American Valor Quarterly Issue 2 - Spring 2008 | Page 13

My personal experience there happened on the morning of
February 19, 1945. We landed in the first wave, and immediately
we started climbing these sand terraces you might have seen in
the pictures. And when I looked back at the beach, I could see
one solitary Marine standing up. This was Marine Gunnery Sergeant
John Basilone, the Medal of Honor recipient at Guadalcanal. He
could see that the invasion had sort of ground to a halt, so he
was motivating everybody by cuss words and kicks to the seats
of the pants to get them underway. Well, my position was about
three or four terraces up. I was a machine gunner, and when
Basilone came to my position, he pointed out a target, and by
looking down his arm I could see a giant Japanese pillbox, and
he indicated I should start firing on it.

them down, shooting his machine gun from the hip, and they all
fell dead. Later on, I figured that it was probably a mercy killing,
because those men were already dead.

At that point, he handed me back my machine gun, and gave us
the signal to follow him. And 18 or 19 of us followed Basilone
from the beach across the lowlands through an area of scrub
brush until we hit the Number One airstrip. We had hoped to
catch the airstrip that day, but we were out there by 10:00 that
morning. And now we were receiving fire from Mt. Suribachi,
from the mortars on the other side of the airstrip, and worst of
all we were receiving fire from the United States Navy. We were
too far advanced, and they were putting the rolling barrage over
us. I thought we should have gotten out of there, really. But Basilone
When I pulled the trigger, the gun wouldn’t fire; it had been stopped that, and said, “You’re staying here come hell or high
fouled by the black sands of Iwo Jima. So at that point my water! I’m going back to get more Marines, and we’re going to
assistant gunner had to take a toothbrush out of my pack to fight our way across this island!”
clean the breach and blow the sand out of it. He stuck the belt
back in, and I could see the tracers hitting close to the pillbox. And he left us there, and he went back to the beach. Now, I
And Basilone didn’t like that, so he indicated I should move couldn’t tell you in real time how long he was gone. Because
obliquely to my right to fire at it, which we did. But then they when you’re in combat, there’s no recognition of time. And pretty
closed the steel doors, which left the bullets merely bouncing off soon, we looked over where we had come from, and Basilone
of it. Basilone then found a demolition man, who handled the was leading a group of Marines across the same way we had
explosives. As I was firing at the pillbox, he walked up the line of come from toward the airstrip. And all of a sudden, you could
fire, and about ten feet from it, he tossed the composition of hear the shrill sound of incoming mortar rounds. And you could
C2—about ten pounds of it—and it blew the doors off. Basilone see the mortar hit right amidst Basilone and the C Company
indicated that I should commence firing into the aperture.
Marines. Nobody moved. America, at that moment, lost its
number one hero, Gunnery Sergeant John Basilone on the shores
At this time, he found a flamethrower man, and the flamethrower of Iwo Jima. It wasn’t 10:30 in the morning, and this caused a
man walked up the line of fire and when he was almost there, shockwave throughout the troops because if John Basilone could
Basilone whacked me on the helmet to tell me to quit firing. He get killed, we all wondered what was going to happen to the rest
inched the last few feet, and shot three bursts of napalm into the of us. We lost our hero, his wife lost her husband, his mother,
Japanese pillbox. You know, that turned it into a giant inferno father and brother lost their son and brother, and America lost its
right there—it looked like the beginning of hell. Basilone then number one hero. John Basilone had already received the Medal
reached down and unhooked the machine gun from the pin hook, of Honor at Guadalcanal for the elimination of a Japanese
and he grabbed it and put his arm through the belt, and he regiment. And he later received the Navy Cross for his exploits
screamed at me to get the belt. So I got the belt, and he ran up on Iwo Jima in knocking out the Japanese pillbox. Thus, he became
the front of this pillbox, looking over the back where they had the only Marine enlisted man in World War II to receive the Navy
entered, and out the back of it came seven or eight Japanese Cross and the Medal of Honor.
defenders on fire—napalm all over them. And Basilone mowed
That was the first hour and a half on Iwo Jima, and the rest of it
only got more intense.

U.S. Marines land on Iwo Jima, as Mt. Suribachi looms in the background - February 19, 1945.

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