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Published:1/26/2010 7:09:47 AM
Cherokee Marine who fought on Iwo Jima remembered
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| Paul Terry Jr. (Courtesy
photo) |
By Will Chavez
Staff Writer
TAHLEQUAH, Okla. – Paul Terry Jr. of Fort Gibson had an intuition that he would not survive World War II.
The 20-year-old Cherokee told his cousin Dewey Pickard during Christmas 1944 in Hawaii that he felt he would be killed during the upcoming Iwo Jima campaign. Pickard, 19, of the 4th Marine Division was a veteran of Marine campaigns on the Saipan and Tinian Islands, while Terry had not yet seen combat.
The previous year, Terry received his paratrooper wings at Camp Pendleton, Calif., but the Marine paratroopers disbanded soon after and he was assigned to post office duty. Itching to see combat, he volunteered to be a part of the 5th Marine Division and trained as a mortar man.
His cousin Bob Graham recalled how Terry was an “adventurous kind of guy” and a leader.
“His call was ‘Follow me,’ and we followed,” Graham said.
Graham, Terry and Pickard’s Cherokee roots in Oklahoma go back nearly 200 years. Their ancestors were of the “Old Settlers” group that settled western Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma.
On the morning of Feb. 19, 1945, Terry and Pickard rode separate assault boats that hit the sands of the Iwo Jima. They were two of nearly 70,000 Marines who began assaulting the island.
Their task was to take the island from 22,000 entrenched Japanese soldiers who had fortified the island for nearly six months with tunnels and fighting positions. The island invasion marked the first time Japanese soil had been invaded by Americans, and the Japanese tried to hold it at all costs. The battle ended being the worst in U.S. Marine Corps history in regard to lives lost. Three out of four Marines attacking that first day died or suffered wounds by nightfall.
As the attack began, both Terry and Pickard’s units swung toward the base of Mount Suribachi, the island’s highest point.
A few days later, Terry was one of six Marines who raised an American flag on the mountain. As the men raised the small flag, meant to rally the Marines fighting below, the enemy fired at them and threw grenades. The flag placed by Terry’s group was taken down a few days later because it was too small to be seen by all the Marines on the island and replaced with a larger flag. This second flag-raising was photographed by war photographer Joe Rosenthal and is more famous of the two flag raisings.
On March 3, Terry and his unit advanced on a Japanese-guarded pathway. While trying to make it across a road, he was cut down by machine gun fire. He was buried at the 5th Marine Division Cemetery on the island.
Four days later, a telegram from Pickard arrived to his parents that read in part: “I’m feeling OK for now. Heard some bad news today. We are OK; the news is of someone else. Went to see Paul Jr. but I couldn’t find him.”
When the battle ended after 36 days, nearly all the Japanese defenders were dead and 26,000 Americans were wounded, missing or dead.
Eventually, Terry’s remains were relocated, with full military honors, to the Fort Gibson National Cemetery, located about 5 miles east of Muskogee. Pickard, now 84, has made arrangements with the cemetery to have his ashes buried at the foot of Terry’s burial site and have his own headstone erected.
“Paul Jr. was a true hero in every sense of the word. He performed his duties courageously, winning the admiration and respect of his officers and comrades,” Pickard said. “All those casualties were the true heroes.”
Reach Staff Writer Will Chavez at (918) 207-3961 or will-chavez@cherokee.org
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Comment Section
1 Total Comments (0 Pending Approval)
| 1/30/2010 |
This story makes me feel proud to be a Cherokee. I wished they would have used the original ones that raised the first flag in the picture. Thank you for this article. I enjoyed reading it. We need to hear more stories about the Cherokees that are fighting for our country. |
| j-hanna |
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