Decades cannot dim Iwo Jima memories

[thedrifter]

Decades cannot dim Iwo Jima memories

Veteran says new film captures horrific experience
By Anne Krueger
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

October 19, 2006

Sitting in a dark movie theater, James Earle remembers the horror of Iwo Jima 61 years ago. The 80-year-old still easily recalls when he was a young Marine afraid for his life on the tiny Pacific island.

He hasn't forgotten the rotten-egg stench of the sulphurous sand, the sight of dead Marines, the heat from the flamethrowers and the screams of Japanese engulfed in fire.

“It was just a scary, scary situation – something an 18-year-old shouldn't experience,” the El Cajon resident said.

Those memories came flooding back last week, when Earle was among a group of veterans who attended a screening of “Flags of Our Fathers,” a movie about the battle of Iwo Jima and its aftermath for the six men photographed raising the American flag on the island.

The movie, set to open tomorrow, was shown to veterans invited to a screening in San Diego.

The movie highlights a battle that resulted in the deaths of 6,821 Americans, with more than 19,000 others wounded. At least 20,000 Japanese died.

The number of veterans of that conflict is dwindling. In February, about 60 Iwo Jima veterans attended an annual dinner held at Camp Pendleton to honor them. Although organizer Joe Garza doesn't keep count, he said the number of veterans at the event has dropped each year.

Earle and Jerry Kranz, 81, of North Park are among the veterans who have been recognized at the banquets. Kranz, who wasn't at last week's screening but hopes to see the movie with fellow veterans, said the horror of Iwo Jima will always be etched in his mind.

“It was the closest I could ever come to Dante's 'Inferno,' ” he said.

Earle spent 21 days on Iwo Jima, an experience he's relived ever since. Just after World War II ended, he helped re-enact the famous flag-raising in appearances around his home state of Pennsylvania. He's been honored in parades and speaks to Marine recruits about his wartime experiences.

“You can't imagine what it was like unless you were actually there,” he said.

In the theater last week, Earle watched scenes showing young Marines receiving a chaplain's blessing, then shimmying down ship ropes to land on Iwo Jima. He remembered experiencing those things in real life.

“It was outstanding, the way it was presented,” he said of the film.

As World War II dragged on, Iwo Jima was considered strategically important because it had airstrips that the Japanese had been using for their suicide attacks. Capturing the airstrips would provide a base for American planes raiding Japan.

Grunts like Earle weren't told why they were on Iwo Jima. They got just one piece of advice: “The enemy is out there to get you, and you need to get them first.”

The enemy on Iwo Jima was well-prepared, hiding in an extensive network of holes and caves dug into the volcanic ash. Kranz was among the first division of Marines that landed there Feb. 19, 1945.

Four days later, U.S. forces reached Mount Suribachi, the highest point on the island, and planted an American flag.

Kranz still remembers the jubilation he and his fellow Marines felt when they saw the flag.

“You'd have thought the Chargers won the Super Bowl,” he said.

The flag was replaced with a larger American flag, and a photograph of that moment became one of the most enduring images ever.

Even though Earle's Marine division landed the day after the flag was raised, he never saw it.

Earle said so many vehicles were abandoned on the beach that it reminded him of a junkyard. The 8-square-mile island was almost devoid of vegetation, resembling a moonscape that offered little cover as mortar shells flew overhead.

More than 70,000 U.S. troops swarmed the island, along with 22,000 Japanese soldiers.

“Even with all those people around you, you were so alone and so scared,” Earle said. “You didn't know what was going to happen in front of you.”

Earle's last memory of the battle was seeing a man running toward him who'd been hit in the shoulder, and hearing his sergeant yell, “Earle, get out of there!” He doesn't remember getting on a ship or returning to Guam after the fighting ended.

That was when he realized the devastation of the battle. He said no one else in his company survived.

“That's what hurts,” Earle said. “You live with these guys, go to church with them, train with them, and all of a sudden, they're gone.”

Earle left the Marine Corps in May 1946, then re-enlisted in 1950, fighting in the Korean War. He worked as a railroad policeman, then moved in 1958 to San Diego, where he worked as a claims manager for an insurance company.

His ties to the Marine Corps remain strong. For two years he served as commandant of the San Diego chapter of the Marine Corps League, a group of retired Marines who raise money for charity. He's now sergeant-at-arms for the organization.

Earle has collected books and newspaper clippings about Iwo Jima, and a small statue of the flag-raising is displayed in his house. And in February, if he's able, he'll be part of an ever-smaller crowd at the dinner to honor Iwo Jima veterans.

Anne Krueger: (619) 593-4962; anne.krueger@uniontrib.com

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Battle for Iwo Jima still lives with PB man
Joseph Dryer Jr. spent a year in military hospitals after being wounded leading an assault on a machine-gun placement.

By DAVID ROGERS
Daily News Staff Writer

Thursday, October 19, 2006

United States Marines, Joseph Dryer Jr. will tell you, are more than comrades in arms.

They are brothers, members of a close-knit, well-disciplined family. And members of that family make incredible sacrifices to serve their country and protect one another.

Dryer, a 45-year resident of Palm Beach, is pleased that Clint Eastwood has directed a film that will educate generations unfamiliar with the World War II battle of Iwo Jima, one of the fiercest, bloodiest battles the Marines ever faced.

Today, on the eve of the release of that film, Flags of Our Fathers, Dryer cannot share memories with any of his Marine buddies. Of the friends he landed with, all but Dryer and one other man were killed on that tiny island.

Flags of Our Fathers, which opens Friday, tells the story of the battle and in particular, of the six U.S. servicemen — five Marines and one Navy corpsman — who were immortalized by a single snap of a camera shutter.

Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal's Pulitzer Prize-winning image of the flag-raising on Mount Suribachi on Feb. 23, 1945, became an indelible symbol of the Marines' victory on the craggy, 8-square-mile island. The win was a key moment in the Pacific campaign and foreshadowed Japan's surrender on Sept. 2, 1945.

From the invasion of Iwo Jima on Feb. 19, 1945, through March 26 of that year, about 70,000 Marines scoured the island to rout an enemy that was frantic to defend its territory.

Operation Detachment, initiated by heavy Air Force and Navy shelling of the island, was waged to take control of Iwo Jima and its airfields. The island is about 670 miles south of Tokyo.

Capturing Iwo Jima would give U.S. fighter and bomber planes an emergency refueling site during long-range attacks on mainland Japan and also would knock out the Iwo Jima radar system.

Though the Japanese forces were outnumbered, their determination to hold Iwo Jima and prevent an invasion of Japan made them deadly opponents. They used the time before the American invasion to train, construct hundreds of protective concrete pillboxes, dig about three miles of tunnels, establish sniper sites and operations in caves, set mines on roads and stockpile food.

The offensive, fought yard by yard, cost the lives of 6,821 members of the 3rd, 4th and 5th Marine Divisions. Some 20,000 other Marines, including Dryer, were wounded. Of the more than 20,000 Japanese soldiers entrenched on the island, 18,000 would die.

Twenty-two Marines and five sailors were awarded the Medal of Honor for their heroics on Iwo Jima, the most awarded to date for a single battle.

"It is the best example of the Marine Corps' combination of esprit de corps, brotherhood and training that I can think of," Dryer said.

Rosenthal's photograph made celebrities of the six U.S. servicemen who planted the flag on Mount Suribachi. But every Marine who fought in that battle made a tremendous sacrifice, Dryer said.

A defining moment

He recounted memories of Iwo Jima recently in the library of the large, welcoming Marion Sims Wyeth-designed Mediterranean Revival home he shares with his wife, Nancy.

In his collection of photos is a picture Rosenthal took showing Dryer and a fellow Marine in a foxhole on Iwo Jima. The bodies of Japanese soldiers are visible in the foreground and left side of the photograph.

Though Dryer went on to become a hotel proprietor, stockbroker and automobile security company chairman, Iwo Jima remains a defining moment of his 85 years.

He was just 23 when the amphibious units began their invasion. Many of the Marines in the platoon he led were very young, he recalled.

They all feared for their lives, but their training had given them faith in their fighting abilities, Dryer said. The Marines used guns, flame throwers and grenades to flush out and kill their Japanese opponents.

The Marines were on edge day and night because the Japanese snipers were everywhere. Japanese soldiers also made nighttime incursions into the American camps, dropping grenades and firing machine guns. Their orders, Dryer said, were to fight to the death and not be taken captive.

Witnessing the fall of so many of his fellow Marines was a tough psychological hit, Dryer said.

"In the beginning, it takes time to get adjusted to the people you are losing, the friends you are losing," Dryer said.

He saw his colonel's chest ripped open by gunfire. "It was not just seeing it, but it was hearing the rasping of his breath as he was trying to breath. He was still alive," Dryer said before pausing. "It stayed with you.

'An absolute perfect shot'

"When my battalion landed, we had 33 officers," Dryer said. "Finally, when the sniper shot me through the chest when we were attacking a machine gun, we were down to three."

Dryer was hit by a dum-dum (expanding) bullet from a Japanese sniper on March 17 when he was directing an attack on a machine-gun placement.

"I had shot the guy in the shoulder and he had pulled his machine gun back into the cave. And then I was circling with one arm while I was holding my rifle in a cave to one of my scouts to go up and throw a grenade in the cave," Dryer said.

"I turned and saw (the sniper) looking at me down his rifle barrel. He was behind a big rock. There was no chance to move. He made an absolutely perfect shot. I think he decided I was the officer because I was doing all the signaling.

"Fortunately, his bullet hit my dog tags and locker-box keys and so when the bullet went into my chest, it turned inside and did a right angle turn and exploded out the center instead of going out the heart."

His lungs nearly destroyed, Dryer spent more than a year in military hospitals recovering from the injury, for which he was awarded the Purple Heart. During the few weeks it took a transport ship to get him to the naval hospital in Hawaii, the ship ran out of stored plasma. Healthy sailors donated blood for the wounded.

He credits donations from two sailors, one black, one Jewish, for saving his life.

"If it hadn't been for him I don't think Joe would be with us," said Dryer's brother, Tyrrell "Terry" Dryer of Rochester, N.Y., referring to the black serviceman.

One comfort Dryer had was a secret stash of alcohol, he remembered. After a Japanese bullet damaged the lock on the trunk in which it was stored, it took a bit of work to get the trunk open at the hospital in Honolulu, where he shared stories with fellow officers. But he managed.

"The problem was, how do you get rid of the empty bottles when you are in a hospital room without being discovered?" he laughed.

'Very admirable'

"The 5th Marine Division, they went ashore pretty early and he was very badly wounded over there," Terry Dryer said of his older brother. "He had a very rough time. They are still picking shrapnel out of him periodically."

"I think it was very admirable. I don't think he would have had it any other way," Terry Dryer said.

Joe Dryer, who rarely talks about his wartime experiences, says the thousands who died in the battle for Iwo Jima sacrificed their lives for the mission and each other.

"It's very hard to imagine someone in Palm Beach, West Palm Beach or Fort Lauderdale, if they saw a grenade, throwing themselves on top of it so nobody else would be hurt by it, but that was not uncommon" at Iwo Jima, he said. "It's the way people thought. It's training."

It's just what you do — for family.

Ellie