Hero of the Pacific

Home > Other > Hero of the Pacific > Page 24
Hero of the Pacific Page 24

by James Brady


  Among the multiple copies one is directed to “Public Info,” and with a brief notation at the bottom, “Raritan, New Jersey . . . Buffalo, New York,” I assume this meant that the media in those two cities, of John’s rearing and his birth, were to be notified of the honor.

  It is the accuracy of details in these battle accounts of Basilone’s conduct that comes under criticism. But despite all the brass in Washington signing off on his Navy Cross, there remain to me some questions. We know Basilone was brave, a great Marine, a heroic man. But where did the blockhouse-busting grenades and demolitions come from? Was he on the blockhouse roof or down below? Was he really waving a hunting knife around? How was he sufficiently familiar with alien ground to guide that tank through the mines? Was he killed instantly by that mortar? Then why all those accounts of his living for hours, speaking with the corpsman, dictating messages to be passed on to brother George, and gradually bleeding to death? And what about that sole witness, the private who signed the citation recommendation? Where were the others? Questions remain.

  Epilogue

  Despite what Bertolt Brecht said, I believe having national heroes is healthy, giving us people to admire, role models, perhaps helping us to be somehow better than we are. Maybe heroes are just plain good for us; they make us feel better about ourselves, about the country, to know that among us are men and women who under pressure behave in exemplary ways and do things most of us don’t even try. And it’s not only wars that make heroes; newspapers and the local television stations regularly run features about “everyday heroes,” urging nominations. There was even a time when America really needed a hero like John Basilone.

  I’m neither a scholar nor a historian, just another old newspaperman who once fought in a war, but I remain fascinated and often puzzled by John Basilone, a professional Marine machine gunner in two climactic battles, one at the very start of a Pacific war we were losing and then in a second fight near the end of a war we knew we were going to win. He was a man already dead when I was a Catholic high school boy reading about him in the Daily News, and most of what I later knew of Basilone came from Marines and Marine Corps lore and the memories of old men in New Jersey, what they told me, the black-and-white photos at the Raritan library, when they drove me to the big bronze statue and took me to visit the little frame boyhood home, to see his hangouts.

  I mentioned earlier a resemblance to the youthful Sly Stallone. Basilone was Stallone’s Rambo, a real-life Rambo. And despite the wars and the years that separate the generations of Marines, I feel I knew a man I never met—because every Marine knew Manila John.

  Even though . . .

  More than sixty years after his death at age twenty-eight on Iwo Jima, Basilone remains an enigma. There are still questions about the famous decorations for his heroic battles. Some of these are insignificant points, matters of detail, an incorrect stat here, a confusion of names there, the chaos of battle, the tendency of loved ones to boast a little. Other questions were more substantive. This was the exasperating part of Manila John’s story.

  It goes without saying that neither sergeant, Mitchell Paige nor Basilone, campaigned for a decoration of any sort, never mind the top medal we have. Marines don’t recommend themselves for awards; their superiors write them up.

  The Navy Cross awarded posthumously on Iwo Jima is a strange affair, more complicated than any doubts about Guadalcanal. And being dead, Basilone can have no responsibility for what was subsequently written, said, or sworn to. The facts seem to be that Gunny Basilone, when confronted by a Japanese blockhouse, did precisely what the moment called for. He demonstrated initiative by getting a demolition assault team to send a man forward with a heavy explosive charge and another, the giant William Pegg, with the flamethrower, while Basilone’s machine gunners gave them overhead covering fire.

  Sergeant Basilone did his job perfectly, and so did the demo guy and the flamethrower, as did Basilone’s machine gunners. The Japanese position fell to the combined Marine operation of explosives, flame, and machine-gun fire, and the stalled Marine drive inland got going, thanks in large part to Basilone’s gutsy, intelligent leadership.

  If that’s the story, those the precise facts—and Chuck Tatum, there as a machine gunner, writes that they were—it is both rational and believable. If “Sergeant Basilone directed this operation ‘by the book,’ the way we practiced it at Pendleton and Camp Tarawa,” then why conjure up a fantastic story about how Basilone scaled the roof and single-handedly destroyed the position with grenades? Or spent his time waving a hunting knife around, taunting and capering?

  Basilone made the thing happen. It wasn’t a solo performance, but it was heroic. Two other men backed up by his machine guns carried it out.

  Then reread the official Navy Cross citation. The story of the tank in the minefield. Why pad the already impressive résumé? Did the Department of the Navy have so much invested in Basilone that he couldn’t just die, he had to die gloriously, capable of superhuman feats? Maybe they had to make it up to America for permitting its hero to go back one more time to the battle. How else do you justify an official citation signed off by so many while so rife with apparent exaggerations?

  Maybe, as has been charged, the Basilone of the war bond tour, with his handlers and packaged speeches and appearances, was to an extent a product marketed and merchandised by imaginative young officers doing PR for the Marine Corps. They were out to sell inspiration to a country that needed heroes, and Basilone must have looked like a good bet, a superior salesman. The kid out of Raritan was everyman from everywhere, an ordinary Joe, a small-town American; the darkly handsome, undefeated boxer Manila John, a poker-playing roughneck from the caddy shack, the guy with a knockout punch—and that marketable nickname. If this is true, none of it was Basilone’s idea.

  Basilone has surely been ill served even by people who loved him, family and friends, and by others, publicity professionals and inventive journalists, who damaged his reputation with fanciful stories and memoirs, their cartoon-styled exaggerations of feats of arms never performed, the hero lost behind his deeds.

  The Basilone statue in Raritan, New Jersey, haloed by the sun.

  But this is what makes him a legend and an American icon. Maybe we should just embrace the colorful lore, memorialize John Basilone as a Marine and honor his service, take him on faith, forget the disputation and the skeptical theories, mine and others, and just love the guy, saluting him with a well-earned and final Semper Fidelis. Always faithful. Perhaps we should leave it just as simple and as wonderful as that.

  Bibliography

  This bibliography was compiled from the author’s notes after his passing. Any omissions or inaccuracies are, therefore, those of the editor.

  Alexander, Joseph H. Closing In: Marines in the Seizure of Iwo Jima. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps [Supt. of Docs., U.S. GPO, distributor], 1994.

  Alexander, Joseph H., with Don Horan and Norman C. Stahl. A Fellowship of Valor: The Battle History of the U.S. Marines. New York: HarperCollins, 1997.

  Doorly, Bruce W. Raritan’s Hero: The John Basilone Story. Privately published.

  Lansford, William Douglas. “The Life and Death of ‘Manila John’ Basilone.” Leatherneck. October 2002.

  Leckie, Robert. Challenge for the Pacific: The Bloody Six-Month Battle of Guadalcanal. New York: Da Capo, 1999. ———. Helmet for My Pillow. New York: Bantam, 1995.

  Paige, Mitchell. A Marine Named Mitch. Santa Fe Springs, CA: Wylde & Sons, 1975.

  Proser, Jim, with Jerry Cutter. “I’m Staying with My Boys . . .”: The Heroic Life of Sgt. John Basilone, USMC. Hilton Head, SC: Lightbearer Communications, 2004.

  Santelli, James S. A Brief History of the 7th Marines. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1980.

  Shaw, Henry I., Jr. First Offensive: The Marine Campaign for Guadalcanal. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps [
Supt. of Docs., U.S. GPO, distributor], 1992.

  Sledge, Eugene. With the Old Breed, at Peleliu and Okinawa. New York: Bantam, 1982.

  Tatum, Charles W. Iwo Jima: 19, February, 1945, Red Blood, Black Sand, Pacific Apocalypse. Stockton, CA: C.W. Tatum Pub., 1995.

  Tillman, Mary, and Narda Zacchino. Boots on the Ground by Dusk: My Tribute to Pat Tillman. New York: Modern Times, 2008.

  United States Marine Corps, Historical Division. Lieutenant Colonel Frank O. Hough, USMCR; Major Verle E. Ludwig, USMC; and Henry I. Shaw Jr. History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II: Pearl Harbor to Guadalcanal, vol. I. Washington: GPO, 1958.

  Illustration Credits

  Page xi, AP Images; pages 14, 180, USMC; pages 78, 126, Leatherneck magazine; page 218, © Bettman/CORBIS; page 238, Bruce Doorly.

  Index

  Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations.

  Albany, New York

  Alexander, Joe

  Allbritton, Louise

  Alvino, Lawrence “Cookie Hound”

  American Civil War

  American Cyanamid

  American Revolution

  Amtrac 3C27

  Andrews Sisters

  ANZAC

  Aquilina, Robert V.

  Arlington National Cemetery

  Arnold, Laurence

  Australia

  Australian casualties at Guadalcanal

  Basilone in

  Congressional Medal of Honor ceremony held in

  1st Battalionh Marine Regiment in

  Japan’s World War II threat to

  “Back the Attack” slogan

  Baldwin, Raymond E.

  Basilone, Alphonse (brother)

  Basilone, Angelo (brother)

  Basilone, Carlo (brother)

  Basilone, Dolores (sister)

  on brother’s death

  death of

  views on Ed Sullivan

  Basilone, Donald (brother)

  Basilone, Dora (Bengivenga) (mother)

  biographical information

  notified of son’s death

  at son’s burial

  Basilone, George (brother)

  Battle of Iwo Jima and

  concerns for brother’s safety

  notified of brother’s death

  Basilone, Lena Riggi (wife)

  Basilone family and

  courtship with Basilone

  death of

  marriage to Basilone

  Basilone, “Manila” John

  accounts of Guadalcanal events and

  in Army

  in Australia

  barefoot preference of

  biographical information

  boxing career of

  burial of

  at Camp Pendleton

  at Camp Tarawa

  civilian jobs of

  commission offered to

  Congressional Medal of Honor awarded to

  continuing controversy about

  correspondence with family

  death of

  drinking by

  on fame

  gambling and

  legacy of

  Marine enlistment by

  marriage of

  Navy Cross awarded to

  nickname of

  nightmares suffered by

  Paige, Mitchell, and

  promotions of

  Puller and

  at Quantico

  reported premonitions of

  return to combat by

  romantic life of

  on Samoa

  second Congressional Medal of Honor recommendation

  statue of

  tattoos

  on war bond tour

  Basilone, Mary (sister)

  Basilone, Phyllis (sister). See Cutter, Phyllis Basilone

  Basilone, Salvatore (father)

  biographical information

  business of

  notified of son’s death

  on son’s Army enlistment

  at son’s burial

  on son’s Marine Corps enlistment

  Basilone Day (September 19, 1943)

  Basilone Parade

  Basilone Road, Camp Pendleton

  Bataan Peninsula, Philippines

  battles. See Coral Sea, Battle of; Guadalcanal, Battle of; Iwo Jima, Battle of; Midway, Battle of

  Belt, Ralph

  Bengivenga, Carlo

  Bengivenga, Catrina

  Bengivenga, Dora. See Basilone, Dora (Bengivenga) (mother)

  Bisonette, Biz

  Bloody Ridge (Edson’s Ridge) . See also Guadalcanal, Battle of

  Blyth, Ann

  Bongiovi, Anna Marie

  Bongiovi, Anthony G., Sr.

  Bon Jovi, Jon

  Bougainville

  Bowie, James

  Bracken, Eddie

  Bradley, Reverend Paul

  Brady, Jim

  Bridgewater (NJ) Courier-News

  Bridgewater-Raritan High School

  Briggs, Ralph, Jr.

  brothels

  Browning .30-caliber M1917A1 machine gun

  Brusa, Adolph

  Budemy, Frank

  Bullard (Marine)

  Burns, Ken

  Butler, John

  Calabrese, Rocky

  Calco Chemical Division, American Cyanamid

  Camp Lejeune

  Camp Pendleton

  Camp Tarawa

  Cape Gloucester

  Carlsbad Hotel

  Carolines. See also Iwo Jima; Luzon, Philippines; Truk

  Cates, Clifton B.

  Cavite, Philippines

  Chafee, John

  China

  Cianciella, Josephine

  Cirello, Tony

  Clemens, Martin

  Closing In: Marines in the Seizure of Iwo Jima (Alexander)

  “coast watchers”

  Cohen, Schiller

  Collier’s

  Congressional Medal of Honor

  awarded to Mitchell Paige

  Conoley, Odell M.

  Coral Sea, Battle of

  Cornwallis, Lord

  Cornwell, Elmer

  Corregidor, Philippines

  Creak, Robert J.

  Culebra, Puerto Rico

  Curley, Charles

  Cutter, Bill

  Cutter, Jerry

  on Basilone’s Army service

  on Basilone’s childhood

  on Basilone’s death

  on Basilone’s Marine service

  on Basilone’s romantic life

  on Guadalcanal events

  views on war bond tour

  Cutter, Phyllis Basilone

  on Basilone’s Army service

  on Basilone’s childhood

  on Basilone’s death

  on Basilone’s Marine service

  on Basilone’s views of New York City

  on Guadalcanal events

  views on war bond tour

  D-Day

  Del Rocco, Steve

  del Valle, Pedro

  Dinah Might (B-29 bomber)

  Doorly, Bruce W.

  on Basilone’s burial

  on Basilone’s childhood

  on Basilone’s death

  on Basilone’s fame

  on Basilone’s funeral

  on Basilone’s Marine service

  at brother’s burial

  Grey interviewed by

  on Guadalcanal events

  on Iwo Jima events

  views on war bond tour

  Duke, Doris (Cromwell)

  Dunlap, Alvin C.

  Duryea, Justin Gates

  Edge, Walter

  Edson, Merrill A. “Red Mike”

  Congressional Medal of Honor awarded to

  5th Marine Regiment commanded by

  Elsner, Roy

  Evans, “Chicken”

  Evanson, Steve

  Farese, Tony

  Fellows, Edith

  5th Marine Division

  at Camp Tarawa
>
  formation of

  training by Basilone and See also Iwo Jima, Battle of

  “Filipino Scouts”

  1st Battalionh Marine Regiment

  in Australia

  casualties suffered by

  1st Marine Division (“Old Breed”)

  First Offensive (Shaw)

  Fitzgerald, F. Scott

  Fleet Marine Force Pacific (FMF PAC)

  Fletcher, Jack

  “fog of war”

  Ford, Walt

  Forrestal, James V.

  Fort Jay

  4th Marine Division

  Fox, John

  Fox Movietone News

  Franchino, Charles

  Frelinghuysen, Joseph

  From Here to Eternity

  Fuller, Regan

  Gable, Clark

  Gaburo, Alfred

  Gaburo’s Laundry

  Gai, Hector R., Jr.

  Galer, Robert E.

  gambling

  Garand M1 semiautomatic rifles

  Garfield, John

  Garland (Marine)

  Gavutu

  Geiger, Roy

  Gemmer, Ward L.

  Germany, surrender of

  Ghormley, Robert

  Giniger, Henry

  Golden, James

  Governor’s Island

  Graham (priest)

  Grant, Ulysses S.

  Great Gatsby, The (Fitzgerald)

  Grey, Virginia

  Guadalcanal, Battle of

  Basilone’s actions at

  map

  Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

  Hall, Robert

  Halsey, William “Bull”

  Hanks, Tom

  Hanneken, Herman Henry

  Hartman, Ed

  Hawaii

  Helstowski, Helen

  Helstowski, Steve

  Henderson, Lofton R.

  Henderson Field . See also Guadalcanal, Battle of

  Hersholt, Gene

  History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II, volume 1, Pearl Harbor to Guadalcanal

 

‹ Prev