Roosevelt High School - Bwana Yearbook (St Louis, MO)

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Iwo JIMA Far away from the smoke of St. Louis, in the blue vastness of the Pacific, lies lwo Jima, so small that no one here had ever heard of it until the United States General Staff decided that lwo Jima would be an ideal place for an airfield, with Tokyo only seven hundred fifty miles away. It is shaped somewhat like South America, although a thousand times smaller. The northern half, five miles long, is a high plateau rising over three hundred feet and having steep cliffs. The southern tip of the island is Mount Suribachi, a volcano towering five hundred Fifty-four feet above the Pacific. On bloody lwo Jima, a new and brave chapter was written in American history. Airplanes from Saipan, big four-motored Liberators, began a sixty- eight day bombing of the island. The sixty-ninth day the Navy moved in, its guns completing the destruction of everything visible. On February nineteenth, the United States Marines, Fourth Division, invaded the southeastern beach. It was not an easy taskg for twenty thousand japs, until now under cover against bombs and naval guns, moved out. They fought fanaticallyg they knew that lwo Jima would be used as a base for attack on their homeland. They killed and killed, but lwo Jima was ours. Sixty thousand Marines decided it. On the morning of the fourth day of fighting, a four-man patrol 'went almost to the top of Mount Suribachi. They came back to report no ,lap opposition. About noon a lieutenant of the Marines, Fifth Division, led a platoon to the peak, and there the first flag was hoisted. Later in the evening a second and larger Hag was raised, and it is the picture of the raising of this Hag that symbolized the Spirit of '45, And to Private William W. Hurst, editor of BLUUHCI in l942, crawling out of his foxhole on Iwo Jima the morning of February twenty-fourth, that waving glory above Suribachi brought to mind another day in our history. He wrote his parents: ul have never been so proud to be an American as at that moment. It was the words of our national anthem coming to life. The same joy, the same pride, the same feeling of the triumphs of American principles of living swelled within me as must have filled the heart of Francis Scott Key at Fort Mcl-lenry when the Slclr-Spclngled f5c1r1m'r was born. BETTY ZEIS KATHERINE MARTIN 'I 'cn

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GOLD STAR LIST That from these honored dead . . WAYNE ADAMS WALTER ALEXANDER ADDIS BARDWELL CLARENCE BECKER EUGENE BEISER EDWIN BELCHES JAMES BENA JESSE E. BRESSIE ARTHUR BRIEDE JACK BRITI' RICHARD BROMEYER EUGENE H. CANTRELL JAMES CAPORAL KEITH CARSTENS WILLIAM CHRISTMAN WILLIAM CLARKSON RENE CHOUTEAU SAM COULTAS EARL COWELL LEROY CROCKER LAWRENCE DOELLING ORLANDO FISHER JOHN W. FLEMING WILLIAM FROELKER JOHN GAFFNEY EDWIN GILLERSTROM VICTOR GROMACKY HERBERT HARRISON DONALD HECKERT WILLIAM R. HOMFELDT RALPH HUDSON VAL HUMME KENNETH JOSIAS ADOLPH KAUFMANN ROBERT KIMMEL NORMAN LAUX VICTOR LUND RUSSELL MARIK LOWELL MASH EARL MCABEE FRANK MONROE ROY NIEMANN FRED PANNELL HOMER LEE PATTON KENNETH POSTER EUGENE POTUCEK JUSTIN H. PREUSS KENNETH RASSFELD HOWARD REHLING GILBERT RICHMAR JACK ROBBIN JOSEPH RUESING WILLIAM SANDMAN RUSSELL SIMPSON HUBERT STRICKLAND EARL STROPES CHARLES TOMASEK HARRY VANLEAR BASIL VAUGHT JOHN WACHTER RICHARD E. WATERS CHARLES WEBER GERHART WILHELM If, in spite of our efforts to secure the names of former Rooseveltians who have made the supreme sacrifice, we have omitted a name, we shall be gIad to have it sent to us. Jil I fziilix Nine

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1 FLAG RAISINC- ON IWO JIMA W l'r1rmuu,n ui l'nsx .M If I L' Uv rv