An Iwo Jima Survivor

It was the morning of Feb. 19, 1945, and after an interminable number of days at sea from San Diego through the Marshall Islands, 20-year-old Bob Gasche saw what could have been his destiny. Or his demise

It was Iwo Jima.

As he clambered down the netting from the AK attack ship onto the LCVP (landing craft, vehicle, personnel; a plywood boat with a transom/tailgate that dropped down) into the murky surf of the Pacific - an area that had a reputation of ranging hungry sharks - Gasche (pronounced guh-SHAY) did not really know what he was getting into. But he was a part of a thousands-strong team and he was briefed (kinda) on what he could expect.

"What else were we supposed to do?" he asked himself.

A lot, it turned out.

Iwo Jima - a volcanic island measuring just about 8 square miles and lying 660 miles southeast of Tokyo - was the site of the largest one-time Pacific invasion in World War II. There were 110,000 Marines in 880 ships descending on this pork-chop-shaped spit that had been saturated by Americans for 72 days. Iwo Jima and its airstrips were key to refueling and recharging American warships, airborne and otherwise, on their way to the mainland of Japan.

There were roughly 21,000 Japanese soldiers in tunnels, in underground caves, bunkers and hidey-holes just waiting to defend the last stronghold against their mainland. (Almost all of them perished in the ensuing battles.)

Hours earlier, Gasche and his fellow Marines were instructed - no, ordered - to take six sulfonamide tablets with a canteen of water.

"This [antibiotic] was to fight off infection in case you got hit," Gasche said.

This was barely preparation for what was to come. The troops were briefed on the topography and climate of the island and the estimated enemy. But, Gasche said, "as far as preparing for emotions of combat, they were clear: 'There will be casualties. And some of you will not be coming back.' And that was that."

The underwater demolition team (popularly called UDT Frogmen) had already been at work. This hardy band of Marines and Navy personnel, armed with only snorkels (this was prior to scuba) and covered with a slick of cocoa butter, had been ferreting out mines and other traps laid to trip up the Armed Forces' landing on the shore of what has been named Invasion Beach.

And as part of the sixth or seventh wave of Marines to swarm over to the tiny island, taking the antibiotic was a doubly precautionary move. He waded to shore, dodging dozens of bodies already swamped in the surf. Some had been there for days.

"I can still see them in my mind," Gasche said. "This was my first real action. Welcome to Imo."

It was a hard trudge through the surf.

"What we had to carry on us was unreal," Gasche said. "There was a rifle and bayonet, ammunition on our belt, two canteens of water, a Kbar knife, a field bandolier with 30 rounds of ammo, four grenades, a helmet - it was a wonder we could move. Oh, and we had a gas mask, which most of us threw away as soon as we got on the beach."

But the fear of death had not yet sunk in.

"We were young. We had this feeling that it's not you that is going to get it; it's the other guy.

"But throughout, you don't let your buddy down. We had that thoroughly ingrained in us."

Gasche, a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps whose final rank was corporal, is now 83, but the memories of this crucial battle seem as clear as yesterday.

There was one moment that remains profound. Ensconced in a hot, soggy, 4-foot-deep foxhole one night, he heard a thud 6 inches from his head. It was not a misguided American grenade. It was even worse - it was one from the Japanese, and the pin had been pulled. He considered he had 5 seconds more to live.

Gasche grabbed it and flung that sucker as far as he could. The 44 pieces of black and yellow steel exploded safely - as safely as that could be - far from him and his fellow fighters.

He did actually see the flag-raising at Mount Suribachi, arguably the most famous photo of World War II, depicting Navy corpsmen and Marines raising Old Glory atop the volcano to signify the Americans had secured the island after 36 days.

"Oh yes, absolutely. It was a tremendous moment." But he also remembers the Japanese "still shooting at us like sitting ducks" once they heard the congratulatory tumult from ground troops and ships.

That particular battle saw nearly 4,200 Marines killed and more than 19,000 wounded. Gasche did not make it off the island unscathed. He suffered shrapnel wounds to the legs and gut and was sent back to the ship, bouncing through the surf on a stretcher. Doctors were able to remove much of the metal - some is still there.

"It kinda works its way out by itself," he said. He did get a Purple Heart.

He spent days - the actual time muddied by morphine - at a military hospital in Guam, and when he became ambulatory, remembers crawling outside to watch a 16 mm Bing Crosby/Bob Hope movie (with Dorothy Lamour) called "Road to Mandalay."

Over their shoulders in the dark, the servicemen heard clapping and cheering from the jungle. It turns out there were Japanese holdouts hidden in the background.

"Sometimes they would steal food from our garbage cans, and they loved our movies," he said.

His trip back to Pearl Harbor was likewise harrowing, when the ambulance plane lost two of its four engines.

"The pilot radioed mayday, and we thought we were shark bait," Gasche said. "But we limped to Johnston Island, 1,400 miles from our destination, had repairs made, and continued."

It was there that he heard President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had died on April 12, 1945.

"He was the only president we knew because of his longevity."

FDR was in office for nearly three terms - most of the time the young Gasche was alive.

Gasche was discharged after the war in 1946 and went to work for Bell Telephone. He earned his GED, but as a member of the reserve became what he called a "retread" during the Korean Conflict. He served with the 1st Marine Division during "mop-up operations" in Pohang in South Korea. Upon his final return to the United States, he moved to Coral Gables, Fla., with Bell Telephone and, through the assistance of the GI Bill, earned a college degree from the University of Miami.

His first degree was in business, but he then changed direction and earned a master's in education from UM. He taught junior high government and history, eventually at P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School. He retired in 1988. Since then, he has been active in veteran's affairs, including leading the Young Marines unit. He also serves as chairman of the board of Keep Alachua County Beautiful.

He and his wife, Carol, have a son (who is a paramedic) and two daughters (one a nurse at Shands; the other married to an engineer with Disney World).

Throughout his careers - military, civilian and educational - he said he has learned individuals need to feel an inherent sense of responsibility.

"What you do affects others," he said. "Part of my training and taking part in the chain of command never left me. Everyone has to be a contributor to the good of all." §

Marina Blomberg is a freelance writer who has lived in Gainesville since 1972.
She may be contacted through the editor: editor@towerpublications.com.