thedrifter
02-19-08, 06:45 AM
Navy veteran 'forever changed' by Iwo Jima
By Warren Wise
The Post and Courier
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Jimmie Snipes never went to the funerals on Iwo Jima.
"I couldn't take it," the 90-year-old Navy veteran from Charleston said of one of the fiercest battles of World War II.
It began on Feb. 19, 1945, and resulted in one of the most memorable photographs in history when five Marines and a Navy corpsman raised the U.S. flag atop Mount Suribachi on Feb. 23, 1945.
By no means did that bring an end to the fighting on the tiny Japanese island.
Melissa Haneline
The Post and Courier
Navy veteran Jimmie Snipes, 90, was stationed on Iwo Jima for nearly six months in 1945.
For 36 days the battle raged as 21,000 Japanese defenders, heavily fortified and hidden in an elaborate maze of caves and tunnels unknown to American forces at first, refused to succumb to five times the number of American troops in Operation Detachment.
When it was over, 20,703 Japanese were either killed or committed suicide rather than be captured; 6,821 Americans were killed and 19,189 were wounded fighting for a vital spit of land to capture its airfields.
Snipes was offshore when the flag went up but arrived a few days later in a second wave of troops "to do whatever they needed me to do." He landed at the foot of the 546-foot-high extinct volcano of Mount Suribachi and helped establish the infrastructure to support tens of thousands of American troops fighting on the island.
Snipes' job centered on keeping the machine that turned salty sea water into drinking water not only running but out of enemy hands. That and staying alive.
The Japanese had been pushed back, but their underground positions had vast bunkers, hidden artillery and 11 miles of tunnels intricately woven throughout the 4-mile-long and 2-mile-wide dot of land in the Pacific Ocean about 650 miles south of Tokyo.
The Americans wanted to take the island for strategic reasons. Japanese aircraft could intercept long-range B-29 bombers headed for Japan's mainland, and it provided a haven for Japanese naval units in need of support. Capturing it would provide a critical staging area for what was viewed at the time as the eventual invasion of the Japanese mainland.
The Japanese realized they couldn't win, but the strategy was to inflict such heavy casualties on Americans that they would reconsider invading the Japanese mainland.
Snipes mostly worked a 12-hour night shift, repairing gas engines that ran water-distillation units, cleaning out oil-laden tubes once a week and fending off Japanese soldiers prowling for provisions.
"They got hungry and thirsty and came out of their tunnels at night to get to our supplies," he said. "They were treacherous. You could never let your guard down."
He remembers firing about 20 rounds at one man as the Japanese soldiers ran back into a cave. Snipes doesn't know if he killed him.
Often, Japanese bombers flew over at night, wreaking havoc and killing Americans. As sirens wailed, Snipes remembers running from his tent to a cave to avoid being killed. He also remembers being pinned down away from cover while Japanese snipers popped out of caves and tunnels. The new innovation of fire-throwing tanks proved highly effective in beating back the enemy.
"It was total hell," Snipes said. "People don't realize the stress and hardship that goes along with a person in the military. Some guys cracked up and had to be shipped out."
He would go days without bathing, and once when he went in the ocean he saw a shark. He never went back in.
When he laid his head down to sleep, he thought about his wife, Ruth, whom the then-27-year-old had married just before heading to the Pacific.
"You don't know how hard it was that I couldn't put my arm around her," he said.
Snipes looked forward to the daily letters from his wife and family.
"That was a big boost for me," he said. "It just gives you a lot of strength to keep going. At the end of the day, I asked God to guide me through the next one."
Snipes stayed on the island for nearly six months, not leaving until after the Americans dropped atomic bombs on Japan, forcing the surrender.
He learned later that he had seen the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, fly over the island after everyone ran out to see all the fighter escorts on Iwo Jima take off to accompany it.
"We knew something was going to happen," he said. "This was unusual for one plane and all the escorts to go up."
After months of surviving on powdered eggs, potatoes and milk, he arrived home 46 pounds lighter on his birthday, Oct. 28, 1945. He weighed 139 pounds.
"I got to come home because of God and the best president we ever had, Harry S. Truman," Snipes said.
He never returned to the island and still has memories and flashbacks of being on Iwo Jima.
"You can never put it behind you," Snipes said. "Anybody on Iwo Jima was forever changed by what he went through. Every one of them could say, 'I walked through the fires of hell. I owe no man anything.' "
Reach Warren Wise at 745-5850 or wwise@postandcourier.com.
Ellie
By Warren Wise
The Post and Courier
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Jimmie Snipes never went to the funerals on Iwo Jima.
"I couldn't take it," the 90-year-old Navy veteran from Charleston said of one of the fiercest battles of World War II.
It began on Feb. 19, 1945, and resulted in one of the most memorable photographs in history when five Marines and a Navy corpsman raised the U.S. flag atop Mount Suribachi on Feb. 23, 1945.
By no means did that bring an end to the fighting on the tiny Japanese island.
Melissa Haneline
The Post and Courier
Navy veteran Jimmie Snipes, 90, was stationed on Iwo Jima for nearly six months in 1945.
For 36 days the battle raged as 21,000 Japanese defenders, heavily fortified and hidden in an elaborate maze of caves and tunnels unknown to American forces at first, refused to succumb to five times the number of American troops in Operation Detachment.
When it was over, 20,703 Japanese were either killed or committed suicide rather than be captured; 6,821 Americans were killed and 19,189 were wounded fighting for a vital spit of land to capture its airfields.
Snipes was offshore when the flag went up but arrived a few days later in a second wave of troops "to do whatever they needed me to do." He landed at the foot of the 546-foot-high extinct volcano of Mount Suribachi and helped establish the infrastructure to support tens of thousands of American troops fighting on the island.
Snipes' job centered on keeping the machine that turned salty sea water into drinking water not only running but out of enemy hands. That and staying alive.
The Japanese had been pushed back, but their underground positions had vast bunkers, hidden artillery and 11 miles of tunnels intricately woven throughout the 4-mile-long and 2-mile-wide dot of land in the Pacific Ocean about 650 miles south of Tokyo.
The Americans wanted to take the island for strategic reasons. Japanese aircraft could intercept long-range B-29 bombers headed for Japan's mainland, and it provided a haven for Japanese naval units in need of support. Capturing it would provide a critical staging area for what was viewed at the time as the eventual invasion of the Japanese mainland.
The Japanese realized they couldn't win, but the strategy was to inflict such heavy casualties on Americans that they would reconsider invading the Japanese mainland.
Snipes mostly worked a 12-hour night shift, repairing gas engines that ran water-distillation units, cleaning out oil-laden tubes once a week and fending off Japanese soldiers prowling for provisions.
"They got hungry and thirsty and came out of their tunnels at night to get to our supplies," he said. "They were treacherous. You could never let your guard down."
He remembers firing about 20 rounds at one man as the Japanese soldiers ran back into a cave. Snipes doesn't know if he killed him.
Often, Japanese bombers flew over at night, wreaking havoc and killing Americans. As sirens wailed, Snipes remembers running from his tent to a cave to avoid being killed. He also remembers being pinned down away from cover while Japanese snipers popped out of caves and tunnels. The new innovation of fire-throwing tanks proved highly effective in beating back the enemy.
"It was total hell," Snipes said. "People don't realize the stress and hardship that goes along with a person in the military. Some guys cracked up and had to be shipped out."
He would go days without bathing, and once when he went in the ocean he saw a shark. He never went back in.
When he laid his head down to sleep, he thought about his wife, Ruth, whom the then-27-year-old had married just before heading to the Pacific.
"You don't know how hard it was that I couldn't put my arm around her," he said.
Snipes looked forward to the daily letters from his wife and family.
"That was a big boost for me," he said. "It just gives you a lot of strength to keep going. At the end of the day, I asked God to guide me through the next one."
Snipes stayed on the island for nearly six months, not leaving until after the Americans dropped atomic bombs on Japan, forcing the surrender.
He learned later that he had seen the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, fly over the island after everyone ran out to see all the fighter escorts on Iwo Jima take off to accompany it.
"We knew something was going to happen," he said. "This was unusual for one plane and all the escorts to go up."
After months of surviving on powdered eggs, potatoes and milk, he arrived home 46 pounds lighter on his birthday, Oct. 28, 1945. He weighed 139 pounds.
"I got to come home because of God and the best president we ever had, Harry S. Truman," Snipes said.
He never returned to the island and still has memories and flashbacks of being on Iwo Jima.
"You can never put it behind you," Snipes said. "Anybody on Iwo Jima was forever changed by what he went through. Every one of them could say, 'I walked through the fires of hell. I owe no man anything.' "
Reach Warren Wise at 745-5850 or wwise@postandcourier.com.
Ellie