thedrifter
10-19-06, 04:19 PM
Eastwood film resonates with local vet
Thursday, October 19, 2006
By Bob Shryock
bshryock@sjnewsco.com
When five Marines and a Navy corpsman raised the U.S. flag in volcanic Iwo Jima soil over Mt. Suribachi in late February 1945, Marine infantryman Nazarine "Nippy" DeMarco stood less than three miles from the event that produced the historic World War II photograph.
"We were in the middle of an airfield when the flag went up, but you probably could hear the roar back in Gibbstown," says DeMarco.
Nippy, an institution in Gibbstown - where he drove a school bus for 51 years - plans a trip to the movies Friday. "Flags of Our Fathers," Clint Eastwood's film about the Iwo Jima invasion and the story behind the flag-raising photo shot by Joe Rosenthal of The Associated Press, opens.
Locally, the film will be shown at the AMC 8 in Deptford and the United Artists Washington Township 14.
The movie will bring back painful memories.
Nippy, just 19, saw his first and last combat on blood-soaked Iwo Jima and has a Purple Heart to show for it. Wounded after the flag-raising, he was one of just six in his company of 42 who made it home.
Nippy survived the mind-altering horror of the 5th Marine beach landing on Iwo Jima and came within days of making it through the invasion unscathed. He'd endured "the stench of death," watched Japanese soldiers jump to their deaths from cliffs, and agonized over seeing piles of dead Marines. "But you didn't see dead Japanese. They'd drag them back."
One day Nippy heard the piercing wail of a wounded Marine he did not know and decided to go after him in a field without regard for his own safety.
"I grabbed a grenade, ran to him, was ready to pick him up ... and got shot. I was hit on the right leg, above the knee. The bullet shattered the bone, exploded like a dum-dum ball, and made a big hole. I had two operations and skin graft, but my leg was saved by maggots and leeches."
Battlefield medics carried a stretcher to DeMarco. But another bullet tore through one of his rescuers and Nippy was hit again, this time grazing his shoulder and shredding part of his uniform.
Nippy, who never learned what happened to the Marine he was trying to save or the medic who was trying to save him, was removed to the beach, put on a hospital troop ship, and began a long, sad and traumatic trip home, his war career ended.
Contacted by his mother, Mary, through the Red Cross, Nippy learned that his 17-year-old brother, George, had been killed in a hunting accident back home. The family would wait until he returned to Gibbstown before holding the funeral.
The Red Cross found Nippy a ride east on a seven-passenger, two-engine airplane. But while flying over the Rocky Mountains, one of the engines died.
"Here I am, wounded, going home to my brother's funeral, and they want me to parachute out of the plane, which I'd never done. We landed safely. But that's how I got gray hair."
Iwo Jima, strategically important to both the U.S. and Japan as an air base, was one of the costliest battles of the war with 22,000 Japanese either killed or captured and U.S. causalities listed at 21,000, including 4,500 dead.
"I'm proud of having served my country and don't mind talking about it," Nippy says. "People should know about what happened there. We had purpose to fight in World War II. We'd been invaded (Pearl Harbor)."
"I've known him for a long time and have great respect for Nippy, like a lot of people in Gibbstown," says his friend, Fred Reel. "He's always had a strong desire to overcome his injury. He has a lot of pride. Nippy wasn't going to bow down. Not with his fierce determination."
Born and raised in Gibbstown, Nippy was one of four children of Emidio DeMarco, who worked at DuPont but died when he was 31, and Mary.
His nickname?
When he was 7 or 8, brother George hit him in the eye with the tip of a pillow, his eye watered, "and the name 'Nippy' stuck."
Nippy played football for future Steelers coach Larry Kirschling at Paulsboro High School but was better known as a strong lefthanded-hitting first baseman who "tattooed" the bleachers at PHS. The Yankees were interested, but his Iwo Jima wounds negated that, a disappointment that lingers today.
He wasn't interested in joining the Army or Navy, instead leaving high school early to become a Marine. After nine weeks of basic training at Parris Island, the five-day train trip to Camp Pendleton, Calif. "was the longest ride of my life."
Life after World War II wasn't always easy for Nippy, but he made the most of it.
Turned down for a powder plant job at DuPont, because of his war injury, he considered school "but had no one to tell me what to do." He worked as a shoemaker under the GI Bill for two years, but after turning a mere $7 profit one week gave it up. He tried a lumber yard and sewer plant and was a police dispatcher. But Nippy is best remembered for the many years he handled maintenance and was bus driver in the Gibbstown school district, touching the lives of many in a very positive way.
He played sandlot ball despite the leg he almost lost and played trombone in the St. Michael's Band. He was able to get on with his life.
And he's never cursed his luck. After all, Nippy came home.
Ellie
Thursday, October 19, 2006
By Bob Shryock
bshryock@sjnewsco.com
When five Marines and a Navy corpsman raised the U.S. flag in volcanic Iwo Jima soil over Mt. Suribachi in late February 1945, Marine infantryman Nazarine "Nippy" DeMarco stood less than three miles from the event that produced the historic World War II photograph.
"We were in the middle of an airfield when the flag went up, but you probably could hear the roar back in Gibbstown," says DeMarco.
Nippy, an institution in Gibbstown - where he drove a school bus for 51 years - plans a trip to the movies Friday. "Flags of Our Fathers," Clint Eastwood's film about the Iwo Jima invasion and the story behind the flag-raising photo shot by Joe Rosenthal of The Associated Press, opens.
Locally, the film will be shown at the AMC 8 in Deptford and the United Artists Washington Township 14.
The movie will bring back painful memories.
Nippy, just 19, saw his first and last combat on blood-soaked Iwo Jima and has a Purple Heart to show for it. Wounded after the flag-raising, he was one of just six in his company of 42 who made it home.
Nippy survived the mind-altering horror of the 5th Marine beach landing on Iwo Jima and came within days of making it through the invasion unscathed. He'd endured "the stench of death," watched Japanese soldiers jump to their deaths from cliffs, and agonized over seeing piles of dead Marines. "But you didn't see dead Japanese. They'd drag them back."
One day Nippy heard the piercing wail of a wounded Marine he did not know and decided to go after him in a field without regard for his own safety.
"I grabbed a grenade, ran to him, was ready to pick him up ... and got shot. I was hit on the right leg, above the knee. The bullet shattered the bone, exploded like a dum-dum ball, and made a big hole. I had two operations and skin graft, but my leg was saved by maggots and leeches."
Battlefield medics carried a stretcher to DeMarco. But another bullet tore through one of his rescuers and Nippy was hit again, this time grazing his shoulder and shredding part of his uniform.
Nippy, who never learned what happened to the Marine he was trying to save or the medic who was trying to save him, was removed to the beach, put on a hospital troop ship, and began a long, sad and traumatic trip home, his war career ended.
Contacted by his mother, Mary, through the Red Cross, Nippy learned that his 17-year-old brother, George, had been killed in a hunting accident back home. The family would wait until he returned to Gibbstown before holding the funeral.
The Red Cross found Nippy a ride east on a seven-passenger, two-engine airplane. But while flying over the Rocky Mountains, one of the engines died.
"Here I am, wounded, going home to my brother's funeral, and they want me to parachute out of the plane, which I'd never done. We landed safely. But that's how I got gray hair."
Iwo Jima, strategically important to both the U.S. and Japan as an air base, was one of the costliest battles of the war with 22,000 Japanese either killed or captured and U.S. causalities listed at 21,000, including 4,500 dead.
"I'm proud of having served my country and don't mind talking about it," Nippy says. "People should know about what happened there. We had purpose to fight in World War II. We'd been invaded (Pearl Harbor)."
"I've known him for a long time and have great respect for Nippy, like a lot of people in Gibbstown," says his friend, Fred Reel. "He's always had a strong desire to overcome his injury. He has a lot of pride. Nippy wasn't going to bow down. Not with his fierce determination."
Born and raised in Gibbstown, Nippy was one of four children of Emidio DeMarco, who worked at DuPont but died when he was 31, and Mary.
His nickname?
When he was 7 or 8, brother George hit him in the eye with the tip of a pillow, his eye watered, "and the name 'Nippy' stuck."
Nippy played football for future Steelers coach Larry Kirschling at Paulsboro High School but was better known as a strong lefthanded-hitting first baseman who "tattooed" the bleachers at PHS. The Yankees were interested, but his Iwo Jima wounds negated that, a disappointment that lingers today.
He wasn't interested in joining the Army or Navy, instead leaving high school early to become a Marine. After nine weeks of basic training at Parris Island, the five-day train trip to Camp Pendleton, Calif. "was the longest ride of my life."
Life after World War II wasn't always easy for Nippy, but he made the most of it.
Turned down for a powder plant job at DuPont, because of his war injury, he considered school "but had no one to tell me what to do." He worked as a shoemaker under the GI Bill for two years, but after turning a mere $7 profit one week gave it up. He tried a lumber yard and sewer plant and was a police dispatcher. But Nippy is best remembered for the many years he handled maintenance and was bus driver in the Gibbstown school district, touching the lives of many in a very positive way.
He played sandlot ball despite the leg he almost lost and played trombone in the St. Michael's Band. He was able to get on with his life.
And he's never cursed his luck. After all, Nippy came home.
Ellie