Iwo Jima Vets Observe Battle's 65th Anniversary

TRIANGLE, Va., Feb. 19, 2010 – Dozens of veterans of the Battle of Iwo Jima and their families gathered at the National Museum of the Marine Corps here today to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the iconic World War II battle.

The battle for Iwo Jima – the first U.S. attack on Japanese soil – is memorialized worldwide by the famous Joe Rosenthal photo of five Marines and a Navy corpsman raising the U.S. flag on Mount Suribachi. Three of the six later were killed in battle.

“Iwo Jima was not the bloodiest or the longest battle” of World War II and “it probably was not even the most successful in the Pacific Island campaign,” Gen. James T. Conway, commandant of the Marine Corps, told the audience. “All that said, Iwo Jima occupies a place in our history like no other battle.”

Conway said he believes that’s a result of the determination, courage and sacrifice of the men who fought there, noting the “savagery” of the battle. “It was kill or be killed,” he said.

And that was true of both sides of the fighting, Conway said, noting a comment a Japanese lieutenant colonel made about the Americans during the battle: “They are relentless, and they fight with a mentality like they are exterminating insects.”

George Alden of Fort Worth, Texas, was a 20-year-old sergeant with 1st Battalion, 27th Marine Regiment, 5th Marine Division, when he stormed the volcanic ash beach in the first wave of U.S. troops onto Iwo Jima. The Japanese -- who with 21,000 troops had nearly three times more men than Alden and his unit expected -- had terraced the beach, making for an arduous climb for the troops who had no alternative but to move forward on the eight-square-mile island.

About 400 yards up the beach, Alden and his unit came upon a bunker. After taking charge of the action that demolished the bunker, Alden was seriously wounded on his left side by rifle fire. “I laid out in the open until almost dark,” he recalled.

Finally, a litter bearer approached the injured Alden. “They said they’d passed me four times thinking I was dead,” he said. They could not evacuate him until the next morning, leaving Alden and three of his comrades in a fox hole overnight.

Three days later, on the fifth day of the battle, Alden was aboard a hospital ship when a medic told him to look out the port hole over his bed. “That was when I saw the flag rising up above the smoke and haze,” he said, remembering the scene of Rosenthal’s famous photo.

Like others, Alden said, the image of the U.S. flag on the mountaintop made him think the battle soon would be over. In fact, it would last 31 more days, claiming 6,820 Americans dead or missing, and 19,000 wounded.

“We could not have guessed that Feb. 19, 1945, would start 36 of the most deadly days in the history of the Marine Corps and probably the most savage fighting we have ever engaged in,” Conway said.

For today’s Marines, Iwo Jima is the “gold standard,” the commandant said. “It drives us, it inspires us, and it gives us confidence” in training and preparedness, he said.

In the Iraq war, Conway said, a young Marine was asked about the possibility of U.S. troops wresting control of Fallujah from insurgents. “Of course we can take Fallujah,” Conway said the Marine replied. “We took Iwo Jima.”

Retired Marine Corps Gen. James L. Jones, now President Barack Obama’s national security advisor, thanked the veterans for their service. “We honor your legacy for the lives you saved,” he said.

Jones said today’s Marines gain strength from the examples set by the veterans of Iwo Jima, and he asked the audience to keep today’s Marines in mind, especially those confronting the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Ron “Rondo” Scharfe, an Iwo Jima veteran from Missoula, Mont., was 16 when he hit the Japanese island’s shores. “Our knees were shaking so bad we could barely stand up,” he said. “We didn’t know where the hell we were going. We were tight as rubber bands.”

Scharfe said he and his comrades crawled onto the beach, which already was smoking and “smelling like a junkyard” on the first day of battle. The Japanese “waited ‘til we got on the beach, then they opened up on us,” he said.

Scharfe survived nine days of Iwo Jima without serious injuries, before being sent to Okinawa. Today, he said, he thinks about the Marines in Afghanistan and thinks Iwo Jima was easier in at least one way. “At least we knew who the enemy was,” he said.

Retired Marine Corps Col. Harvey Barnum, a Medal of Honor recipient for heroism in Vietnam, said the courage of those on Iwo Jima was proven by the number of Medal of Honor recipients the battle yielded: 22 Marines and five sailors.

The commemoration of the battle is important for the veterans who remain, Barnum said.

“They’ve gotten older, but nothing has changed in their heart,” he said. “These people are all in their 80s, and they’ve come from all over the country to be here. But this will be the last time for many of them.”

1945: US flag raised over Iwo Jima 2/23/1945

US troops have raised the Stars and Stripes over Iwo Jima four days after landing on the Japanese-held volcanic island.

The 28th Regiment of the 5th Marine Division took Mount Suribachi at 1030 local time.

The extinct volcano offers a strategic vantage point for the ongoing battle for control of the island.

Lying in the north-west Pacific Ocean 650 miles (1,045 kms) from Tokyo, Iwo Jima would serve as a useful base for long-range fighters to cover B-29 Superfortresses in a bombing campaign against the Japan’s capital.

Although the Stars and Stripes are flying over the island the battle is far from over and the Japanese are reported to be defending every inch of the island using elaborate underground defences.

The battle for Iwo Jima has been described as the toughest fight in US Marine history by the commander of the Marines in the Pacific, Lt-General M “Howling Mad” Smith.

On 19 February, after four days of naval and air bombardment had pounded the beaches and weakened Japanese defences, the 4th and 5th Marine Divisions landed on the south side of the island under the overall command of Vice-Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner.

After a day of little resistance, the enemy fought back in earnest.

Hidden in fortified caves and pillboxes linked by a series of tunnels they relentlessly attacked the Americans with artillery fire, grenades and other explosives as well as from the air.

The last 24 hours have seen the fiercest fighting yet with every step of the way up the mountain defended by the Japanese.

But by 1035 local time the Marines had reached the summit of Mt Suribachi.

Reporting from the US base in Guam, Admiral Chester W Nimitz said so far the battle had cost 5,372 casualties, including 644 dead, and that US carrier-based aircraft flying over the Bonin Islands north of Iwo Jima had destroyed three enemy planes.

Reuters news agency also reports Marines have finally reached the Japanese fighter-plane base in the centre of the island, which lies just 700 yards (640m) from the bomber airfield taken by the Americans two days ago.

In Context
The Japanese army and naval troops under Lt-General Kuribayashi Tadamichi fought to the death but the US Marines finally secured the whole island on 26 March in one of the bloodiest battles of the war.

Out of the 74,000 Marines that landed more than a third were killed or wounded.

The US then used the island to launch bombing raids on Japan.

The photograph of the US Marines raising the flag over Mount Suribachi was taken by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal and is one of the most famous images of the war. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1945.

A memorial based on the photo stands at Arlington Cemetery, Virginia.

Iwo Jima was returned to Japan in 1968.

THE REAL HEROES of IWO JIMA

With the increased media attention on the Marines’ history concerning the Chosin Reservoir Action in Korea 54 years ago, 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.

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	Gods Graves Glyphs	An Iwo vet I know stated matter-of-factly to me that the Japanese commander had set up a very good plan for the last-stand defense of the island. Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
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