This guy was injured on my ship, and he writes me every
Christmas. I write him a note back, thanking him again.
I grew up in Cuyahoga Falls. My dad worked at Goodrich in
Akron. He never went to college, but he had a pretty good
job. I went to church every Sunday and, during the week,
some of the time.
We had nine children in my family. I went to St. Joseph’s
grade school and St. Vincent High School. A good way to go.
My brother Ted became a priest.
At John Carroll, I lived in the dorm for a half year, but it was
too much money. So my brother and I used to hitchhike home
back and forth every day for classes. Then he bought a car,
and we used to drive back and forth in his Model A Ford.
After two years at Carroll, I ran out of money, so I worked for
a year at B.F. Goodrich. Then I came back to Carroll when
I had enough money in my junior year, during the war. I had
enlisted in the navy because I was going to be drafted, and
they paid my way for the end.
The war was over in August of ’45. I dealt with it afterwards
just like I had to. I came home and I got married. I came home
in November. I got married in February of ’46.
We had a little boy who died, our third, named Robert
Thomas. He was about two and a half. He had a childhood
cancer. It was the saddest thing that happened in my life.
I just kept working to get through it. Otherwise, I can’t
complain about anything that happened to me. |
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That word “hero” doesn’t mean much to me. How are you
going to be a hero when you save your own life?
At Iwo Jima, we were going right in where our ships were going
to land in about two days and blow up any Japanese that were in
the trenches there. We had 250 rockets to send in. The rockets
didn’t fire, and they opened up on us. We got hit three times.
I was the only uninjured officer. I had to get that thing out of
there. I turned the ship around and got out of there. Half our
crew was dead or wounded. We pulled up alongside a hospital
ship to remove the dead and the wounded.
I’m telling you something that happened sixty years ago.
I took charge of that ship and got us out of there and got people
that were wounded and pulled them out. I had to get a crew to
get that daggone thing out of there. Had to get somebody in the
conning tower to turn that thing around and move that thing
out of there. I was the only officer. One was knocked off the
ship. There were five officers dead or wounded.
That battle ended up taking three months. If we hadn’t won
that battle and they had kept Iwo Jima, God knows.
Afterward, I felt like I was still alive. That’s how I felt.
These pictures [at his home] are from our family reunion last
year in Norton, Ohio. That’s me, the rest of these are my kids
and my brothers’ kids and my sisters’ kids – the whole crew. I
have 28 grandchildren, one great grandchild, and one more on
the way.
As told to Kathy Ewing |
