Fall/Winter 2017
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Fall/Winter 2017 SpearheadOFFICIAL PUBLICATION of the 5TH MARINE DIVISION NEWS“Uncommon Valor was a Common Virtue” ASSOCIATION 69TH ANNUAL REUNION - CHAMPAIGN-URBANA, IL OCTOBER 16-21, 2018 HYATT PLACE CHAMPAIGN/URBANA FMDA Secretary Elliott to host 2018 reunion By Ray Elliott Ben and an older cousin, My initial connection with Bruce Elliott, who landed the Fifth Marine Division on Omaha Beach with the was with a family friend 741st Tank Battalion, were and local barber, Oral the two I was around most “Ben” Correll, who served and looked up to from my with A-1-28 on Iwo Jima first memory of them. Ben and was wounded on 22 grew up just a few miles to February 1945 on the east the east of our home, and side of the island after the Bruce went to work for company had cut across my father after the war. the narrow corridor under In a two-man barber- Mount Suribachi. I’ve shop, I’d sit patiently, written about Ben in past counting who was next, issues and always recall and if my turn came him telling me that he with the other barber, I’d rolled back on the gurney quietly say, “I’m waiting as he was being hoisted up 2018 Reunion hosts Ray Elliott and Vanessa Faurie for Ben.” By the time I the side of the hospital ship was about 10 years old, I’d and saw “Old Glory” flying on Suribachi and told me decided I was going to the Marine Corps when I got old with watery eyes that he’d “never see anything again so enough and jumped up in Ben’s chair one day and told beautiful.” him I wanted a “boot camp” haircut. He laughed and Remembering little while the war was still raging asked if my dad knew about that. I said, “Oh, yeah.” but then growing up in the shadow of it during my My father never said anything until we got just youth and formative years with veterans all around north of town on the way home and looked over and my small southern Illinois village and countryside, Continued on page 6 RAY ELLIOTT NOTES FROM THE SECRETARY Secretary Fifth Marine Division Assn. Hats off to FMDA Vice President Kathy Painton and the 2609 N. High Cross Rd. folks on the Big Island who made the return to the place Urbana, IL 61802 (217) 840-2121 the 15 Iwo Jima veterans and the rest of the Fifth Marine [email protected] Division trained for the iconic island battle more than 70 years ago such a memorable event. Many people helped, but Keala Rhodes, cousin to the late Hawaii THE SPEARHEAD NEWS state senator and Marine veteran Gil Kahele, really did Published two times annually in the interest yeoman’s work in getting several local restaurants to of the Fifth Marine Division Association donate food to feed the reunion group. EDITOR And if the response from those veterans and their Ray Elliott families and friends—some 86 attendees total—is any 2609 N. High Cross Rd., Urbana, IL 61802 indication of the future well being of the Association, (217) 840-2121; [email protected] we’re in good shape. Kathy and her forces are still working with Parker Ranch and local politicians to FOUNDING PRESIDENT secure a site for the Camp Tarawa Museum that Sen. Gen. Keller E. Rockey Gil Kahele was working for at the time of his death. President ................................................ John Butler The senator’s son, Kaiali’i (who was appointed to fill Vice President ................................Kathleen Painton his father’s seat and later won election for himself), Secretary .................................................. Ray Elliott Treasurer ............................................... Doug Meny State Rep. Cindy Evans, former Gov. Neil Abercrombie Legal Officer ..................................Stephen Lopardo and others are also behind the museum effort. Sgt-at-Arms ................................... Monroe Ozment There were many highlights of the reunion, but Chaplain .................................... Billy Joe Cawthron one that sticks out in my mind is when the bus and Historian ........................................... Dorothy Prose shuttle turned down the street to the Parker School in Webmaster ........................................ Dean Laubach Waimea/Kamuela for a gathering in the same theater the Trustees........................................ Bruce Hammond, veterans used for performances at Barbara Hall USO Bonnie Arnold-Haynes, Bob Meuller, during WWII and school kids waving American flags Warren Musch, Monroe Ozment, lined both sides of the street. More than one tear had Penny (DeFazio) Pauletto and Bill Rockey to be wiped from several of the veterans and others in the group. On the way inside the building, the veterans In This Issue: moseyed along shaking hands and talking to the kids. The Editor’s Desk ................................................... 3 It took quite awhile for everybody to get inside, get Letters ...................................................................... 4 seated and start the program where the school’s director Final Muster............................................................. 5 welcomed everybody, Kathy showed slides from her Where’s Roscoe? .................................................... 5 “Boots on the Ground” presentation and then asked New Members ....................................................... 7 the veterans to share memories of Camp Tarawa in a A reunion for the ages ............................................ 8 question-and-answer session with the audience. Banquet Speaker: Kahele .......................... 12 The students had also created a number of cards Banquet Speaker: Cavanaugh................................14 for the veterans, thanking them for their service. 15 Camp Tarawa vets reunite in Weimea ................ 16 These veterans—all in their 90s—had traveled Iwo Jima vets meet the new guys .......................... 18 from all over the United States—some against the SSgt’s Iwo Jima memories recalled ..................... 20 advice of their doctors and some in wheelchairs—to Chair brought back from Iwo Jima .................... 22 make the reunion. For example, John Coltrane (L-4-13) Annual Meeting Minutes ..................................... 23 traveled from his home in Siler City, N.C., with his wife, FMDA Financial Statements ............................. 24 Allene; caretaker Akia Leuville; and his daughter and 2018 Reunion Information ................................. 26 Continued on page 7 2 | Spearhead | Fall/Winter 2017 Either the leaders of this country didn’t know history or didn’t pay attention to it. As late as November 1941, admirals in Washington wrote a vague message warning the commanders in THE EDITOR’S Hawaii of the possible danger of an attack, but never DESK checked to see if any precautions were being taken. By Ray Elliott Pulitzer Prize-winner Steve Twomey wrote about this in his book, “Countdown to Pearl Harbor,” which I read last year prior to attending the 75th anniversary. The commander of the Pacific Fleet’s intelligence Remembering the attack on Pearl unit had lost track of Japan’s biggest aircraft carriers. Harbor that led the U.S. into WWII Twomey writes of false assumptions and racists ones, misunderstandings, infighting and ego clashes This Dec. 7 marked the 76th anniversary of the between intelligence officers and the Navy and Army Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that killed more than commanders—all of which led to our being totally 2,400 American servicemen and civilians, wounded unprepared for the attack. more than 1,200 and propelled the United States into So much warning was evident long before the World War II that eventually took the lives of 405,000 “Day of Infamy.” Americans and some 60 million worldwide before it At 7:02 a.m. on the morning of Dec. 7, two young finally ended in 1945 when the atomic bombs were Army privates, George Elliott Jr. and Joseph Lockard dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. at a mobile radar unit at Opana on the opposite side of Much has been made about the surprise attack on Oahu picked up “a blob of unknown, inbound airplanes Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. But in reality, it wasn’t that erupted on their oscilloscope” and they reported it that much of a surprise. The Japanese had been on to authorities. Only the switchboard operator and one the move throughout the Pacific and the Orient since other man were at Fort Shafter’s information center 1904 when they defeated the Russians in Port Arthur, as Elliott informed the operator that a “large” flight of Manchuria. Then they took control of Korea and most planes, which turned out to be 360 Japanese war planes, of the German colonies in the Pacific. were inbound. A few minutes later, Lt Kermit Tyler, American writers like Homer Lea and Jack a fighter pilot who had been given the morning shift London had written about the Japanese efforts to for the second time in his life to be a “pursuit officer,” expand its empire prior to World War I. Gen Billy called the mobile radar unit at Opana. With no fighter Mitchell wrote about it in the mid 1920s. In 1931, planes standing by, he knew nothing about how things Japan invaded Manchuria and followed in July 1937 worked or what to do. When Lockard told him about with the “infamous Marco Polo Bridge Incident, which the incoming aircraft, he said he thought about it for a instigated the Second Sino-Japanese War” and was moment and said, “Well, don’t worry about it.” followed by attacks on Shanghai and Nanking. Finally, “I had a friend who was a bomber pilot,” he there was the Japanese air attack on the American said later, “and he told me any time that they play gunboat, USS Panay, which happened to be filmed by this Hawaiian music all night long, it is a very good cameramen on the Panay and on the riverbank. Both indication that our B-17s were coming over from the films clearly showed Japanese aircraft attacking the mainland because they use it for homing.” Panay with the American flag flying. He had heard such music on his radio as he drove This was all public information.