thedrifter
02-17-06, 01:40 PM
Friday, February 17, 2006
Historic battle relived
Two Iwo Jima veterans discuss war experiences
By CHUCK CLEMENT
Capital Journal Staff
Friday, February 17, 2006
Louis Fratzke, left, and Henry Coolidge, both Pierre residents, were interviewed for a show on Oahe Channel 8 about their experiences as U.S. Marines during the battle of Iwo Jima in 1945. The 61st anniversary of the Iwo Jima invasion takes place on Feb. 19. Pierre Mayor Dennis Eisnach interviewed the men about their service in the U.S. Marine Corps for an episode of “City Limits.” The cable channel will broadcast the interview daily until Feb. 21. The map in front of the two men was carried by Fratzke during the battle and used in his work as a forward artillery spotter.
Two World War II veterans will appear on Pierre’s public-access cable channel to talk about their part in the battle to control Iwo Jima, an island invasion that illustrated the toughness of the modern U.S. Marine Corps — but at a heavy price.
This Sunday, Feb. 19, 2006, will mark the 61st anniversary of the amphibious landings on Iwo Jima by two Marine units — the 4th and 5th Marine divisions. The landings started a battle that took the lives of 6,000 Marines and U.S. Navy medical personnel and wounded another 20,000 Americans before the combat ended.
Louis Fratzke and Henry Coolidge, both of Pierre, are two of the 70,000 Marines who fought on Iwo Jima during 1945 and they were fortunate enough to leave the island after the fighting had ended without major injuries. Fratzke and Coolidge were recently interviewed about their World War II experiences by Pierre Mayor Dennis Eisnach for the “City Limits” episode that is currently appearing on Oahe Channel 8.
The Marines fought for the control of an island less than eight square miles in size, one of the Bonin Islands in the Pacific Ocean midway between the Marianas and Japan. The fight for Iwo Jima is often considered one of the most desperate conflicts fought during World War II. Few of the 21,000 Japanese soldiers who were dug in on the island survived the battle.
Fratzke and Coolidge agreed that any Marine on Iwo Jima was basically at the front lines the second he stepped on land. Fratzke added that danger was always at hand during the battle, “... toward the very last day, it was as bad as the first (day), if you were at the front.”
Coolidge served as a private in a mortar unit belonging to the 25th Regiment of the 4th Division. During the battle, he was assigned to drive a jeep that transported ammunition and supplies for the mortar crews.
According to Coolidge, he received a rude welcome to the island a couple of hours after the first landings. He was driving the jeep onto the beach from a landing craft when a missile from an enemy mortar exploded, turned over the vehicle, and left it stuck in the sand. Hours later, Coolidge was able to get his jeep back on its tires and started doing his part during the battle.
Coolidge remembers that tragedy struck on his second day on Iwo Jima. At one point, he was away from his mortar unit getting supplies and returned to find his comrades missing, the Marines and their equipment were wiped out by an explosion.
“All of my friends were gone, all seven of them,” Coolidge said.
Coolidge and his first lieutenant were all that remained of the mortar unit. He continued to haul supplies for other Marine units, and sometimes his jeep was commandeered by high-ranking officers as transport.
The Americans and the Japanese each wanted Iwo Jima basically for its location. The island had few natural resources except for deposits of sulfur. The residents even had difficulties in maintaining an adequate supply of fresh water.
Iwo Jima lies about 650 miles from Japan and also from the Marianas Islands where the U.S. Army Air Force had based B-29 Superfortresses to bomb the Japanese homeland.
If the Japanese held the island, they could base fighter planes on Iwo Jima’s airfields that would harass U.S. bombers. If the Marines took the island, those same airfields could provide a home for American fighters and a landing spot for Superfortresses that were either damaged in battle or suffering from mechanical problems.
Fratzke saw a crippled B-29 land at one of Iwo Jima’s airfields during the battle. The U.S. heavy bomber safely landed on a airstrip that the Marines had taken away from the Japanese. The landing demonstrated that Iwo Jima had value even before the battle for its possession had ended.
Fratzke was 17 years old when he joined the Marines, and he later became a member of the 14th Regiment of the 4th Division. Born on March 24, 1925, he celebrated his 20th birthday on Iwo Jima, serving as an artillery spotter for a 155-mm howitzer battery.
When he landed on Iwo Jima, Fratzke was a veteran of the Saipan and Tinian invasions in the Marianas Islands. He described the defenses on Iwo Jima as a hard nut to crack with the Japanese taking advantage of the island’s mines and caves, using them as bases for their men and material.
The Japanese also invested their military resources into the defense of Iwo Jima. Fratzke referred to information collected about the Japanese buildup from October 1944 to February 1945 that included increases in the number of pillboxes from 37 to 316, covered artillery pieces from four to 70, and anti-aircraft guns from 189 to 203.
Due to the extent of the Japanese defenses on the island, bombing from the air, naval shelling and even land-based artillery had a limited effect on the Japanese. The Marines had to take the island yard by yard, making extensive use of grenades, high explosives and flamethrowers.
Fratzke said the Marines captured few Japanese soldiers on Iwo Jima. He once saw about 11 Japanese POWs in a holding area on the island.
During the battle, Fratzke suffered only a slight injury when an explosion embedded some of Iwo Jima’s sand into his skin. He kept some of the island’s black, volcanic sand as a souvenir in a small brown glass bottle he found on the island. Fratzke also held onto the spotter’s map of Iwo Jima that he carried while on the island. The map is currently displayed in a glass frame.
Coolidge also had his 27th birthday during the battle, three days before the Japanese resistance ended on March 26, 1945. He still has items that remind him of his military service — a small Bible given to him by the Wessington Springs Kiwanis Club before he went overseas, a model of the Willys jeep he drove, and a book published by the 4th Division about the men in the unit and their service.
Recently, he received another souvenir when the Oahe Marine Corps Unit named Coolidge the Marine of the Month for February 2006.
Eisnach’s “City Limits” interview with Fratzke and Coolidge started appearing on Oahe Channel 8, the local cable-access channel, on Feb. 13. “City Limits” is broadcasted from 12:15 to 12:45 p.m. on Monday through Friday, and each show is usually run for five days.
The Iwo Jima interview will appear on the cable channel at 12:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. After the “City Limits” weekend episodes, Channel 8 will broadcast at 1 p.m. and 10 p.m. a short documentary about the battle for Iwo Jima. The documentary was provided to the channel by the Marine Corps League Detachment 851.
The interview with the Pierre Marine veterans is scheduled for broadcast again on Monday and Tuesday at the usual time for “City Limits.”
Ellie
Historic battle relived
Two Iwo Jima veterans discuss war experiences
By CHUCK CLEMENT
Capital Journal Staff
Friday, February 17, 2006
Louis Fratzke, left, and Henry Coolidge, both Pierre residents, were interviewed for a show on Oahe Channel 8 about their experiences as U.S. Marines during the battle of Iwo Jima in 1945. The 61st anniversary of the Iwo Jima invasion takes place on Feb. 19. Pierre Mayor Dennis Eisnach interviewed the men about their service in the U.S. Marine Corps for an episode of “City Limits.” The cable channel will broadcast the interview daily until Feb. 21. The map in front of the two men was carried by Fratzke during the battle and used in his work as a forward artillery spotter.
Two World War II veterans will appear on Pierre’s public-access cable channel to talk about their part in the battle to control Iwo Jima, an island invasion that illustrated the toughness of the modern U.S. Marine Corps — but at a heavy price.
This Sunday, Feb. 19, 2006, will mark the 61st anniversary of the amphibious landings on Iwo Jima by two Marine units — the 4th and 5th Marine divisions. The landings started a battle that took the lives of 6,000 Marines and U.S. Navy medical personnel and wounded another 20,000 Americans before the combat ended.
Louis Fratzke and Henry Coolidge, both of Pierre, are two of the 70,000 Marines who fought on Iwo Jima during 1945 and they were fortunate enough to leave the island after the fighting had ended without major injuries. Fratzke and Coolidge were recently interviewed about their World War II experiences by Pierre Mayor Dennis Eisnach for the “City Limits” episode that is currently appearing on Oahe Channel 8.
The Marines fought for the control of an island less than eight square miles in size, one of the Bonin Islands in the Pacific Ocean midway between the Marianas and Japan. The fight for Iwo Jima is often considered one of the most desperate conflicts fought during World War II. Few of the 21,000 Japanese soldiers who were dug in on the island survived the battle.
Fratzke and Coolidge agreed that any Marine on Iwo Jima was basically at the front lines the second he stepped on land. Fratzke added that danger was always at hand during the battle, “... toward the very last day, it was as bad as the first (day), if you were at the front.”
Coolidge served as a private in a mortar unit belonging to the 25th Regiment of the 4th Division. During the battle, he was assigned to drive a jeep that transported ammunition and supplies for the mortar crews.
According to Coolidge, he received a rude welcome to the island a couple of hours after the first landings. He was driving the jeep onto the beach from a landing craft when a missile from an enemy mortar exploded, turned over the vehicle, and left it stuck in the sand. Hours later, Coolidge was able to get his jeep back on its tires and started doing his part during the battle.
Coolidge remembers that tragedy struck on his second day on Iwo Jima. At one point, he was away from his mortar unit getting supplies and returned to find his comrades missing, the Marines and their equipment were wiped out by an explosion.
“All of my friends were gone, all seven of them,” Coolidge said.
Coolidge and his first lieutenant were all that remained of the mortar unit. He continued to haul supplies for other Marine units, and sometimes his jeep was commandeered by high-ranking officers as transport.
The Americans and the Japanese each wanted Iwo Jima basically for its location. The island had few natural resources except for deposits of sulfur. The residents even had difficulties in maintaining an adequate supply of fresh water.
Iwo Jima lies about 650 miles from Japan and also from the Marianas Islands where the U.S. Army Air Force had based B-29 Superfortresses to bomb the Japanese homeland.
If the Japanese held the island, they could base fighter planes on Iwo Jima’s airfields that would harass U.S. bombers. If the Marines took the island, those same airfields could provide a home for American fighters and a landing spot for Superfortresses that were either damaged in battle or suffering from mechanical problems.
Fratzke saw a crippled B-29 land at one of Iwo Jima’s airfields during the battle. The U.S. heavy bomber safely landed on a airstrip that the Marines had taken away from the Japanese. The landing demonstrated that Iwo Jima had value even before the battle for its possession had ended.
Fratzke was 17 years old when he joined the Marines, and he later became a member of the 14th Regiment of the 4th Division. Born on March 24, 1925, he celebrated his 20th birthday on Iwo Jima, serving as an artillery spotter for a 155-mm howitzer battery.
When he landed on Iwo Jima, Fratzke was a veteran of the Saipan and Tinian invasions in the Marianas Islands. He described the defenses on Iwo Jima as a hard nut to crack with the Japanese taking advantage of the island’s mines and caves, using them as bases for their men and material.
The Japanese also invested their military resources into the defense of Iwo Jima. Fratzke referred to information collected about the Japanese buildup from October 1944 to February 1945 that included increases in the number of pillboxes from 37 to 316, covered artillery pieces from four to 70, and anti-aircraft guns from 189 to 203.
Due to the extent of the Japanese defenses on the island, bombing from the air, naval shelling and even land-based artillery had a limited effect on the Japanese. The Marines had to take the island yard by yard, making extensive use of grenades, high explosives and flamethrowers.
Fratzke said the Marines captured few Japanese soldiers on Iwo Jima. He once saw about 11 Japanese POWs in a holding area on the island.
During the battle, Fratzke suffered only a slight injury when an explosion embedded some of Iwo Jima’s sand into his skin. He kept some of the island’s black, volcanic sand as a souvenir in a small brown glass bottle he found on the island. Fratzke also held onto the spotter’s map of Iwo Jima that he carried while on the island. The map is currently displayed in a glass frame.
Coolidge also had his 27th birthday during the battle, three days before the Japanese resistance ended on March 26, 1945. He still has items that remind him of his military service — a small Bible given to him by the Wessington Springs Kiwanis Club before he went overseas, a model of the Willys jeep he drove, and a book published by the 4th Division about the men in the unit and their service.
Recently, he received another souvenir when the Oahe Marine Corps Unit named Coolidge the Marine of the Month for February 2006.
Eisnach’s “City Limits” interview with Fratzke and Coolidge started appearing on Oahe Channel 8, the local cable-access channel, on Feb. 13. “City Limits” is broadcasted from 12:15 to 12:45 p.m. on Monday through Friday, and each show is usually run for five days.
The Iwo Jima interview will appear on the cable channel at 12:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. After the “City Limits” weekend episodes, Channel 8 will broadcast at 1 p.m. and 10 p.m. a short documentary about the battle for Iwo Jima. The documentary was provided to the channel by the Marine Corps League Detachment 851.
The interview with the Pierre Marine veterans is scheduled for broadcast again on Monday and Tuesday at the usual time for “City Limits.”
Ellie