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thedrifter
11-11-08, 08:37 AM
VETERANS DAY 2008: Remembering Iwo Jima

By BRAD DICKERSON

Highlands Today

Published: November 11, 2008

SEBRING - Milo "Mike" Adamson was a draft dodger during World War II.

The moniker hardly seems fitting, considering he served with the Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 26th Marines, 5th Marine Division and took part in the 36-day Battle of Iwo Jima in 1945.

Still, the term did fit -- loosely.

"They called us draft dodgers because we didn't want to get drafted into the Army, so we enlisted in the Marine Corps," he said.

Adamson's military career started with boot camp in San Diego. By 1943, he was sent to the Marine Corps Depot Supplies in the Mojave Desert before making a stop at Camp Pendleton.

"We were there training to go overseas," Adamson said. "All of a sudden they stopped us and said, 'We're going in.'"

Two days later, Adamson and his fellow Marines began the trip to Iwo Jima.

Small Island, Big Prize

The island of Iwo Jima was a small land mass in the Pacific that was only 4.5 miles long, with its broadest point 2.5 miles wide, according to www.ww2db.com. Iwo is the Japanese word for sulfur, which the island was full of.

What the Allies were interested in was the island's airfield, which the Japanese used to launch aerial operations against Saipan.

If Iwo Jima fell, it would give the Allies another airfield for future operations against Japan, the Web site said.

They were not going to have it easy, as the Japanese had 21,000 soldiers hidden in 13,000 yards of tunnels under the island's surface. The soldiers were expected to die in the defense of Japan and take 10 enemy combatants with them.

'Everything They Could Throw At Us'

The first two waves of Allied Forces to storm Iwo Jima got on the beaches without any problem, according to Adamson. He was a part of the third wave.

"When the third wave went in, they started to pound us with shell fire, everything they could throw at us," he said.

During the more than month-long battle for Iwo Jima, Adamson said the third wave lost about 75 percent of its men, either by death or an injury that forced them to leave the island.

"I was scared all the time, but I didn't have brains enough to know it," said Adamson, who was 18 at the time. "What do we know? We didn't have any fear."

Although fighting was intense, Adamson said he and the rest of the Allied soldiers were not under constant fire, as some might have expected.

"When you're under heavy fire, it don't last," he said. "It'll last 10 or 15 minutes and then it'll be calm for a while."

An Historic Souvenir

In his Sebring home, Adamson has mementos from his service in the Marine Corps. As it is with many veterans, he has numerous photos and medals awarded for his service.

Unique among his possessions are containers that hold many handfuls of sand he collected from Iwo Jima. The material is more gravel-like than sand, and is charcoal black. Since the island is volcanic, the sand was also extremely hot and gave off a sulfuric smell.

"Can you imagine walking through that?" Adamson said.

Not only did the soldiers have to walk through it, but if they wanted to sleep, they had to lay on it.

When it came time for a break and a chance to catch some shut-eye, the men laid their ponchos on the hard, hot ground and went to sleep.

"Many a morning, I'd wake up and have holes burnt in the poncho from the sulfur," Adamson said.

A Photo Of History

One of the most indelible images of WWII, or any other battle before or since, came from Iwo Jima.

Photographer Joe Rosenthal snapped a picture of six Marines raising an American flag on the top of Mount Suribachi. That picture wound up becoming the driving force for a successful bond drive in the United States, bringing the photographer a Pulitzer Prize and serving as the basis for a 2006 Clint Eastwood film called "Flags Of Our Fathers."

It is also one of the most well-known and reproduced images in U.S. history.

Adamson was not one of the six to raise the flag, but he still recalls the occasion.

"They (Japanese) never took many shots at those guys," he said. "They got up there pretty easy."

Service Post Iwo Jima

The battle for Iwo Jima ended March 26, 1945, and it was a success for the Allies. Adamson left the island and headed back to Hawaii for more training. Then, it was off to Nagasaki as a member of the occupation group.

Their entrance in the country followed the United States' dropping of an atomic bomb on the Japanese prefecture's capital city. Almost 74,000 people were killed instantly in the Aug. 9, 1945 blast.

Adamson's squad actually went into the Nagasaki city of Sasebo, where a three-hour B-29 raid took place before their arrival.

"Everything was flattened," Adamson said. "People were living in tin shacks and whatever they could put together."

Communication of any kind, even talking, was forbidden between U.S. forces and the Japanese people. Adamson said the Allies could not be seen fraternizing with the enemy.

The local veteran was in country four months, which turned out to be four months too long.

It was missing letters from home that would eventually alert the powers-that-be to a mistake.

The Letters That Never Came

Mike and Marjorie Adamson were married in Indiana in 1941, prior to his Marine service. She was pregnant with their first child, Michael, when he left.

During Mike's deployment, Marjorie would send him letters and talk about life back in the States. The correspondences abruptly stopped when he was in the Japanese occupation group.

"I kept writing to him and he would write to me and say, 'How come you're not writing? I'm not getting any letters,'" Marjorie said. "This went on and I thought, 'Something's wrong.' I called the Marine Corps Commandant in Washington, D.C., to find out why."

The inquiry revealed that Mike was not even supposed to be in Japan. Instead, he was supposed to have gone back to Hawaii following Iwo Jima and then sent home shortly thereafter. Because of the mistake, all of his mail was being sent to the nation's youngest state.

Fortunately, the error was soon corrected.

"(The commandant) says, 'I'll take care of that,' and it wasn't long until Mike was heading back to Hawaii," Marjorie said.

When Mike returned home, he returned home to his wife and three-year-old son Michael, who, despite being just an infant when his father left, instantly recognized him when he stepped off the train.

"That was his daddy," Marjorie said. "He knew that was his daddy."

Life, As It Is Today

In the 63 years since the end of WWII, Mike and Marjorie had two other children, both girls. They also have six grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.

Ten years ago, the couple moved from Indiana to Florida. Today, they reside in Highlands County.

Although his military career is long over, Mike continues to be proud of his service in the defense of freedom.

He also throws his support behind those presently overseas in Iraq, even going so far as to write a letter to a soldier because the young man's aunt asked him to.

Mike didn't get a response to his letter, but that does not stop him from saluting the men and women in uniform ... especially if they are Marines.

"There's something about being a Marine," he said. "There's no other feeling like it. You're closer than family."

Brad Dickerson can be reached at (863) 386-5838 or bdickerson@glasgowdailytimes.com

Ellie