thedrifter
02-11-07, 07:52 AM
A quest to bring a Marine home
Pa. man takes up cause of Iwo Jima cameraman
By Nick Miroff, Washington Post | February 11, 2007
WASHINGTON -- Bob Bolus has a gold nameplate on his office desk that says "president" and a panoramic view of a junkyard outside Scranton, Pa. Above the filing cabinet there's an old World War II artillery map, and on a recent afternoon, Bolus stood inches away, peering deeply into its contour lines, searching.
"There it is," he said, as if pointing to an "X" on a treasure map. "That's Hill 362A."
It wasn't much of a landmark. Hill 362A is a squat, unremarkable ridge, 362 feet at its highest point, on the northwest corner of Iwo Jima. Like much of the island, it was bombed, shot, burned, and generally blasted to bits in 1945, when US forces fought to drive out the Japanese from a network of tunnels and caves that crisscrosses its base.
Entombed somewhere in those passageways, among the rocks and the rubble and the unexploded ordnance, are the remains of a Marine Corps sergeant and cameraman named William Genaust.
Bolus is not related to Genaust, but for the past two years he has been fixated with the Marine's fate. He has lobbied generals, politicians, and ambassadors on Genaust's behalf. He has traveled to Hill 362A and drafted surveyors, military historians, and forensic anthropologists to his cause.
Bolus is resolute on recovering Genaust's remains from his anonymous grave.
"He belongs at Arlington" National Cemetery, Bolus said. "And I'm not going to stop until he's home."
Bolus's persistence has prompted Pentagon officials to begin consultations with the Japanese government about a recovery operation. It would be the first time the United States has searched for missing service members on Iwo Jima since returning control of it to Japan in 1968.
But perhaps what is most unusual is that someone who is neither family nor a fellow service member has become so engrossed with a long-dead serviceman's remains.
"I believe he's the first," said Larry Greer, a spokesman for the Defense Department's Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office. "He has demonstrated a lot of energy and a lot of commitment to this."
Bolus, 64, is the owner of Bolus Truck Parts, Scooter's Hot Dawg Hut, and a slew of other business ventures in Scranton, Pa. Over the years, he has been a Democrat, a Republican, a trucking tycoon, a felon, a race car driver, a philanthropist, and a failed mayoral candidate, among other things. Then, one Sunday morning in February 2005, Bolus read an article about Genaust in Parade magazine, and he was seized.
"I must have read it three or four times," he said. "I just couldn't believe that the man who gave us that image had been left behind."
Genaust was among the Marines and journalists who climbed Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima's highest point, on Feb. 23, 1945, four days after US forces landed.
Genaust, who was trained to fight, and film, at Quantico Marine Corps Base, captured footage for training videos, propaganda efforts, and other military purposes. On that day, Genaust went up Suribachi to capture a flag-raising.
At the summit, he stood with a friend, Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal, cranking his Bell & Howell camera as a makeshift flagpole was heaved into the wind. Rosenthal took the photograph that would become the iconic image of the war and win him a Pulitzer Prize that year.
Within weeks, Genaust's color footage appeared on newsreels and in movie theaters across the United States. When skeptics claimed that the Rosenthal photograph was staged, Genaust's recording confirmed its authenticity.
But Genaust never saw the film. Nine days after the flag-raising, he was killed, shot to death in a cave on Hill 362A
Ellie
Pa. man takes up cause of Iwo Jima cameraman
By Nick Miroff, Washington Post | February 11, 2007
WASHINGTON -- Bob Bolus has a gold nameplate on his office desk that says "president" and a panoramic view of a junkyard outside Scranton, Pa. Above the filing cabinet there's an old World War II artillery map, and on a recent afternoon, Bolus stood inches away, peering deeply into its contour lines, searching.
"There it is," he said, as if pointing to an "X" on a treasure map. "That's Hill 362A."
It wasn't much of a landmark. Hill 362A is a squat, unremarkable ridge, 362 feet at its highest point, on the northwest corner of Iwo Jima. Like much of the island, it was bombed, shot, burned, and generally blasted to bits in 1945, when US forces fought to drive out the Japanese from a network of tunnels and caves that crisscrosses its base.
Entombed somewhere in those passageways, among the rocks and the rubble and the unexploded ordnance, are the remains of a Marine Corps sergeant and cameraman named William Genaust.
Bolus is not related to Genaust, but for the past two years he has been fixated with the Marine's fate. He has lobbied generals, politicians, and ambassadors on Genaust's behalf. He has traveled to Hill 362A and drafted surveyors, military historians, and forensic anthropologists to his cause.
Bolus is resolute on recovering Genaust's remains from his anonymous grave.
"He belongs at Arlington" National Cemetery, Bolus said. "And I'm not going to stop until he's home."
Bolus's persistence has prompted Pentagon officials to begin consultations with the Japanese government about a recovery operation. It would be the first time the United States has searched for missing service members on Iwo Jima since returning control of it to Japan in 1968.
But perhaps what is most unusual is that someone who is neither family nor a fellow service member has become so engrossed with a long-dead serviceman's remains.
"I believe he's the first," said Larry Greer, a spokesman for the Defense Department's Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office. "He has demonstrated a lot of energy and a lot of commitment to this."
Bolus, 64, is the owner of Bolus Truck Parts, Scooter's Hot Dawg Hut, and a slew of other business ventures in Scranton, Pa. Over the years, he has been a Democrat, a Republican, a trucking tycoon, a felon, a race car driver, a philanthropist, and a failed mayoral candidate, among other things. Then, one Sunday morning in February 2005, Bolus read an article about Genaust in Parade magazine, and he was seized.
"I must have read it three or four times," he said. "I just couldn't believe that the man who gave us that image had been left behind."
Genaust was among the Marines and journalists who climbed Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima's highest point, on Feb. 23, 1945, four days after US forces landed.
Genaust, who was trained to fight, and film, at Quantico Marine Corps Base, captured footage for training videos, propaganda efforts, and other military purposes. On that day, Genaust went up Suribachi to capture a flag-raising.
At the summit, he stood with a friend, Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal, cranking his Bell & Howell camera as a makeshift flagpole was heaved into the wind. Rosenthal took the photograph that would become the iconic image of the war and win him a Pulitzer Prize that year.
Within weeks, Genaust's color footage appeared on newsreels and in movie theaters across the United States. When skeptics claimed that the Rosenthal photograph was staged, Genaust's recording confirmed its authenticity.
But Genaust never saw the film. Nine days after the flag-raising, he was killed, shot to death in a cave on Hill 362A
Ellie