U.S. searches for Marine behind Iwo Jima film
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  1. #1
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    U.S. searches for Marine behind Iwo Jima film

    Team looks for body of man who filmed flag-raising on Japanese island

    TOKYO - A U.S. search team on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima is zeroing in on a cave where a Marine combat photographer who filmed the iconic flag-raising 62 years ago is believed to have been killed in battle nine days later, officials told The Associated Press on Friday.
    The seven-member search team — the first on the island in 60 years — is looking for the remains of Sgt. William H. Genaust, who was killed in action after filming the flag-raising atop Iwo Jima’s Mount Suribachi. The team is also searching for other U.S. troops killed in the battle — one of the fiercest and most symbolic of World War II.
    “This marks the first time since 1948, when the American Graves Registration Service recovered most U.S. service members killed during the campaign, that a team has been able to return to Iwo Jima to account for those who are still missing,” the Joint POW/MIA Accounting office said in a statement before the team left its base in Hawaii.


    The current search was prompted by what officials said was a valid lead from a private citizen in connection with the of Genaust.
    The island was occupied by the United States after Japan’s 1945 surrender, and returned to Japanese jurisdiction in 1968.
    Missing service members
    “The team is finding caves that have been cleaned out, and some that have collapsed,” JPAC spokesman Lt. Col. Mark Brown told the AP.
    Brown said the team is looking for as many American remains as it can find, including those of Genaust.
    He said 88,000 U.S. service members are missing from World War II, including about 250 from the Iwo Jima campaign.
    Brown said the search is a preliminary one, and that if a high probability of recovering remains is determined, a full recovery team will be sent in.
    “Our motto is ‘until they are home,”’ Brown said. “‘No man left behind’ is a promise made to every individual who raises his hand.”
    Genaust, a combat photographer with the 28th Marines, used a movie camera to film the raising of the flag atop Iwo Jima’s Mount Suribachi on Feb. 23, 1945. He stood just feet away from AP photographer Joe Rosenthal, whose photograph of the moment won a Pulitzer Prize and came to symbolize the Pacific War and the struggle of the U.S. forces to capture the tiny island, a turning point in the war with Japan.
    Genaust didn’t live to see the end of the battle.
    Johnnie Webb, a civilian official with JPAC, said Genaust died nine days later when he was hit by machine-gun fire as he was assisting fellow Marines secure a cave.
    Highest percentage of casualties
    Iwo Jima was officially taken on March 26, 1945, after 31-day battle that pitted some 100,000 U.S. troops against 21,200 Japanese. All told, 6,821 Americans were killed and nearly 22,000 injured — the highest percentage of casualties in any Pacific battle.
    Only 1,033 Japanese survived.
    Many of the missing Marines were lost at sea, meaning the chances of recovering their remains are slim. But many also were killed in caves or buried by explosions, and Brown said they are optimistic that the current search for Genaust and other servicemen will prove useful.
    “We are looking at several caves,” he said. “‘We are looking for a number of service members, including Genaust. We have maps dating back to World War II and even GPS locations. So far, everything seems to be where it should be.”
    Accounts of Genaust’s death vary, but he was believed to have been killed in or near a cave on “Hill 362A.”
    On March 4, 1945, Marines were securing the cave, and are believed to have asked Genaust to use his movie camera light to illuminate their way. He volunteered to shine the light in the cave himself, and when he did he was killed by enemy fire. The cave was secured after a gunfight, and its entrance sealed.
    Genaust was 38 when he died.
    “We decided that the only way to determine if his remains were there was to work on the ground,” Webb said. “We believe his remains may be in there, along with the remains of the Japanese.”
    From Iwo Jima to Iwo To
    Separately, Japan on Monday returned to using the prewar name for Iwo Jima at the urging of its original inhabitants, who want to reclaim an identity they say has been hijacked by high-profile movies like Clint Eastwood’s “Letters from Iwo Jima.”
    The new name, Iwo To, was adopted by the Japanese Geographical Survey Institute in consultation with Japan’s coast guard.
    Brown said the mission “has been under study for quite some time.”
    Webb added the command received information from a “private citizen” regarding the remains of Genaust, and that the information was deemed valuable and helped prompt the current search. He did not provide any further details about what that information was.
    “We try to check up on every valid lead,” Brown said.
    Sending a team to Iwo Jima requires close coordination with the Japanese government and support from the Japanese military, which maintains a base on the otherwise uninhabited island.
    “Logistically it is a big challenge,” he said.


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    Marine Free Member LCPLE3's Avatar
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    Simple motto drives search for MIAs Officials won't give up 'until they are home'




    IWO JIMA, Japan - Maj. Sean Stinchon stands at the base of Hill 362A and scans a map drawn by Navy Seabees in 1948 that is deeply creased and covered in reddish brown dirt. The map shows a labyrinth of caves and tunnels that runs through the brush-covered hill like the cross-section of an ant colony.

    Save for the buzzing of mosquitoes, all is quiet. Stinchon can see all the way to the pristine black-sand beach and the Pacific. It's a breathtaking scene.
    Over the past two years, Stinchon, of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command at Hickam Air Force Base on Hawaii, has traveled through Europe and Asia looking for the remains of America's fallen troops. More than 78,000 are still missing from World War II alone. Another 8,100 are MIA from the Korean conflict, and 1,750 from Vietnam.

    In 1945, Hill 362A was a kill zone.
    The 21,200 Japanese defenders, deeply dug in with weapons and supplies, faced a desperate situation: 100,000 Americans who were storming Japanese soil for the first time. They watched a huge flotilla of U.S. Navy ships surround their island. Then came the bombings and heavy artillery fire.
    Then the Marines.

    Within days, an American flag was flying atop the highest point on the tiny, pork-chop shaped island - Mount Suribachi, a sulfur-belching volcano on Iwo Jima's southern tip. But it took 31 days before the U.S., on March 26, 1945, declared the island secure. Some 6,821 Americans were killed; only 1,033 Japanese survived. For the U.S., it was the fiercest battle of the war - none had generated a higher percentage of casualties.
    It was a turning point.

    On Feb. 23, 1945, AP photographer Joe Rosenthal hiked up to the top of Suribachi and shot the flag-raising - the second one that day. His photo, which won him the Pulitzer Prize, helped rally the weary nation behind the final push to defeat Japan, and continues to serve as the single most important icon of the valor of the U.S. Marine Corps.

    Sgt. William H. Genaust, a Marine combat photographer, was also there. After escorting the unarmed Rosenthal up the volcano, he stood next to Rosenthal and filmed the moment with a movie camera.

    But he didn't live to see the impact of his own footage.
    Nine days later, Genaust was on Hill 362A helping his unit secure a cave. They needed a flashlight to see inside, and Genaust volunteered to use his. But as he entered the cave, he was riddled with machine-gun fire and died on the spot. The entrance to the cave was sealed - possibly by a bulldozer.
    Genaust's body, with those of 280 U.S. ground troops who fought on Iwo Jima, was never found.

    Stinchon was on Hill 362A to change that.
    In a 10-day expedition, Stinchon and his seven-member team - the first U.S.-led search on Iwo Jima in nearly 60 years - were looking for what wasn't on his map: caves and tunnels that were closed and sealed, then missed when U.S. searchers combed the island for American dead.
    One promising spot appeared to be a small crack, just big enough for a dog to get into, behind rocky debris.

    To the experts, there was one big giveaway - heat.
    "You can kind of tell when you are coming up to a cave or a cave entrance because you can feel the heat coming out and you can smell the sulfur fumes," Stinchon said.

    He said the team couldn't get into either to do an extensive investigation for fear of a cave-in, but he said members will take the information they found back to headquarters and recommend that a follow-up team be sent in with heavy equipment to excavate.

    "We'll continue to search," he said. "At this time, we have a good start."
    Back in Hawaii, JPAC officials say they will analyze the results of the investigation and decide whether a further search, and possibly a full recovery team, is warranted.

    Following the motto "Until They are Home," JPAC, which was created in 2003, identifies about six MIAs each month - some 1,300 so far. The command, which also runs permanent branches in Thailand, Vietnam and Laos, has at any given time about 1,000 active cases.

    "It's such an incredible mission," said Lt. Col. Mark Brown, the JPAC spokesman. "There's a lot of families who have been waiting a long time."
    Stinchon's team was fairly typical. Once a promising area is pinpointed, a preliminary investigation is conducted by a team that generally includes linguists, medics, forensic anthropologists and ordnance specialists.

    Though it boasts the world's largest forensic anthropology laboratory, JPAC's staff of about 425 people is stretched to the limit and often relies on outside tips - from family members, friends or amateur historians.

    Brown said JPAC is particularly interested in obtaining "family reference samples," mitochondrial DNA from the relatives of MIAs. Typically the samples are obtained by swabbing the inside of the cheek, and can be vital in cracking an otherwise impossible identification.



  3. #3
    If the Japanese honor our giving them back Iwo Jima by renaming it Iwo To, I shall forever call Tokyo "Toky To". They are not the only ones who can revise history. Let's see how they react to our unilateral referral to their capital city as "Toky To" while we continue to say "Iwo Jima"!


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