind them. The Marines thought they were fighting men in isolated caves and had no idea of the extensive tunnels below.  A surgeon would establish an operating theater in a safe place. With sandbags and tarp he'd build a little hospital and treat his patients away from the battle. Then at night when he lay down exhausted to sleep he'd hear foreign voices below him. Only when his frantic fingers clawed through the sand and hit the wooden roof of an underground cavern would he realize he had been living atop the enemy all along. The days were full of fear and nights offered terror. The Marines were sleeping on ground that the Japanese had practiced how to crawl over in the darkness, they knew every inch. Imagine sleeping in a haunted man- sion where the owner is a serial murderer who knows the rooms and stairways and trapdoors by touch and you are new. Then you can imagine the tortured sleep of the Marines. Experienced naval doctors had never seen such carnage. Japanese tanks and high caliber anti-aircraft guns hidden behind walls of rock and concrete ensured that the Marines would not just be cut down, but cut in half or blown to bits. A seventy five year old veteran of Iwo Jima would still reflexively open his bedroom window in 1999 after dreaming of the battle once again. Fifty four years after the battle the stench of death still filled his nostrils.  The bodies lay everywhere. Young boys who had never been to a funeral became accustomed to rolling another dead buddy aside. Kids full of life worked on burial duty unloading bodies from trucks stacked with death. Mothers back home would tear open the ominous telegrams with trembling fingers. The survivors would remember sailing away and seeing the rows and rows of white crosses and stars of Davids. Almost seven thousand. Today there are still over six thousand Japanese dead still entombed under the island, dead where they fell in their tunnels and caves. Recently two hundred sixty were excavated, some mummified by the sulphur gases, their glasses sitting straight atop preserved noses, hair still on their heads. Military geniuses predicted a three day battle, an "easy time." Some of the nicest boys America would ever produce slogged on for thirty six days in what would be the worst battle in the history of the US Marine Corps. Generals conferred over maps while tanks, airplanes, naval bombs and artillery pounded the island. But it was the individual Marine on the ground with a gun that won the battle. Marines without gladiator's armor who would advance into withering fire. Marines who would not give up simply because they were Marines. A mint in Washington would cast more medals for these Iwo Jima heroes than for any group of fighters in America's history.  America would embrace these heroes, but they were enthralled by an image of heroism, by a photo. Millions of words would be written in the US about 1/400th of a second no one on Iwo Jima thought worthy of remark at the time. Thousands would seek autographs from three survivors who felt "we hadn't done much." Battles would be fought over that image, some dying early because of their inclusion, some living bitterly because of their exclusion. But that would all come later. After two battles were fought on Iwo Jima, one for Mt. Suribachi and the southern part of the island the other for the northern part. And after one hundred thousand individual battles, personal battles of valor and fear, of determination and dirt.
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Okay, okay. I don't really have a dime-sized wart on my nose, and my hair is actually long (well below my shoulders). I was just trying to lower expectations. : )
This was taken by PsyOp, at the 40th Anniversary, held in San Francisco Ca.
Mr. Rosenthatl was in attendance and gave each of the above Devil Dogs a signed 8 x 10 of the original photo, taken from his original negative.
All of the uniforms were lent to us from Pappy Boyington.
I have this photograph on the wall in my office; it reminds me of how young these guys were, and that they were willing to sacrifice everything. This young man had a girl he wanted to marry, a career he wanted to pursue, and he gave it all up when he CHOSE to stay with his buddies on Iwo Jima:
This young man had a girl he wanted to marry, a career he wanted to pursue, and he gave it all up when he CHOSE to stay with his buddies on Iwo Jima.
Something a lot of people seem to forget.
So many things in that book impacted me. That particular passage opened my eyes to how young those guys really were.
He had never kissed a girl. He died for his country before he ever had that simple life experience. That hurt to read.
With the increased media attention on the Marines’ history concerning the Chosin Reservoir Action in Korea 50 years ago this month, I thought this article was most appropriate. After all if we don’t teach children history of our nation, who will? It seems to me that most schools do not have that on their list of priorities. Also, anyone who has visited the Marine Memorial in Washington DC will have a greater appreciation for this story, by a Wisconsinite, which I relay unedited:
Each year I am hired to go to Washington DC with the eighth-grade class from Clinton, WI, where I grew up, to videotape their trip. I greatly enjoy visiting our nation’s capital, and each year I take some special memories back with me. This fall’s trip was especially memorable. On the last night of our trip we stopped at the Iwo Jima memorial. This memorial, which is the largest bronze statue in the world, depicts one of the most famous photographs in history - that of the six brave soldiers raising the American Flag at the top of a rocky hill on the island of Iwo Jima during WWII.
Over 100 students and chaperons piled off the buses and headed towards the memorial. I noticed a solitary figure at the base of the statue, and as I got closer he asked, “Where are you guys from?” I told him that we were from Wisconsin. “Hey, I’m a cheesehead too!”he said. “Come gather around, Cheeseheads, and I will tell you a story.” That figure turned out to be James Bradley, who just happened to be in Washington DC to speak at the memorial the following day. Bradley was there that night to say good night to his dad, who has since passed away. He was just about to leave when he saw the buses pull up. I videotaped him as he spoke to us, and received his permission to share what he said from my videotape. Now, it is one thing to tour the incredible monuments filled with history in Washington DC. But it is quite another to get the kind of insight we received that night.
When all had gathered around he reverently began to speak. Here are his words that night. My name is James Bradley and I’m from Antigo, Wisconsin. My dad is on that statue and I just wrote a book called “Flags of Our Fathers,” which is #5 on the New York Times Best seller list right now. It is the story of the six boys you see behind me. Six boys raised the flag. The first guy putting the pole in the ground is Harlon Block. Harlon was an allstate football player. He enlisted in the Marine Corps with all the senior members of his football team. They were off to play another type of game—a game called “War,“ But, it didn’t turn out to be a game. Harlon, at the age of 21, died with his intestines in his hands. I don’t say that to gross you out; I say that because there are generals who stand in front of this statue and talk about the glory of war. You guys need to know that most of the boys in Iwo Jima were 17, 18, and 19 years old.
(He pointed to the statue.) You see this next guy? That’s Rene Gagnon, from New Hampshire. If you took Rene’s helmet off at the moment this photo was taken, and looked in the webbing of that helmet, you would find a photograph—a photograph of his girlfriend. Rene put that in there for protection, because he was scared. He was 18 years old. Boys won the battle of Iwo Jima. Boys. Not old men.
The next guy here, the third guy in this tableau, was Sergeant Mike Strank. Mike is my hero. He was the hero of all these guys. They called him the “old man” because he was “so old.” He was already 24. When Mike would motivate his boys in training camp, he didn’t say, “Let’s go kill some Japanese” or “Let’s die for our country.” He knew he was talking to little boys. Instead he would say, “You do what I say, and I’ll get you home to your mothers.
The last guy on this side of the statue is Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian from Arizona. Ira Hayes walked off Iwo Jima. He went into the White House with my dad. President Truman told him, “You’re a hero.” He told reporters, “How can I feel like a hero when 250 of my buddies hit the island with me and only 27 of us walked off alive?” So, you take your class at school, 250 of you spending a year together having fun, doing everything together. Then all 250 of you hit the beach, but only 27 of your classmates walk off alive. That was Ira Hayes. He had images of horror in his mind. Ira Hayes died dead drunk, face down at the age of 32, ten years after this picture was taken.
The next guy going around the statue is Franklin Sousley, from Hilltop, Kentucky. A fun-lovin’ hillbilly boy. His best friend, who is now 70, told me, “Yeah you know, we took two cows up on the porch of the Hilltop General Store. Then we strung wire across the stairs so the cows couldn’t get down. Then we fed them Epson salts. Those cows pooped all night.” Yes, he was a fun-lovin’ hillbilly boy. Franklin died on Iwo Jima at the age of 19. When the telegram came to tell his mother that he was dead, it went to the Hilltop General Store. A barefoot boy ran that telegram up to his mother’s farm. The neighbors could hear her scream all night and into the morning. The neighbors lived a quarter of a mile away.
The next guy, as we continue to go around the statue, is my dad, John Bradley from Antigo, Wisconsin, where I was raised. My dad lived until 1994, but he would never give interviews. When Walter Kronkite’s producers or the New York Times would call, we were trained as little kids to say, “No, I’m sorry sir, my dad’s not here. He is in Canada fishing. No, there is no phone there, sir. No, we don’t know when he is coming back.” My dad never fished or even went to Canada. Usually he was sitting there right at the table eating his Campbell’s soup. But we had to tell the press that he was out fishing. He didn’t want to talk to the press. You see, my dad didn’t see himself as a hero. Everyone thinks these guys are heroes, ‘cause they are in a photo and a monument. My dad knew better. He was a medic. John Bradley from Wisconsin was a caregiver. in Iwo Jima. He probably held over 200 boys as they died. And, when boys died in Iwo Jima, they writhed and screamed in pain. When I was a little boy, my third grade teacher told me that my dad was a hero. When I went home and told my dad that, he looked at me and said, “I want you always to remember that the heroes of Iwo Jima are the guys who did not come back. DID NOT COME BACK.”
So that’s the story about six nice young boys. Three died on Iwo Jima, and three came back as national heroes. Overall, 7000 boys died on Iwo Jima in the worst battle in the history of the Marine Corps. My voice is giving out, so I will end here. Thank you for your time.
Suddenly the monument wasn’t just a big old piece of metal with a flag sticking out of the top. It came to life before our eyes with the heartfelt words of a son who did indeed have a father who was a hero. Maybe not a hero for the reasons most people would believe, but a hero nonetheless.
Reprinted from “Follow Me” official publication of the Second Marine Division Association.
(Just kidding)
PhM2c John H. Bradley is a hero of mine, precisely because of the humility he demonstrated after the war (he was also a very brave and selfless corpsman). He understood. He came home to parades and photo ops because he helped put up a replacement flag, but he knew the price paid to take the island.
Blood. Lots of it.
And bravery.
One of the guys in his company was Don Ruhl, the Medal of Honor recipient who threw his own body on a grenade to save another Marine.
I love John Bradley. There was a real man. He knew.
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