sipowicz
Member
I want to share this letter that my late Uncle Leo wrote to my dad 10 years ago about his service in WW2, for which he got 2 Bronze stars...it's a bit long but a good read....especially the part about Hot Rocks and the flag.
Dear Ben,
I'm so glad you called and pointed out the discrepancy as I sure
like to get things right.
When you asked a few questions about Iwo Jima and Okinawa I
answered off the top of my head because it's been 56 years.
Afterwards I got to-thinking about the simple fact that I had
never ever myself brought up those two particular battles and
my role in them and I began to look at some pieces of paper and
piecing together in my recollections how it began and what transpired.
So, I'll type as I run recollections and, of course, I'm
certain not all will be coherent, but here goes.
The Navy needed bodies in the Pacific as quiCkly as possible
(just as they did when Carmelo was in boot camp in Newport, RI
and they cut short his training and assigned him immediately to
the light cruiser USS ATLANTA), so I had a short boot-training
of a few weeks, qualified and was sent to Gunner's Mate School
and came out a Seaman first class with a gunner's mate striker
rating. From there I was shipped to amphibious training school
in California for training to man LCVPs. An LCVP carried around
about 4.0-or-so Marines in full battle gear. A boat crew for each
LCVP was manned by 4 personnel: a boatswain's mate who steered
and a seaman to assist, and two gunner's mates to man the port and
starboard machine-gun emplacements. (I manned one of the gun emplacements).
Boat Crews were independent units and not part of a ship's crew.
The function of an APA (Personnel Attack) ship was to transport
Marines and to carry a complement of LCVPs on its davits. My
Boat Crew (some 50~or-so men) was sent to Astoria, Oregon upon
completing our training, where we were xaken aboard the USS
LENAWEE (APA-195) which had just been christened and commiSSIoned.
We took off for the Pacific, picked up the 5th Marine Division,
trained together by hitting beaches on one of the small Hawaiian
Islands with live ammunition firing from destroyers and air planes.
Then on to the south Pacific where we came under fire in the
Philippines. We did our bit and thankfully none of us got hit.
From there, on to a secret destination, which turned out to be
the volcanic island of Iwo Jima. we arrived the night of the
18th of February 1945, and lay at anchor. When dawn broke we
saw warships and APAs and LSTs all around and the firing commenced
without ceasing (later we learned the effect was just
about nil because the Japs had brilliantly built gun emplacements
and their troop emplacements so that bombs and shells and bullets
hit dirt but not the enemy.
At a signal our LCVPs (as well as the LCVPs on other APAs) were
lowered, each with its 4-man crew. The boatswain kept the boat
as close as possible to the hull of the ship. Rope nets were
thrown over the sides of the ship and the Marines in full battle
gear clambered down the ropes and literally dropped into our
LCVPs. With the boats filled the boatswains maneuvered into a
formation and on a signal all the boats took off for the beach
at full speed. as each boat hit the sand, a seaman tripped the
lever which dropped the prow (front of the boat), which served
as a ramp and the Marines dashed ashore. We gunner's mates kept
up a continuous blanket of fire to cover them. As soon as all
the Marines were off each boat the seaman would man the control
which lifted the prow (ram'p) back up to its closed position and
each boat would race back at full speed to take on another load of Marines and this would go on and on and on. My boat was among those comprising the first wave and when we hit the beach theresurprisingly was little-to-no enemy fire. It was when we were hitting the beach for maybe the 5th or 6th time that the Japs began to pour it on. A lot of our boats were hit and could not get back off the beach and a terrible lot of Marines began to fall like dominoes. So as my boat and the other non-damaged boats would hit the beach thereafter, as soon as the troops were off we would take on dead and wounded and return them to our respective ships.
Eight days later our battle group withdrew
from Iwo and sailed for Guam where the wounded were taken
ashore. Sadly, many of the wounded died aboard ship while it
was still in Iwo waters and many more on our way to Guam. It
was the duty of boatswain's mates and gunner's mates to prepare the bodies for burial at sea, which went like this: the bosn's mate would place the body on an appropriate~size piece of canvas.
As a gunner's mate I would place a 3"-50 shell (quite heavy)
between the dead man's legs so that the body would sink when
hitting the water. The bosn's mate then worked with a special
aul to stitch the canvas around the body whichthen was placed
on a stretcher. The ship's crew which was not on duty would
gather for the burial ceremony conducted by a chaplain. Upon
his concluding remarks (fI •••• we now commend his body to the
sea."), Bosn's and gunner's mates would tilt upwards the
stretcher and the body would slide off the stretcher and that
was that.
At this point take a look at the very, very brief item in the enclosed
copy of the USS LENAWEE's newsletter. It was put out by
the ship's Chief Yeoman's Mate and his remarks relate to the
ship, which was natural, and not to the Boat Crew personnel.
What I'm about to tell you is an absolute fact Ben. Our 4-
man crew of our LCVP had just been taken back aboard the ship
after continuous hours of hitting the beach for a 1/2 hour to
use the head (toilet), eat a cold sandwich with hot coffee,
and resume operations. All four of us heard whoever it was that
shouted "Do you see that? That's the Stars and Stripes flying
atop Hot Rocks." (Hot Rocks was the nickname we gave to Mount
Suribachiwhere Marines were slaughtered trying to reach the
top.)
So, yes, Ben, I was there and looked up with the others
to see our flag flying!--one thing though, I'~ sure what we saw
was the first flag go up and not the second flag which was
one photographed (America later learned) by military photographer
Joe Rosenthal. And. too of course, being back aboard the ship
when the cry rang out that our flag was up atop Mt. Suribachi,
we could easily see the flag but given the distance there was
no way anyone could see any of the men on the mountain.
It seemed no time at all that our ship took on a fresh complement
of troops (and, as always, destinations never were revealed until
ships arrived wher~ they were commanded to be). This time we took on the Army's 27th Division and on the 9th of April we
once again repeated the landings as we did on IWo, only this
time we were hitting the beaches of Okinawa. The big difference here was that Jap airplanes were thick as flies every day during daylight, strafing and then diving into our ships (the so-called Jap Kamikazi pilots)
Many ships and boats were. hit.
Again, miraculously, our ship and our boats were strafed again and
again and bombs and torpedos allover the place, but not one of our ship's crew and not one of our Boat Crew was hit!
That's pretty much the essence of my service and experience at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, Ben. I was promoted at sea to Gunner's Mate third class and our Boat Crew was awarded two battle stars as was the crew of the LENAWEE.
As a footnote, in'Apri 1 of 1996, 51 years after the battle for
Okinaw.the Navy sent to me a sheet of paper titled "Transmittal of and/or Entitlement to Awards". I'm sure a similar sheet was sent to my shipmates. Then, in 1999, out-of-the-blue, the Philippine government transmitted to me through US Senator Santorum a certificate and medals for two awards (I sent a copyof the certificate to you at that time)! Holy cannoli! Our brother Carmelo gets hit, his ship is sunk, and later he islost at sea~ Me? I got out without so much as a scratch. I have through the many years pondered the whys and the what-ifs; I'm here, Carmelo is not. Why? and what if?
There's nothing you, Artie or I can do to change what happened, but I am determined that for myself I want my brothers to know I love you both. Of 5 we now are 3 and to let anything distract us from our common bond would be a disservice to mom and pop andto Carmelo and Johnny~ and, of course, to ourselves. I'm real glad that Johnny's grandson has suddenly developed areal interest in learning about our brother. He is learning about a hero, a real hero who died so very young!
Dear Ben,
I'm so glad you called and pointed out the discrepancy as I sure
like to get things right.
When you asked a few questions about Iwo Jima and Okinawa I
answered off the top of my head because it's been 56 years.
Afterwards I got to-thinking about the simple fact that I had
never ever myself brought up those two particular battles and
my role in them and I began to look at some pieces of paper and
piecing together in my recollections how it began and what transpired.
So, I'll type as I run recollections and, of course, I'm
certain not all will be coherent, but here goes.
The Navy needed bodies in the Pacific as quiCkly as possible
(just as they did when Carmelo was in boot camp in Newport, RI
and they cut short his training and assigned him immediately to
the light cruiser USS ATLANTA), so I had a short boot-training
of a few weeks, qualified and was sent to Gunner's Mate School
and came out a Seaman first class with a gunner's mate striker
rating. From there I was shipped to amphibious training school
in California for training to man LCVPs. An LCVP carried around
about 4.0-or-so Marines in full battle gear. A boat crew for each
LCVP was manned by 4 personnel: a boatswain's mate who steered
and a seaman to assist, and two gunner's mates to man the port and
starboard machine-gun emplacements. (I manned one of the gun emplacements).
Boat Crews were independent units and not part of a ship's crew.
The function of an APA (Personnel Attack) ship was to transport
Marines and to carry a complement of LCVPs on its davits. My
Boat Crew (some 50~or-so men) was sent to Astoria, Oregon upon
completing our training, where we were xaken aboard the USS
LENAWEE (APA-195) which had just been christened and commiSSIoned.
We took off for the Pacific, picked up the 5th Marine Division,
trained together by hitting beaches on one of the small Hawaiian
Islands with live ammunition firing from destroyers and air planes.
Then on to the south Pacific where we came under fire in the
Philippines. We did our bit and thankfully none of us got hit.
From there, on to a secret destination, which turned out to be
the volcanic island of Iwo Jima. we arrived the night of the
18th of February 1945, and lay at anchor. When dawn broke we
saw warships and APAs and LSTs all around and the firing commenced
without ceasing (later we learned the effect was just
about nil because the Japs had brilliantly built gun emplacements
and their troop emplacements so that bombs and shells and bullets
hit dirt but not the enemy.
At a signal our LCVPs (as well as the LCVPs on other APAs) were
lowered, each with its 4-man crew. The boatswain kept the boat
as close as possible to the hull of the ship. Rope nets were
thrown over the sides of the ship and the Marines in full battle
gear clambered down the ropes and literally dropped into our
LCVPs. With the boats filled the boatswains maneuvered into a
formation and on a signal all the boats took off for the beach
at full speed. as each boat hit the sand, a seaman tripped the
lever which dropped the prow (front of the boat), which served
as a ramp and the Marines dashed ashore. We gunner's mates kept
up a continuous blanket of fire to cover them. As soon as all
the Marines were off each boat the seaman would man the control
which lifted the prow (ram'p) back up to its closed position and
each boat would race back at full speed to take on another load of Marines and this would go on and on and on. My boat was among those comprising the first wave and when we hit the beach theresurprisingly was little-to-no enemy fire. It was when we were hitting the beach for maybe the 5th or 6th time that the Japs began to pour it on. A lot of our boats were hit and could not get back off the beach and a terrible lot of Marines began to fall like dominoes. So as my boat and the other non-damaged boats would hit the beach thereafter, as soon as the troops were off we would take on dead and wounded and return them to our respective ships.
Eight days later our battle group withdrew
from Iwo and sailed for Guam where the wounded were taken
ashore. Sadly, many of the wounded died aboard ship while it
was still in Iwo waters and many more on our way to Guam. It
was the duty of boatswain's mates and gunner's mates to prepare the bodies for burial at sea, which went like this: the bosn's mate would place the body on an appropriate~size piece of canvas.
As a gunner's mate I would place a 3"-50 shell (quite heavy)
between the dead man's legs so that the body would sink when
hitting the water. The bosn's mate then worked with a special
aul to stitch the canvas around the body whichthen was placed
on a stretcher. The ship's crew which was not on duty would
gather for the burial ceremony conducted by a chaplain. Upon
his concluding remarks (fI •••• we now commend his body to the
sea."), Bosn's and gunner's mates would tilt upwards the
stretcher and the body would slide off the stretcher and that
was that.
At this point take a look at the very, very brief item in the enclosed
copy of the USS LENAWEE's newsletter. It was put out by
the ship's Chief Yeoman's Mate and his remarks relate to the
ship, which was natural, and not to the Boat Crew personnel.
What I'm about to tell you is an absolute fact Ben. Our 4-
man crew of our LCVP had just been taken back aboard the ship
after continuous hours of hitting the beach for a 1/2 hour to
use the head (toilet), eat a cold sandwich with hot coffee,
and resume operations. All four of us heard whoever it was that
shouted "Do you see that? That's the Stars and Stripes flying
atop Hot Rocks." (Hot Rocks was the nickname we gave to Mount
Suribachiwhere Marines were slaughtered trying to reach the
top.)
So, yes, Ben, I was there and looked up with the others
to see our flag flying!--one thing though, I'~ sure what we saw
was the first flag go up and not the second flag which was
one photographed (America later learned) by military photographer
Joe Rosenthal. And. too of course, being back aboard the ship
when the cry rang out that our flag was up atop Mt. Suribachi,
we could easily see the flag but given the distance there was
no way anyone could see any of the men on the mountain.
It seemed no time at all that our ship took on a fresh complement
of troops (and, as always, destinations never were revealed until
ships arrived wher~ they were commanded to be). This time we took on the Army's 27th Division and on the 9th of April we
once again repeated the landings as we did on IWo, only this
time we were hitting the beaches of Okinawa. The big difference here was that Jap airplanes were thick as flies every day during daylight, strafing and then diving into our ships (the so-called Jap Kamikazi pilots)
Many ships and boats were. hit.
Again, miraculously, our ship and our boats were strafed again and
again and bombs and torpedos allover the place, but not one of our ship's crew and not one of our Boat Crew was hit!
That's pretty much the essence of my service and experience at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, Ben. I was promoted at sea to Gunner's Mate third class and our Boat Crew was awarded two battle stars as was the crew of the LENAWEE.
As a footnote, in'Apri 1 of 1996, 51 years after the battle for
Okinaw.the Navy sent to me a sheet of paper titled "Transmittal of and/or Entitlement to Awards". I'm sure a similar sheet was sent to my shipmates. Then, in 1999, out-of-the-blue, the Philippine government transmitted to me through US Senator Santorum a certificate and medals for two awards (I sent a copyof the certificate to you at that time)! Holy cannoli! Our brother Carmelo gets hit, his ship is sunk, and later he islost at sea~ Me? I got out without so much as a scratch. I have through the many years pondered the whys and the what-ifs; I'm here, Carmelo is not. Why? and what if?
There's nothing you, Artie or I can do to change what happened, but I am determined that for myself I want my brothers to know I love you both. Of 5 we now are 3 and to let anything distract us from our common bond would be a disservice to mom and pop andto Carmelo and Johnny~ and, of course, to ourselves. I'm real glad that Johnny's grandson has suddenly developed areal interest in learning about our brother. He is learning about a hero, a real hero who died so very young!
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