thedrifter
12-12-06, 06:48 AM
Marine recalls horrors of Iwo Jima
By PAT KINNEY, Courier Business Editor
WATERLOO --- Martin Vermaas doesn't have to see the movie, "Flags of our Fathers" to learn about the Battle of Iwo Jima.
He learned about it first-hand on Feb. 19, 1945.
That's when Vermaas and his comrades in the 28th Regiment of the 5th Marine Division tried to take Mount Suribachi on that volcanic island, where dug-in Japanese forces were raining fire down on them.
Shortly after hitting the beach, Vermaas lost his rifle --- and the use of his right arm.
"I don't really know whether it was a grenade or a mortar shell. Whatever it was, it knocked you down," he said of the shrapnel that pierced his upper arm. "I had just gotten on the island a little ways when I got hit and got knocked down."
He gave his rifle to a comrade to protect him. Fearing a poison gas attack, he dashed toward a shell hole. "I jumped in there and there was a pair of legs. A Marine had been there ahead of me and had been there when the bomb hit." He hooked his disabled arm into his belt to protect it from further injury and sought other shelter. "I had a friend there, and I told him to stay close by me."
He had hit the beach with the ninth wave of Marines, and the fighting was still fierce. A radioman, he had accompanied the regimental commander, Col. Harry B. Liversedge, as he had led the earlier waves in on amphibious "Higgins boat" landing crafts, similar to those used at Normandy eight months earlier.
Despite his wound, Vermaas, a 19-year-old native Nebraskan with a wife and infant daughter at home, stayed at his post for more than four days, armed with nothing more than a "K-bar" combat knife.
He and his comrades dug in or hid out in shellholes overnight, subject to shell fire and nighttime onslaughts of samurai sword-wielding Japanese forces.
He worked in a makeshift communications center at the foot of Mount Suribachi, which also was staffed by "code talker" Marines from the Navajo tribe who could relay classified messages over the radio in their native tongue, indecipherable by the Japanese.
The casualties weren't confined to the beach. "One mortar shell landed in the middle of our communications center, killing and wounding several of the radio operators," Vermass said.
The Marines gradually made progress, and, on the fifth day, Vermaas saw a group of them hoist a small American flag atop Mount Suribachi. It was the first of two flag raisings; the second was captured in a Pulitzer Prize winning photo by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal.
"It made me feel good," Vermaas said of the first flag raising. "But I knew my arm was beginning to give me some trouble." Medics had dressed the wound and applied sulfa powder to it, but he saw streaks of yellow --- signs of gangrene.
He was ordered back aboard a U.S. troop ship that had been converted to a hospital ship. He and other Marines were being readied to head back into combat when the ship was ordered off to join a group of U.S. ships headed for Saipan.
The battle continued for another month. Nearly 7,000 Marines and more than 20,000 Japanese died in the fighting.
Vermaas survived the war and recovered the use of his arm. He returned to his family and enjoyed a 30-year career working as a civilian with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, overseas and in the U.S., spending a considerable time in the Middle East.
He and his wife, Bernice, also engaged in Christian ministry here and abroad throughout their 63 years of marriage, as have their family. They have five children, 15 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren.
Two daughters, Gloria Goering and Susan Reuter, and their families live in Waterloo. Gloria, their eldest, is the little girl Vermaas returned home to from Iwo Jima. Bernice recalls little Gloria kissed her daddy's picture regularly while he was gone. When he returned home, she recognized him from his picture after he put his Marine cap on. Gloria's husband, James, is executive director of Family Altar Broadcast in Waterloo.
Vermaas is convinced his faith brought him through the ordeal on Iwo Jima. But he also said if he had it to do again, "I'd want a Marine on either side of me."
Contact Pat Kinney at (319) 291-1484 or pat.kinney@wcfcourier.com.
Ellie
By PAT KINNEY, Courier Business Editor
WATERLOO --- Martin Vermaas doesn't have to see the movie, "Flags of our Fathers" to learn about the Battle of Iwo Jima.
He learned about it first-hand on Feb. 19, 1945.
That's when Vermaas and his comrades in the 28th Regiment of the 5th Marine Division tried to take Mount Suribachi on that volcanic island, where dug-in Japanese forces were raining fire down on them.
Shortly after hitting the beach, Vermaas lost his rifle --- and the use of his right arm.
"I don't really know whether it was a grenade or a mortar shell. Whatever it was, it knocked you down," he said of the shrapnel that pierced his upper arm. "I had just gotten on the island a little ways when I got hit and got knocked down."
He gave his rifle to a comrade to protect him. Fearing a poison gas attack, he dashed toward a shell hole. "I jumped in there and there was a pair of legs. A Marine had been there ahead of me and had been there when the bomb hit." He hooked his disabled arm into his belt to protect it from further injury and sought other shelter. "I had a friend there, and I told him to stay close by me."
He had hit the beach with the ninth wave of Marines, and the fighting was still fierce. A radioman, he had accompanied the regimental commander, Col. Harry B. Liversedge, as he had led the earlier waves in on amphibious "Higgins boat" landing crafts, similar to those used at Normandy eight months earlier.
Despite his wound, Vermaas, a 19-year-old native Nebraskan with a wife and infant daughter at home, stayed at his post for more than four days, armed with nothing more than a "K-bar" combat knife.
He and his comrades dug in or hid out in shellholes overnight, subject to shell fire and nighttime onslaughts of samurai sword-wielding Japanese forces.
He worked in a makeshift communications center at the foot of Mount Suribachi, which also was staffed by "code talker" Marines from the Navajo tribe who could relay classified messages over the radio in their native tongue, indecipherable by the Japanese.
The casualties weren't confined to the beach. "One mortar shell landed in the middle of our communications center, killing and wounding several of the radio operators," Vermass said.
The Marines gradually made progress, and, on the fifth day, Vermaas saw a group of them hoist a small American flag atop Mount Suribachi. It was the first of two flag raisings; the second was captured in a Pulitzer Prize winning photo by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal.
"It made me feel good," Vermaas said of the first flag raising. "But I knew my arm was beginning to give me some trouble." Medics had dressed the wound and applied sulfa powder to it, but he saw streaks of yellow --- signs of gangrene.
He was ordered back aboard a U.S. troop ship that had been converted to a hospital ship. He and other Marines were being readied to head back into combat when the ship was ordered off to join a group of U.S. ships headed for Saipan.
The battle continued for another month. Nearly 7,000 Marines and more than 20,000 Japanese died in the fighting.
Vermaas survived the war and recovered the use of his arm. He returned to his family and enjoyed a 30-year career working as a civilian with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, overseas and in the U.S., spending a considerable time in the Middle East.
He and his wife, Bernice, also engaged in Christian ministry here and abroad throughout their 63 years of marriage, as have their family. They have five children, 15 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren.
Two daughters, Gloria Goering and Susan Reuter, and their families live in Waterloo. Gloria, their eldest, is the little girl Vermaas returned home to from Iwo Jima. Bernice recalls little Gloria kissed her daddy's picture regularly while he was gone. When he returned home, she recognized him from his picture after he put his Marine cap on. Gloria's husband, James, is executive director of Family Altar Broadcast in Waterloo.
Vermaas is convinced his faith brought him through the ordeal on Iwo Jima. But he also said if he had it to do again, "I'd want a Marine on either side of me."
Contact Pat Kinney at (319) 291-1484 or pat.kinney@wcfcourier.com.
Ellie