Graves and Cook talk about Iwo Jima and the USS Joe campaign

Tom Graves describes the 1945 battle of Iwo Jima and Rosenthal’s flag raising photo to the audience at the San Leandro, Calif. Public Library.

By Tom Graves

For Tom Pach, a veteran of the Korean War, Joe Rosenthal’s Iwo Jima flag raising photograph has a special significance, not just as a Marine, but as a man who lost his older brother in the battle for the island.

Pach was one of the estimated 200 people gathered on Memorial Day Weekend to learn about Joe Rosenthal and his iconic photo taken in the midst of the bloody battle.

Many men and women in the audience stood to be acknowledged for their military service. They left behind nearly 100 signatures on the petition to name a Navy warship for Rosenthal, adding to over 3,000 signatures the USMCCCA Joe Rosenthal Chapter CCs already delivered to Navy Secretary Richard Spencer. A former Marine captain, Secretary Spencer has acknowledged the great importance of Joe and the photo he took atop Mt. Suribachi.

Chapter President Dale Cook, left, and Tom Graves answer questions.

The standing-room-only crowd packed the lecture room at the San Leandro, Calif. Public Library to hear Chapter Historian Tom Graves describe the 1945 battle and Rosenthal’s flag raising photo. Chapter President Dale Cook, a 4th Division veteran of Iwo Jima, added his own memories of combat on the volcanic island where three Marine divisions met determined resistance from 22,000 defenders in well prepared, underground positions. At times, Cook’s memories became graphic.

“I asked the guy in the foxhole next to me for a cigarette. I turned around and there was a Marine and a helmet, but no head in it. I see that every day of my life.”

Sponsored by the Library and Vets Connect at the Library, the May 26 event received great play in local papers, accounting for the high turnout. Some travelled from Sacramento, a 90-mile drive. The front row was reserved for veterans, including a Pearl Harbor survivor from the USS Pennsylvania, a 2nd Philippine Regiment military intelligence soldier, and Tom Pach, the Korean War Marine whose older brother, Frank, served in the 5th Marine Division and was wounded on Iwo Jima February 19, 1945, the first day of the battle. He died the next day.

“Iwo Jima haunted me for 67 years before I came to terms with it,” Pach said.

Graves projected a selection of photos and maps of the island, showing its location in the Pacific and proximity to Japan and the Marianas, where US B-29s were based. “Iwo Jima had to be taken. The enemy knew that too. When Gen. Kuribayashi and his troops were sent there, they knew they would not return,” Graves said. In researching photos for the presentation, Graves came across a series of a 28th Marines’ patrol leaving the beach to climb Mt. Suribachi, and raise the first flag. Sentries with BARs and rifles with fixed bayonets formed a perimeter around the flag-raisers, as the mountain was still controlled by the enemy.

The second, larger flag that Rosenthal and Marine cameraman, Sgt. Bill Genaust, photographed, would be raised about two hours after the first. Genaust captured the action on 16 mm film while Rosenthal shot a single frame with his 4×5 Speed Graphic. We all know the result.

Former Marine Corps Commandant Joseph Dunford once said Iwo Jima “remains the very ethos of the Marine Corps today.” The same might be said for Rosenthal’s photo.

“I saw the flag, and it looked like the size of a postage stamp,” remembers Cook, a mortarman who had been handed a BAR when he landed on the island. “It gave us hope the battle was going better than what we had been experiencing so far.” A few days after the flags went up, Cook was wounded by an enemy grenade and was evacuated to a hospital ship.

San Leandro is a city of 88,000, bordering Oakland and across the Bay from San Francisco. California, including the Bay Area, has the nation’s largest population of veterans, approximately 200,000, as many service members traveled through the state on the way to and from the Pacific, and were lured back by the state’s climate and booming economy. Memorial Day and Veterans Day holidays feature dozens of parades, speeches and memorials, too many for even a determined person to attend.

Sponsor of the May 26 program, Veterans Connect @ the Library, is a program of California public libraries, in partnership with California Department of Veterans Affairs (CalVet), to connect veterans and their families to benefits and services. Staffed by trained volunteers, the Centers provide books and other resources for veterans, including access to computers with links to local veterans resources.

David Moragne, the Vet Connect at the Library volunteer who ran the Iwo Jima event, wants to work with the CCs on a second event this year. A volunteer for four years, David is a Marine veteran and professional videographer, and taped the entire program.

After the presentation, Dale Cook, easy to identify in his red Marine Corps League blazer, was surrounded by a small crowd asking questions and seeking an autograph from the Iwo Jima Survivor. (No one knows the number of Iwo Jima veterans still living, but the estimate is only 500-700 men of the three Marine divisions that landed on the island.)

A smiling Cook looked up through the crowd to catch Graves’ eye, asking, “How do you think we did?”