This is information about the Earl and Lorene McClease family the family of my Wife Sherry. This paper was written by Alba Cunningham, Sherry's sister. it is published here with no editing.
Earl Albert McClease, my Father, was born October 20, 1903 at Schell City, Missouri. He was the third child of Pat & Chloe McClease. There were eight siblings in his family. His Father, Pat, was a construction laborer, along with being a farmer and other jobs. He was gone from home a lot, going where the work was, leaving Chloe and the children to fend for themselves. I never heard my Dad say anything bad about him and his wandering ways, but did get a few hints from my Aunts that my Granddad was sort of a gad-about and made life hard for the Family at home. I did hear Dad say that he and his older brother George, often hunted for rabbit or possum, and even squirrel, so the family would have meat to eat. I thought he was kidding me for a long time, but realized it was the truth.
My Dad was very much a Family person. He felt a lot of responsibility toward all of them. I feel sure that it was because of the way he was raised by his Mom, as he called her. She depended on the older children to assist her with the chores, and to help put meat on the table, and with the Family income.
Earl attended school on and off for eight years, and told me he went to the eighth grade three times. I am not certain, but I think it was because the high school was in another town, and he was needed at home and could not afford to go live away at that time. His outstanding class was math. He could figure out nearly any problem and arrive at the correct answer, even college Algebra. Sherry, my older sister, must have inherited some of that math ability, and I wish I had. Not sure about Darrell, our brother, but he was able to figure blueprints and bid jobs, so must have been pretty good at it, too.
Dad always talked a lot about his Grandma McClease, and seemed to think she was very special. He spent time with her, and she was a big influence in his life. Chloe's Mother had died when she was a girl, and she had lived with her Aunt Rose, so Ear; was not around her family much.
When Earl was fifteen, he and Velma (his older sister) and her husband Wilbur, and a girl cousin, all drove out to Oregon together to find work and adventure. He worked several different jobs, one was as a cook in a logging camp. Another job was on a big ranch. His cousin remained in Oregon, marrying a local man. Forty years later, Dad & Mom visited them. Dad sent most of his money home to his Mom, so when he decided to go home, he had just barely enough money for the trip and food; But did manage to buy a white silk shirt for himself. Velma & Wilbur had returned to Missouri previously, as she was pregnant and ill. He rode the train, and in a town somewhere in Kansas, while there was a lay over between trains, he ran into his Father. They visited awhile, and before they parted, Pat asked if he had any money, and took most of Dad's cash, leaving him little to eat on. Dad returned home, as George was also out West somewhere, and he was needed at home.
When Dad grew to a young man, his family moved to Springfield, MO. He got acquainted with some young men who were plasterers, and he learned the plastering trade. It was hard, heavy work, but Earl was good at it, and he became expert on the finish work. He became lifetime friends with Guy Jeffery. They worked and roomed together throughout Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, and anyplace else they found work and adventure.
Dad was working in Oklahoma in 1927, and his Family was now living near Halltown, Missouri. It was there that he met Lorene Samuels. His two sisters, Ruby and Emogene, were attending high school and he went there to see them on one of his trips home, and Lorene spied him. Earl was 24 and Lorene was just 16 years old, but she knew the first time she saw him that he was the man for her, and she told her friend just that. They met, naturally, and when Earl came home for visits, they dated. Lorene's parents were strict with her, and understandably so, as he was eight years older and much more worldly. Her Mother was particularly uncertain of him, but her Father, Am, liked him immediately. After a fairly short courtship, they were married on December 24, 1927. They drove to Springfield, with her Dad and Guy & Eula Jeffery as witnesses, and married by a Justice of the Peace. They then returned to stay with her folks for the remainder of the Christmas Holiday, before moving to Oklahoma, where he had a job plastering.
They shared an apartment with Guy & Eula, and this suited Lorene fine, as she did not know the first thing about cooking, and Eula was a wonderful cook. They had some grand times, along with some lean and stormy ones, but survived in fine shape. Mom told of when they returned to Missouri for the first visit in three months, she talked and sang all the way home, and by the time they reached her folk's home, she had lost her voice, and could not talk at all.
During the courtship of Earl and Lorene, the McClease family had moved to a farm southwest of Hollister, Missouri. The farm belonged to Rose Bender, Chloe's Aunt. She made an agreement with them that if they would live and farm the place, and provide her with a home and care for the remainder of her life, the farm would be theirs. The farm was about five rocky, rough miles from Hollister, with barely trails to drive on, but it was their home from that time on. It was located in a small valley, with a creek running through it, and nice fields for cutting hay and raising crops, along with orchards and garden spots. I believe there were 200 acres or about in the farm. It was the end of Pat's wandering days, and Grandma Chloe loved the place. It was her first real permanent home since her early childhood.
Earl & Lorene lived in several places for the next year or so, and then the Depression and Darrell came along. Darrell was born in September 1931, at the YMCA Camp in Hollister, MO. Most of the family lived close, except for Okla, who had married Andy Shelton, and lived away, and Velma & Wilbur. I recall my Folks talking about when they lived with the McClease's during the Depression. Of course, the construction business had come to a halt, and Earl drove a truck to make a living. I asked my Mom about living with the whole family, and she loved it. The men would get out and do the chores, cut the wood for the heat and cooking, and the women would do the laundry together, cook plenty of food, but with all the garden food, fruit from the orchard, pork from the hogs butchered, the food was plentiful. They pooled their money for the things they could not grow, such as tobacco, coffee and sugar, etc. Gas and sugar was rationed, but they made do. They would play cards and games in the evenings and did not feel they were bad off at all.
When business started back up, Earl resumed plastering, and Lorene & Darrell went along to where ever he had to go to find work. Sherry was born in Miami, Oklahoma, March 19, 1937. Lorene developed yellow jaundice and was very sick for a long time. Earl moved her to Halltown, to be close to her family and they could help her with the children, and he would come home when he could to see them; Thus started the era of working away from home and just seeing the family occasionally.
Sometime during 1940, Earl and his family moved to California to work. When they returned home, Earl and George had a pottery business, located at George & Agnes' home, near the McClease home. Alba Lynn was born at George's home on August 1, 1941. The two families were living together at the time, until Earl completed the house he was building close to the two farms. Agnes had given birth to a son a few weeks earlier, and he was gravely ill. Mom always felt guilty about me being so healthy and loud, with the baby Larry, being so frail and sick. He died shortly after. They remained in the pottery business for several years, until George became sick and died suddenly with cancer of the brain. I don't know how much longer the business kept on, but Earl then went back into the plastering business.
Earl started working for D.C. Snead, a Plastering Contractor out of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Soon he was named foreman and ran many jobs for Mr. Snead. In the early 50's, they became business partners, along with another man from Tulsa, OK, who ran the office. They did big buildings, such as hospitals, and the large oil buildings located in Tulsa, involving a year or more to complete.
Earl & Lorene borrowed money against their home at Hollister to be able to buy into the Plastering Corporation. Lorene was against it, but it soon was paid back and the money became good. Earl always liked to drive new automobiles, and bought two new ones soon after. An Oldsmobile and a Buick. He also renovated the four-room house into a three bedroom one, with large, airy rooms. The kitchen was very large, with windows all across the front, and he never wanted curtains on that window. He spent most of his time at home sitting in the kitchen, visiting with Lorene while she prepared meals, or playing cards with all of the family. Most weekends, we had company, either to play cards or for Sunday dinner. Dad never broke ties with his family, and our home was always a busy, fun place to be for his siblings and their families.
When Dad had jobs away from home, which they all were, he would drive home on Friday nights, and leave again on Sunday afternoons. He rented a small apartment or room, sometimes with my cousin, Pat McClease, George's son, who often worked for Earl as a plasterer. We had a barn and Lorene and Darrell milked cows, along with Earl, but they sold off the milk cows about the time I was 6 or 8, as it was quite a hassle for Darrell & Mom to milk, with Darrell going to school and being on the basketball team. I never learned to milk a cow, and don't regret that at all. We still had chickens, pigs, and some stock cows, and Darrell had a horse he named Fanny.
We never had a telephone the entire time we lived at Hollister, but if there was an emergency, people contacted Bob & Emogene Hulland and they would drive out and deliver the message. Mom did not drive much when I was small, but when Darrell turned 16 and got a car, she began to drive some, knowing that when Darrell was gone from home, she had to be able to get around.
During the summer months, after school was out, we often went with Dad and stayed until time to go back to school. We stayed in a trailer court in Vinita, Okla the year I turned 10, and that was the summer I will always think back to as a favorite one. I had other kids to play with, and I learned to ride a bicycle. I never owned one, as we lived on a curvy, hilly road, and Dad thought it was too dangerous, and he was probably right, but I always wanted one. I also had my first and only real birthday party that year. One summer, we lived at Benton, AR, another at Muskogee, OK, etc. We lived in Springfield, MO for a short part of my fourth grade, Sherry and I attended St. Agnes Catholic School, and we walked. We lived in an apartment house, on Elm Street. The rooms were very large, but it was a dimly lit, cold building, and I never felt at ease there. Lorene was sick then, and had a complete hysterectomy right after school was over, at Skaggs Hospital, Branson, MO. I was not allowed to see her for 10 days, as they did not allow children under 12 on the floor she was on, and back then, they kept patients much longer than they do now.
Dad taught Darrell the plastering trade, and he worked for a year or more after he graduated from Hollister School in 1949, then he joined the Air Force, as the Korean War broke out, and he chose to enlist rather than be drafted. He was stationed in West Texas during boot camp, and I remember we made several trips to see him, and Lavern Quick went with us, as Darrell and she had been dating since he was in high school. Darrell & Lavern were married in May, 1952, and lived at Albuquerque, NM, until he was sent overseas to Korea, and she was pregnant with their first child, Darra. Lavern spent a lot of time at our home before and after the baby was delivered, to all our joy.
My Granddad McClease died in 1953, of stomach cancer. He had surgery, but never did any good afterwards. I remember he was in bed most of the time, and I was too shy to go around him much. Dad was home at the time he died, and Mom was right there with him when he till the end. I missed him a lot, but I am sure it was devastating for Earl. He had to be gone so much, and now felt responsible for his Mom and Aunt Rose, too.
When I was about 5 years old, which would have been 1946; Dad started taking us three kids to the Catholic Church in Branson, MO. At first, Lorene refused to go, but after a time, began going with us. She was not comfortable about going to a Catholic Church, as she had always heard bad things about them. The Priest was Father Farrell, and he spent a lot of time at our house, giving us instructions and teaching us about the Catholic religion. We were all five baptized at the Lady of the Lake Church at the same time. Eventually, most of the McClease’s joined the Catholic Church too, but Velma didn't. When Earl died 45 years later, Father Farrell assisted at his Funeral Mass. He had long since retired from actively being a parish priest, but was always available for the McClease Family.
Earl was always a avid hunter and fisherman. He loved to fly fish on Long Creek, a few miles from home at Hollister, MO, until the Table Rock Dam covered it with lake water, and hunted deer in the Ozark hills, usually coming home with one or two, whatever the law allowed for that season. Darrell loved to hunt too, and usually was successful in bagging a deer. Earl and Lorene started going to Colorado during the deer and elk seasons, and went several years in a row, always coming home with wild game. He hunted squirrels, rabbits, and quail, and loved to hunt duck. Our meals were often venison, elk, squirrel, and quail. I never thought any more about sitting down to the wild meat than I did beef or pork. Earl bought a jeep and pulled it behind him to Colorado, often through snowy passes and steep drop-offs. They rented a cabin that was warmed with wood heat, and cooked on a wood stove, and enjoyed it all. Mom usually went out in the jeep with Earl, but never did carry a gun. They both talked about those trips often, and bad health was the only thing that prevented them from going later on.
When Clarence & Ruby Gentry opened up the White Elephant Motel and dance floor, Dad & Mom would go up there often. There was not any liquor allowed on the premises, but I am sure that they managed to drink, but they took me with them, and I was amazed to see my parents dance together. They danced together easily, and both loved it. Dad was a smooth dancer with great rhythm, and he taught me how to dance like him. He never seemed put out to dance with me, in fact, he seemed to be proud to dance with his daughters, as Sherry learned to dance from him, too. We all loved to see him do the' Charleston', as his long legs seemed to be rubbery.
Comment
Tracy a granddaughter
Tracy
Here are a few things I remember about Granddad Earl: the playful look in his eyes and that easy laugh; counting how many times he would sneeze in a row; he taught me how to shuffle cards and play solitaire; his homegrown cherry tomatoes; the pool table and him letting us just use our hands to roll the ball; peanut brittle; bird dogs; the duck decoys in the pool room; trout lines and the cabin; and he always seemed so happy with the ashtray I would buy him every year for Christmas with my baby sitting money - Grandma always got a punch bowl set. I loved being at their house and I loved them even more.
Tracy Pingel, Owner
Medic Transcription Services
6618 Lake Charlene Drive
Pensacola, FL 32506
Phone - 850-291-7508
Fax - 850-308-1061
tracypingel@cox.net
Monday, September 22, 2008
Friday, September 19, 2008
A tribute to Uncle Clarence Fisher by Max Youngblood
My brother Max wrote the following in memory of Clarence Fisher our uncle who married our father’s sister Aunt Loradean. We all loved and miss him very much; and I think you will enjoy reading this tribute. This article is presented without editing just as Max wrote it.
Have you ever thought about how remarkable the human hand is? One of my favorite past times is, observing people and watching the story they tell with their hands. Our hand is God’s most important tool he has given us in order to survive here on earth and carry out the assignment he expects from each and every one of us until he calls us to his heavenly home. We as individuals have our favorites and I would like to tell you my story of the man with the magic hands.
As a young child growing up in the Ozarks, I enjoyed going out and spending time with my Uncle Clarence. He was always working on some sort of project and didn’t have much time for idol chatter from a kid, but he always took time for me. I felt like I was his favorite.
This particular day he was sitting on a stool, painting a sign for some customer in the area. You see it was very painful for him to stand because of an old leg injury he had got years prior. But he never complained, only interested in finishing the current task at hand. His every hand movement was magic and something to see. Every stroke, every line was the work of an artist. No movement ever wasted. I was astonished that he never erased anything and at times, I would say to myself, that line surely was a mistake, but you know it never was.
He truly was a man of God and a good family man. He loved his wife and kids and talked about them often. I moved out of the Ozarks when I got older but never failed to visit him and My Aunt Loradean when I came home for a visit. I could set for hours and listen to the funny stories he would tell. The woodcarvings were his pride and joy. The Last Supper, The Wooden Duck, an Indian Warrior that he carved from an old tree standing at the back of his property with a chain saw, and the praying hands with the small finger bent from arthritis was his favorite. I think that this carving was a replica of his own hands that were also bent from years of hard work and arthritis. On March 9th God looked down on his old sick body and decided right then and they’re his mission had been completed and he needed him to come home. Uncle Clarence left us for his final journey to a new home that he had been working for all his life. I will not weep for him because that would be very selfish of me to want him back with all of the pain he was in, here on earth. The clouds in many surrounding areas where he lived have already done that. Uncle Clarence, Thank You for being such an important part of my life. You were always there when I needed you and you also taught me character and self respect. This is the only time in my life that you have failed to make me smile. I will look for your shining star in the universe. It will be easy to identify because of its brightness and perfection. I’ll never forget your magic hands and will love you forever.
Max Youngblood
Nephew
Have you ever thought about how remarkable the human hand is? One of my favorite past times is, observing people and watching the story they tell with their hands. Our hand is God’s most important tool he has given us in order to survive here on earth and carry out the assignment he expects from each and every one of us until he calls us to his heavenly home. We as individuals have our favorites and I would like to tell you my story of the man with the magic hands.
As a young child growing up in the Ozarks, I enjoyed going out and spending time with my Uncle Clarence. He was always working on some sort of project and didn’t have much time for idol chatter from a kid, but he always took time for me. I felt like I was his favorite.
This particular day he was sitting on a stool, painting a sign for some customer in the area. You see it was very painful for him to stand because of an old leg injury he had got years prior. But he never complained, only interested in finishing the current task at hand. His every hand movement was magic and something to see. Every stroke, every line was the work of an artist. No movement ever wasted. I was astonished that he never erased anything and at times, I would say to myself, that line surely was a mistake, but you know it never was.
He truly was a man of God and a good family man. He loved his wife and kids and talked about them often. I moved out of the Ozarks when I got older but never failed to visit him and My Aunt Loradean when I came home for a visit. I could set for hours and listen to the funny stories he would tell. The woodcarvings were his pride and joy. The Last Supper, The Wooden Duck, an Indian Warrior that he carved from an old tree standing at the back of his property with a chain saw, and the praying hands with the small finger bent from arthritis was his favorite. I think that this carving was a replica of his own hands that were also bent from years of hard work and arthritis. On March 9th God looked down on his old sick body and decided right then and they’re his mission had been completed and he needed him to come home. Uncle Clarence left us for his final journey to a new home that he had been working for all his life. I will not weep for him because that would be very selfish of me to want him back with all of the pain he was in, here on earth. The clouds in many surrounding areas where he lived have already done that. Uncle Clarence, Thank You for being such an important part of my life. You were always there when I needed you and you also taught me character and self respect. This is the only time in my life that you have failed to make me smile. I will look for your shining star in the universe. It will be easy to identify because of its brightness and perfection. I’ll never forget your magic hands and will love you forever.
Max Youngblood
Nephew
Saturday, September 6, 2008
This paper resulted after an interview with Keith Lawson a World War II Veteran
History 335
Oral History
Final Term paper
Professor: Dr. J. Hirsch
By Hoby Youngblood
An Eyewitness To History
Introduction:
My understanding of history changed after exposure to a college class aptly named Oral History. Previously, my thoughts of history have been American History, European History, Ancient History, or some aspects of wars or events that have occurred in the past. The authors have been unnamed and unimportant for the most part, just someone who had written the text book/s used in class. The change occurred with an interview with Keith Lawson, a long-time friend, conducted on October 9, 2006; the interview lasted for 45 minutes. In a class period, following the interview, my classmates analyzed the result and, clearly, let me know I was not thorough enough. On October 23, 2006, a second interview with Keith lasted an hour and thirty minutes together. The questions, more in-depth than those of the first interview, revealed information that caused me to see Keith as history, not as in “he’s history,” a term we sometimes use of someone who isn’t around anymore. I shudder to think, though Keith is only 84 years old, what a wealth of information that could have been lost had he died before the interviews.
This paper is the result of Keith’s answer to one of the questions I asked:
“Hoby: “Any memorable experiences you can think of?”
Keith: “Particularly Iwo Jima. We carried 500 Marines in, no tanks just troops, and we only brought back 50. Being on a landing ship, we laid close to the shore all the time. We could see the battle going on. We could see the cannons come out of the caves.”
As the information began to unfold, Keith turned out to be an eyewitness to at least a portion of the battle for control of Iwo Jima.
Some Historical Information
Iwo Jima is a small island, shaped much like a pork chop, located within a chain of islands known as Nanpo Shoto. This chain is composed of three island groups, the Izu Shoto, the Ogasawara Gunto, and the Kazan Retto (Volcano Islands), the later of which Iwo Jima is a part. The word Iwo means sulfur. The entire island is only four and three forth miles long and a width that varies from two & one half miles and narrowing to less than one half mile wide. The entire area is seven and one half square miles. Surf conditions at Iwo, even in normal weather, are difficult for all classes of landing crafts. The steep beaches cause the waves to come close inshore before breaking, so that most of the force expended, is in a downward motion that adversely affect the bows of incoming or beached small boats. Also the on winds greatly increase the severity of the surf, often making unloading on the windward side of the island precarious. Natural cover on Iwo Jima is sparse. In the sterile soil, coarse grasses, gnarled bushes, and trees struggle to survive.
In 1823, an American captain, Reuben Coffin of Nantucket, landed the whaler “transit” at Haha Jima and claimed the island for the United States. Several years later, a British consul asserted his nation’s sovereignty over the area and sent a group of colonists from Hawaii to Chichi Jima. Among the Portuguese, Italian and the English, there was one American, Nathaniel Savory of Massachusetts, who sold a beach to Admiral Perry in 1853 for use as a coaling station. Perry was unable to persuade Washington of the value of the property. Soon the United States’ influence waned at every place except on Chichi Jima. Nathaniel Savory’s descendants, well into the 1910s, celebrated Washington’s Birthday and July 4 by flying the American flag.
The Nanpo Shoto stretch like a string of pacific pearls from the Marianas to Tokyo. In 1887, the mayor of Tokyo made a stop at Iwo Jima aboard the SS Meiji and incorporated Iwo into the prefecture of the capital. When WW II broke out, Iwo Jima became very significant; as a part of the Japanese homeland.
“There Will Be No Changes; I Have Complete Confidence In You.”
With the American Navy in shambles the result of the attack on Pearl Harbor the President picked the fifty six year old soft-spoken Texan William Nimitz to bring order out of chaos. Just eighteen days earlier, those with the responsibility of protecting the United States, watched in angry frustration and bewilderment, at their powerlessness to strike back, as the Japanese attack created the catastrophic devastation. The Commander-in-Chief was sure that Admiral Nimitz was the right pick to rebuild the American fleet and use it to turn the tide of the war in the Pacific. Naval brass were expecting heads to roll and careers to be shattered---wherever blame might lay. They didn’t expect the Nimitz bombshell. “There will be no changes; I have complete confidence in you.”
Admiral Nimitz’s task was to be monumental. The ships in the Japanese fleet outnumbered the American fleet by more than two to one in aircraft carriers and battleships. When the Pearl Harbor attack occurred, only two United States aircraft carriers were at sea and escaped damage. The number of other vessels between Japan and the U.S. were not as pronounced in the number of submarines, destroyers, cruisers, troop transports and other support crafts. But it would be a long time before the United States could produce the ships, planes, guns, ammunitions, and the other things necessary to fuel an offensive fighting machine.
Leading Up To the Battle
Now, sure of victory, which had not been the case on the bleak Christmas day in 1941 when President Roosevelt had picked him to take over the beleaguered, decimated command of the American fleet, Admiral Chester William Nimitz, a Rural Texas country native, assembled his admirals and generals to make final plans for the invasion of Iwo Jima. With the invasion of the Marshall Islands early in February 1944, followed by a crippling strikes against Truk in the same month, it became clear to Japanese Imperial headquarters that the Maranas-Carolines area was threatened. (Truk was the base for Japanese operations against Allied forces in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.)
Operation Hailstone, executed by the United States in 1944, culminated in one of the most important naval battles of the war at Truk. Twelve Japanese warships, thirty-two merchant ships, and two hundred forty nine aircraft destroyed, although the larger ships that had received advance warning and were already at sea.
The build up of Iwo Jima had begun years earlier in 1940-41. Until 1940, the census counted 1,091 permanent residents on the island, mostly farmers and workers in the refinery that sent sulfur to the home island. March and April of 1944 saw the Japanese began, in earnest, a build up of military forces on Iwo Jima. By 1945, twenty-one thousand troops were entrenched in an underground network of defensive installations. There were more than 750 gun emplacements, scores of blockhouses with five-foot thick concrete walls, 13,000 yards of tunnels beneath Mount Suribachi, a complete hospital and, 1,000 pillboxes were in place on the island.
. Japan built barracks to house a naval detachment of 93 men placed on the island. The civilian population removed; an airstrip constructed along the narrow saddle of land that joins Mount Suribachi to the broader plateau at the north. After the war, signboards were found in the blasted landscape of Iwo Jima written in Japanese and English that prohibited the taking of pictures and making of maps. These signs, dating from 1937, suggest that military preparations were already underway four years before Pearl Harbor.
The Allies used Guam, Saipan, and Tinian to launch attacks on Japan proper. Japanese fighter aircraft based on Iwo Jima hindered their flight pattern. The fighters would scramble and intercept the B-29 bombers flying out of the Marianas, on their way to mainland Japan.
“Without Iwo Jima,” General Curtis Le May told the chief of the American task force bearing down on the island in January 1945, I can’t bomb Japan effectively.”
When the orders came to take the island, the question was how? It would be taken in hand-to-hand combat, by determined and courageous men prepared to pay for “eight square miles of hell” with their lives.
“Victory was never in doubt. Its cost was . . . What was in doubt, in all our minds, was whether there would be any of us left to dedicate our cemetery at the end, or whether the last Marine would die knocking out the last Japanese gun and gunner…?” ---Major General Graves B. Erskine at the dedication of the Third Marine Division Cemetery at Iwo Jima, March 14, 1945
The Battle
After dropping 5,800 tons of explosives and 2,700 missions, aerial photographs indicated there was no appreciable effect on the Japanese entrenchment. General Holland Smith requested a ten-day period for a naval bombardment and got only three. Twenty one thousand nine hundred twenty six shells were rained down on the island, which resulted in approximately 22 percent of the enemy’s defenses effected (a fact established after the war).
“To his day, among military historians and veterans, the navy’s role in the Iwo Jima campaign remains one of the most controversial aspects of the Pacific war.”
As things stood in February 1945, the fourth and fifth marine division would land “in full knowledge that most of Iwo Jima’s defenses were intact” and lethal.
“The first night on Iwo Jima can only be described as a nightmare in hell. Iwo is the most difficult amphibious operation in U.S. History” said war correspondent, Robert Sherrod in a radio dispatch to Time March 1945”
“It wasn’t beautiful; it wasn’t worth 50 cents at a sheriff’s sale,” said one marine.
As the attack started, reports began coming in of light-to-no resistance. There was no surprised for the Japanese general Kuribayashi by what was happening; he had planned it that way. The key to his battle plan was ambush. The shrewd samurai bided his time for nearly an hour. He let the troops land with little or no opposition. The U.S. naval ships ceased their island shelling in order to avoid hitting their own troops. Kuribayashi allowed the beach to fill up with troops and equipment. Then he let loose with hell on earth. This stopped any reinforcements from coming ashore, allowing those already there to bleed to death.
General Kuribayashi triggered the trap shortly after ten o’ clock. Machine-gun fire came from guns hardly visible above ground level, mortars fell from hundreds of hidden pits, heavy artillery and rapid firing antiaircraft guns with barrels lowered slammed shells into incoming landing crafts, and land mines, sown in the ground like crops, began to take their murderous toll. Every square yard of beach was under attack. Sixty thousand two hundred men were pinned down, unable to advance or retreat. As landing crafts began backing off, many hit in the water. Within five minutes, seven landing crafts demolished and sank with trucks, tanks, and ammunitions still on board.
However General Kuribayashi made a fatal mistake; he waited too long to spring his ambush. He had given the six thousand well-trained, disciplined, proud, brave, and determined Marines an hour before launching his attack. They were in place and had taken charge of a piece of real estate, small, yes! However, it was a beachhead. With the bulldozers and tanks that had survived, they pushed through the sand terraces and the trained, large guns on the Sherman tanks began returning fire.
For thirty-six days in early 1945, almost seventy five thousand United States Marines stayed locked in an epic struggle with twenty two thousand Japanese troops defending to the last man a seemingly impregnable flyspeck Pacific island called Iwo Jima.
In the 1,364 days from the Pearl Harbor attack until the surrender of Japan, three hundred fifty three men received the Congressional Medal of Honor, the highest decoration for valor “above and beyond the call of duty.” Twenty-seven medals were from actions at Iwo Jima; thirteen awarded posthumously. In the 36 days of the twenty five eight hundred fifty one troops on the ground, six thousand eight hundred twenty one were killed, died from their wounds or were missing in action. Of the twenty plus thousand Japanese, only one thousand eight three were taken prisoner and survived. The extremely bitter and protracted assault on Iwo Jima imposed a tremendous burden on supporting medical units. From the first bloody days, when doctors and corpsmen clung grimly to fire swept beaches, to the end of the battle, a stream of wounded men passed along the chain of evacuation to receive excellent medical attention in spite of the difficult military and supply situation. Hospital LST’s lying 2,000 yards offshore played an important part during the first nine days, receiving casualties from the beaches and distributing them to APA’s and hospital ships for further treatment. In response to my question about the battles, he was in Keith answers as following.
Hoby: What was the difference when you were in friendly waters or when there was a threat of battle?
Keith: I remember one time at night, right after dark, of course, there is no light at night, everything is out except on the inside, and they started dropping flares and this was when I was on this 3 inch 50m gun. They told us to fire in the direction above the flares, why I don’t know, but the gun lets off a big flash too, and of course that kind of gave away our spot. The next thing you knew you heard an airplane. Right below us was a 20 mm gun with two men on it. It sounded like its engines were cut and so the guys on the 20 mm opened fire in the direction of the sound, we could watch the tracers. We watched the tracers hit the port engine of this bomber, if they hadn’t hit the plane, which swerved when hit. I wouldn’t be here today for it was headed right toward the ship itself. It would have hit us on the stern. Of course, others started opening fire and when it came by the ship, it was the same level as the gun I was on. We could see the two guys sitting in the cockpit of the Japanese plane.
Conclusion
Iwo Jima in American hands meant that 24,751 Army air corps crewmen would be saved from the disabled aircraft ditching in the icy waters of the North Pacific, with an almost certain loss of the most of them. By war’s end, 2,251 emergency landings on the island by B-29 Super fortress bombers not only saved lives and prevented many who otherwise would become prisoners of war. Thus, Iwo Jima gave the Untied States a forward airbase at the front door of the Japanese homeland, a bastion that cleared the way and made feasible the dropping of atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to win the war. Although supposition on my part, perhaps as President Truman saw the tenacity of the Japanese fighting for their home land, if this battle didn’t have an effect on his decision to drop the atomic bomb?
Bibliography
Bartlely, Whitman S. Lt. Col. USMC, Iwo Jima: Amphibious Epic Historical Branch G-3
Division Headquarters U. S. Marine Corps 1954. (Reprinted Nashville the Battery Press, 1997).
Lawson, Keith, interview by Hobert Youngblood October 9, 2006, interview #1, a veteran from WW II for Oral History 335, transcript of a digital recording.
Lawson, Keith, interview by Hobert Youngblood October 23, 2006, interview #2, a veteran from WW II for Oral History 335, transcript of a digital recording.
Marling, Karal Ann and John Wetenhall, Iwo Jima: Monuments, Memories, and the American
Hero. (Massachusetts, Harvard University press Cambridge. 1991).
Ross, Bill D., Iwo Jima: Legacy of Valor, (New York, Vintage Book Division of Random house,
1986).
Oral History
Final Term paper
Professor: Dr. J. Hirsch
By Hoby Youngblood
An Eyewitness To History
Introduction:
My understanding of history changed after exposure to a college class aptly named Oral History. Previously, my thoughts of history have been American History, European History, Ancient History, or some aspects of wars or events that have occurred in the past. The authors have been unnamed and unimportant for the most part, just someone who had written the text book/s used in class. The change occurred with an interview with Keith Lawson, a long-time friend, conducted on October 9, 2006; the interview lasted for 45 minutes. In a class period, following the interview, my classmates analyzed the result and, clearly, let me know I was not thorough enough. On October 23, 2006, a second interview with Keith lasted an hour and thirty minutes together. The questions, more in-depth than those of the first interview, revealed information that caused me to see Keith as history, not as in “he’s history,” a term we sometimes use of someone who isn’t around anymore. I shudder to think, though Keith is only 84 years old, what a wealth of information that could have been lost had he died before the interviews.
This paper is the result of Keith’s answer to one of the questions I asked:
“Hoby: “Any memorable experiences you can think of?”
Keith: “Particularly Iwo Jima. We carried 500 Marines in, no tanks just troops, and we only brought back 50. Being on a landing ship, we laid close to the shore all the time. We could see the battle going on. We could see the cannons come out of the caves.”
As the information began to unfold, Keith turned out to be an eyewitness to at least a portion of the battle for control of Iwo Jima.
Some Historical Information
Iwo Jima is a small island, shaped much like a pork chop, located within a chain of islands known as Nanpo Shoto. This chain is composed of three island groups, the Izu Shoto, the Ogasawara Gunto, and the Kazan Retto (Volcano Islands), the later of which Iwo Jima is a part. The word Iwo means sulfur. The entire island is only four and three forth miles long and a width that varies from two & one half miles and narrowing to less than one half mile wide. The entire area is seven and one half square miles. Surf conditions at Iwo, even in normal weather, are difficult for all classes of landing crafts. The steep beaches cause the waves to come close inshore before breaking, so that most of the force expended, is in a downward motion that adversely affect the bows of incoming or beached small boats. Also the on winds greatly increase the severity of the surf, often making unloading on the windward side of the island precarious. Natural cover on Iwo Jima is sparse. In the sterile soil, coarse grasses, gnarled bushes, and trees struggle to survive.
In 1823, an American captain, Reuben Coffin of Nantucket, landed the whaler “transit” at Haha Jima and claimed the island for the United States. Several years later, a British consul asserted his nation’s sovereignty over the area and sent a group of colonists from Hawaii to Chichi Jima. Among the Portuguese, Italian and the English, there was one American, Nathaniel Savory of Massachusetts, who sold a beach to Admiral Perry in 1853 for use as a coaling station. Perry was unable to persuade Washington of the value of the property. Soon the United States’ influence waned at every place except on Chichi Jima. Nathaniel Savory’s descendants, well into the 1910s, celebrated Washington’s Birthday and July 4 by flying the American flag.
The Nanpo Shoto stretch like a string of pacific pearls from the Marianas to Tokyo. In 1887, the mayor of Tokyo made a stop at Iwo Jima aboard the SS Meiji and incorporated Iwo into the prefecture of the capital. When WW II broke out, Iwo Jima became very significant; as a part of the Japanese homeland.
“There Will Be No Changes; I Have Complete Confidence In You.”
With the American Navy in shambles the result of the attack on Pearl Harbor the President picked the fifty six year old soft-spoken Texan William Nimitz to bring order out of chaos. Just eighteen days earlier, those with the responsibility of protecting the United States, watched in angry frustration and bewilderment, at their powerlessness to strike back, as the Japanese attack created the catastrophic devastation. The Commander-in-Chief was sure that Admiral Nimitz was the right pick to rebuild the American fleet and use it to turn the tide of the war in the Pacific. Naval brass were expecting heads to roll and careers to be shattered---wherever blame might lay. They didn’t expect the Nimitz bombshell. “There will be no changes; I have complete confidence in you.”
Admiral Nimitz’s task was to be monumental. The ships in the Japanese fleet outnumbered the American fleet by more than two to one in aircraft carriers and battleships. When the Pearl Harbor attack occurred, only two United States aircraft carriers were at sea and escaped damage. The number of other vessels between Japan and the U.S. were not as pronounced in the number of submarines, destroyers, cruisers, troop transports and other support crafts. But it would be a long time before the United States could produce the ships, planes, guns, ammunitions, and the other things necessary to fuel an offensive fighting machine.
Leading Up To the Battle
Now, sure of victory, which had not been the case on the bleak Christmas day in 1941 when President Roosevelt had picked him to take over the beleaguered, decimated command of the American fleet, Admiral Chester William Nimitz, a Rural Texas country native, assembled his admirals and generals to make final plans for the invasion of Iwo Jima. With the invasion of the Marshall Islands early in February 1944, followed by a crippling strikes against Truk in the same month, it became clear to Japanese Imperial headquarters that the Maranas-Carolines area was threatened. (Truk was the base for Japanese operations against Allied forces in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.)
Operation Hailstone, executed by the United States in 1944, culminated in one of the most important naval battles of the war at Truk. Twelve Japanese warships, thirty-two merchant ships, and two hundred forty nine aircraft destroyed, although the larger ships that had received advance warning and were already at sea.
The build up of Iwo Jima had begun years earlier in 1940-41. Until 1940, the census counted 1,091 permanent residents on the island, mostly farmers and workers in the refinery that sent sulfur to the home island. March and April of 1944 saw the Japanese began, in earnest, a build up of military forces on Iwo Jima. By 1945, twenty-one thousand troops were entrenched in an underground network of defensive installations. There were more than 750 gun emplacements, scores of blockhouses with five-foot thick concrete walls, 13,000 yards of tunnels beneath Mount Suribachi, a complete hospital and, 1,000 pillboxes were in place on the island.
. Japan built barracks to house a naval detachment of 93 men placed on the island. The civilian population removed; an airstrip constructed along the narrow saddle of land that joins Mount Suribachi to the broader plateau at the north. After the war, signboards were found in the blasted landscape of Iwo Jima written in Japanese and English that prohibited the taking of pictures and making of maps. These signs, dating from 1937, suggest that military preparations were already underway four years before Pearl Harbor.
The Allies used Guam, Saipan, and Tinian to launch attacks on Japan proper. Japanese fighter aircraft based on Iwo Jima hindered their flight pattern. The fighters would scramble and intercept the B-29 bombers flying out of the Marianas, on their way to mainland Japan.
“Without Iwo Jima,” General Curtis Le May told the chief of the American task force bearing down on the island in January 1945, I can’t bomb Japan effectively.”
When the orders came to take the island, the question was how? It would be taken in hand-to-hand combat, by determined and courageous men prepared to pay for “eight square miles of hell” with their lives.
“Victory was never in doubt. Its cost was . . . What was in doubt, in all our minds, was whether there would be any of us left to dedicate our cemetery at the end, or whether the last Marine would die knocking out the last Japanese gun and gunner…?” ---Major General Graves B. Erskine at the dedication of the Third Marine Division Cemetery at Iwo Jima, March 14, 1945
The Battle
After dropping 5,800 tons of explosives and 2,700 missions, aerial photographs indicated there was no appreciable effect on the Japanese entrenchment. General Holland Smith requested a ten-day period for a naval bombardment and got only three. Twenty one thousand nine hundred twenty six shells were rained down on the island, which resulted in approximately 22 percent of the enemy’s defenses effected (a fact established after the war).
“To his day, among military historians and veterans, the navy’s role in the Iwo Jima campaign remains one of the most controversial aspects of the Pacific war.”
As things stood in February 1945, the fourth and fifth marine division would land “in full knowledge that most of Iwo Jima’s defenses were intact” and lethal.
“The first night on Iwo Jima can only be described as a nightmare in hell. Iwo is the most difficult amphibious operation in U.S. History” said war correspondent, Robert Sherrod in a radio dispatch to Time March 1945”
“It wasn’t beautiful; it wasn’t worth 50 cents at a sheriff’s sale,” said one marine.
As the attack started, reports began coming in of light-to-no resistance. There was no surprised for the Japanese general Kuribayashi by what was happening; he had planned it that way. The key to his battle plan was ambush. The shrewd samurai bided his time for nearly an hour. He let the troops land with little or no opposition. The U.S. naval ships ceased their island shelling in order to avoid hitting their own troops. Kuribayashi allowed the beach to fill up with troops and equipment. Then he let loose with hell on earth. This stopped any reinforcements from coming ashore, allowing those already there to bleed to death.
General Kuribayashi triggered the trap shortly after ten o’ clock. Machine-gun fire came from guns hardly visible above ground level, mortars fell from hundreds of hidden pits, heavy artillery and rapid firing antiaircraft guns with barrels lowered slammed shells into incoming landing crafts, and land mines, sown in the ground like crops, began to take their murderous toll. Every square yard of beach was under attack. Sixty thousand two hundred men were pinned down, unable to advance or retreat. As landing crafts began backing off, many hit in the water. Within five minutes, seven landing crafts demolished and sank with trucks, tanks, and ammunitions still on board.
However General Kuribayashi made a fatal mistake; he waited too long to spring his ambush. He had given the six thousand well-trained, disciplined, proud, brave, and determined Marines an hour before launching his attack. They were in place and had taken charge of a piece of real estate, small, yes! However, it was a beachhead. With the bulldozers and tanks that had survived, they pushed through the sand terraces and the trained, large guns on the Sherman tanks began returning fire.
For thirty-six days in early 1945, almost seventy five thousand United States Marines stayed locked in an epic struggle with twenty two thousand Japanese troops defending to the last man a seemingly impregnable flyspeck Pacific island called Iwo Jima.
In the 1,364 days from the Pearl Harbor attack until the surrender of Japan, three hundred fifty three men received the Congressional Medal of Honor, the highest decoration for valor “above and beyond the call of duty.” Twenty-seven medals were from actions at Iwo Jima; thirteen awarded posthumously. In the 36 days of the twenty five eight hundred fifty one troops on the ground, six thousand eight hundred twenty one were killed, died from their wounds or were missing in action. Of the twenty plus thousand Japanese, only one thousand eight three were taken prisoner and survived. The extremely bitter and protracted assault on Iwo Jima imposed a tremendous burden on supporting medical units. From the first bloody days, when doctors and corpsmen clung grimly to fire swept beaches, to the end of the battle, a stream of wounded men passed along the chain of evacuation to receive excellent medical attention in spite of the difficult military and supply situation. Hospital LST’s lying 2,000 yards offshore played an important part during the first nine days, receiving casualties from the beaches and distributing them to APA’s and hospital ships for further treatment. In response to my question about the battles, he was in Keith answers as following.
Hoby: What was the difference when you were in friendly waters or when there was a threat of battle?
Keith: I remember one time at night, right after dark, of course, there is no light at night, everything is out except on the inside, and they started dropping flares and this was when I was on this 3 inch 50m gun. They told us to fire in the direction above the flares, why I don’t know, but the gun lets off a big flash too, and of course that kind of gave away our spot. The next thing you knew you heard an airplane. Right below us was a 20 mm gun with two men on it. It sounded like its engines were cut and so the guys on the 20 mm opened fire in the direction of the sound, we could watch the tracers. We watched the tracers hit the port engine of this bomber, if they hadn’t hit the plane, which swerved when hit. I wouldn’t be here today for it was headed right toward the ship itself. It would have hit us on the stern. Of course, others started opening fire and when it came by the ship, it was the same level as the gun I was on. We could see the two guys sitting in the cockpit of the Japanese plane.
Conclusion
Iwo Jima in American hands meant that 24,751 Army air corps crewmen would be saved from the disabled aircraft ditching in the icy waters of the North Pacific, with an almost certain loss of the most of them. By war’s end, 2,251 emergency landings on the island by B-29 Super fortress bombers not only saved lives and prevented many who otherwise would become prisoners of war. Thus, Iwo Jima gave the Untied States a forward airbase at the front door of the Japanese homeland, a bastion that cleared the way and made feasible the dropping of atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to win the war. Although supposition on my part, perhaps as President Truman saw the tenacity of the Japanese fighting for their home land, if this battle didn’t have an effect on his decision to drop the atomic bomb?
Bibliography
Bartlely, Whitman S. Lt. Col. USMC, Iwo Jima: Amphibious Epic Historical Branch G-3
Division Headquarters U. S. Marine Corps 1954. (Reprinted Nashville the Battery Press, 1997).
Lawson, Keith, interview by Hobert Youngblood October 9, 2006, interview #1, a veteran from WW II for Oral History 335, transcript of a digital recording.
Lawson, Keith, interview by Hobert Youngblood October 23, 2006, interview #2, a veteran from WW II for Oral History 335, transcript of a digital recording.
Marling, Karal Ann and John Wetenhall, Iwo Jima: Monuments, Memories, and the American
Hero. (Massachusetts, Harvard University press Cambridge. 1991).
Ross, Bill D., Iwo Jima: Legacy of Valor, (New York, Vintage Book Division of Random house,
1986).
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