thedrifter
08-31-06, 07:22 AM
History may melt away
Parris Island sculpture, reflecting Iwo Jima, is in need of new home
Published Thursday August 31 2006
By LORI YOUNT
The Beaufort Gazette
Although photojournalist Joe Rosenthal died last week, the iconic image he captured in February 1945 of five Marines and one Navy corpsman raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima will live on forever, especially in the heart of the Marine Corps.
However, the plaster statue on Parris Island molded in the likeness of that image probably won't last for an eternity. In fact, it's a wonder the 1 1/2 times larger than life statue is still standing just off the parade deck at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island after more than 50 years of the South Carolina humidity and slowly melting away in the summer rain, said David Woodward, architect in the engineering office of the base.
"It was never meant as an outdoor statue," he said. "It was a temporary statue at best."
The statue, along with a twin, were constructed shortly after the Rosenthal photo in 1945 by Felix de Weldon, who was in the Navy during World War II and sculpted the image soon after he saw it. He eventually enlarged the sculpture to mammoth size for the bronze cast Marine Corps War Memorial that now stands in Arlington, Va.
Before the idea of the war memorial was even conceived, the plaster Parris Island statue and its twin were loaded up in trucks in 1945 and toured the nation with patriotic speakers as fundraisers for war bonds and "to whip people up to support the war," Parris Island Museum Director Stephen Wise said. The bond tour raised $24 billion, the most of the seven tours during the war.
After the war, de Weldon donated both statues -- one to the recruit depot and the other to Quantico, Va.
"He did it for no other reason than he wanted a home for it," said Woodward, who had extensive conversations with de Weldon in the early 1990s when Woodward was completing assessments of the statue. "He didn't understand the severity of the weather here" and thought a simple coat of protective material would shield the relatively delicate plaster from the outdoors.
The one in Quantico was eventually replaced with a limestone model, and the plaster one put into storage under a tarp at de Weldon's Washington studio, where it decomposed and eventually was thrown away, Woodward said.
On Sept. 5, 1952, with almost 8,000 people in attendance, including all recruits in training, the statue was unveiled and dedicated at Parris Island at its current spot near the parade deck, according to news reports at the time.
In the beginning, life at Parris Island was a little rough with an inter-base rivalry between the recruit depot and Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort. Woodward said legend has it Marines from the air station used a car to pull over the statue and damaged it a few years after it arrived.
"It's like the equivalent of a college prank gone bad," he said, adding it's said the Marines involved were severely punished for disrespecting the Corps' iconic image.
Since then, hundreds of thousands of Marine recruits have marched past it and received their Eagle, Globe and Anchor, or Marine Corps emblem, near it. And even more family members have taken their photos with their new Marines in front of the smaller Iwo Jima Memorial statue.
"That's the reference who's gone before them," Woodward said. "It's part of what they're doing as Marines. It's part of the rite of passage -- to see it and understand it."
That's why Woodward, a civilian who's worked on the base for 18 years, said he hopes to save it. Over the decades, the statue has been covered with an array of paint colors and protective sealant in the cracks that inevitably form each year. An Epoxy paint material gives it's current bronzish tone.
"One of the biggest things is a lot of people who've even grown up with it don't know it's not a real bronze statue," Woodward said.
The plan is to eventually make a mold of the plaster statue and cast a bronze statue from it, Woodward said. The bronze statue, which he estimates at $1 million to create, would replace the plaster one near the parade deck, and he said they'd find a climate-controlled home for the original plaster one.
However, with a war under way, for the Marine Corps, "it's not a high priority to go around saving artwork," Woodward said. "But it is an important icon, but maybe best in the arena of someone else's money," adding it's probably a project for private funding.
http://beaufortgazette.com/ips_rich_content/20060820_LFS_d_h_iwo_jima2_tif-large.jpg
Megan Lovett/Gazette
Faces of the five Marines and one Navy corpsman, which were originally obscured in the famous photo of the military servicemen who were raising an American flag during World War II on Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima, were recreated by sculptor Felix de Weldon. De Weldon's statue at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island is one of two plaster casts made by de Weldon shortly after photojournalist Joe Rosenthal shot the photo in 1945. It was donated to the depot after it traveled the country during a War Bonds Tour.
http://beaufortgazette.com/ips_rich_content/20060820_lbond_tif-large.jpg
Photo courtesy of Parris Island Museum
New York City Mayor Fiorello Henry LaGuardia watches in May 1945, three of the six men who were photographed in Joe Rosenthal's iconic World War II Iwo Jima photo, Pfc. Rene A. Gagnon, Pfc. Ira H. Hayes and Pharmacist's Mate 2nd Class John H. Bradley, raise an American flag over a 55-foot-high replica in Times Square kicking off the War Bond Tour. The replica is one of two created by Felix de Weldon, a sailor, who donated one to Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island and another to Quantico, Va.
Parris Island sculpture, reflecting Iwo Jima, is in need of new home
Published Thursday August 31 2006
By LORI YOUNT
The Beaufort Gazette
Although photojournalist Joe Rosenthal died last week, the iconic image he captured in February 1945 of five Marines and one Navy corpsman raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima will live on forever, especially in the heart of the Marine Corps.
However, the plaster statue on Parris Island molded in the likeness of that image probably won't last for an eternity. In fact, it's a wonder the 1 1/2 times larger than life statue is still standing just off the parade deck at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island after more than 50 years of the South Carolina humidity and slowly melting away in the summer rain, said David Woodward, architect in the engineering office of the base.
"It was never meant as an outdoor statue," he said. "It was a temporary statue at best."
The statue, along with a twin, were constructed shortly after the Rosenthal photo in 1945 by Felix de Weldon, who was in the Navy during World War II and sculpted the image soon after he saw it. He eventually enlarged the sculpture to mammoth size for the bronze cast Marine Corps War Memorial that now stands in Arlington, Va.
Before the idea of the war memorial was even conceived, the plaster Parris Island statue and its twin were loaded up in trucks in 1945 and toured the nation with patriotic speakers as fundraisers for war bonds and "to whip people up to support the war," Parris Island Museum Director Stephen Wise said. The bond tour raised $24 billion, the most of the seven tours during the war.
After the war, de Weldon donated both statues -- one to the recruit depot and the other to Quantico, Va.
"He did it for no other reason than he wanted a home for it," said Woodward, who had extensive conversations with de Weldon in the early 1990s when Woodward was completing assessments of the statue. "He didn't understand the severity of the weather here" and thought a simple coat of protective material would shield the relatively delicate plaster from the outdoors.
The one in Quantico was eventually replaced with a limestone model, and the plaster one put into storage under a tarp at de Weldon's Washington studio, where it decomposed and eventually was thrown away, Woodward said.
On Sept. 5, 1952, with almost 8,000 people in attendance, including all recruits in training, the statue was unveiled and dedicated at Parris Island at its current spot near the parade deck, according to news reports at the time.
In the beginning, life at Parris Island was a little rough with an inter-base rivalry between the recruit depot and Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort. Woodward said legend has it Marines from the air station used a car to pull over the statue and damaged it a few years after it arrived.
"It's like the equivalent of a college prank gone bad," he said, adding it's said the Marines involved were severely punished for disrespecting the Corps' iconic image.
Since then, hundreds of thousands of Marine recruits have marched past it and received their Eagle, Globe and Anchor, or Marine Corps emblem, near it. And even more family members have taken their photos with their new Marines in front of the smaller Iwo Jima Memorial statue.
"That's the reference who's gone before them," Woodward said. "It's part of what they're doing as Marines. It's part of the rite of passage -- to see it and understand it."
That's why Woodward, a civilian who's worked on the base for 18 years, said he hopes to save it. Over the decades, the statue has been covered with an array of paint colors and protective sealant in the cracks that inevitably form each year. An Epoxy paint material gives it's current bronzish tone.
"One of the biggest things is a lot of people who've even grown up with it don't know it's not a real bronze statue," Woodward said.
The plan is to eventually make a mold of the plaster statue and cast a bronze statue from it, Woodward said. The bronze statue, which he estimates at $1 million to create, would replace the plaster one near the parade deck, and he said they'd find a climate-controlled home for the original plaster one.
However, with a war under way, for the Marine Corps, "it's not a high priority to go around saving artwork," Woodward said. "But it is an important icon, but maybe best in the arena of someone else's money," adding it's probably a project for private funding.
http://beaufortgazette.com/ips_rich_content/20060820_LFS_d_h_iwo_jima2_tif-large.jpg
Megan Lovett/Gazette
Faces of the five Marines and one Navy corpsman, which were originally obscured in the famous photo of the military servicemen who were raising an American flag during World War II on Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima, were recreated by sculptor Felix de Weldon. De Weldon's statue at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island is one of two plaster casts made by de Weldon shortly after photojournalist Joe Rosenthal shot the photo in 1945. It was donated to the depot after it traveled the country during a War Bonds Tour.
http://beaufortgazette.com/ips_rich_content/20060820_lbond_tif-large.jpg
Photo courtesy of Parris Island Museum
New York City Mayor Fiorello Henry LaGuardia watches in May 1945, three of the six men who were photographed in Joe Rosenthal's iconic World War II Iwo Jima photo, Pfc. Rene A. Gagnon, Pfc. Ira H. Hayes and Pharmacist's Mate 2nd Class John H. Bradley, raise an American flag over a 55-foot-high replica in Times Square kicking off the War Bond Tour. The replica is one of two created by Felix de Weldon, a sailor, who donated one to Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island and another to Quantico, Va.