Marine buddies share smiles, emotions in Vegas 70 years after fighting in Iwo Jima

The Latin phrase, short for “semper fidelis,” which means “always faithful,” has been the Marine Corps motto ever since Col. Charles McCawley promoted it in 1883.

Today it rings true for World War II veterans Joe Rodgers, of North Las Vegas, and Bob West, of Farmington Hills, Mich.

They were reunited last week, nearly 70 years after they fought in the Battle of Iwo Jima and 69 years since they last saw each other after the war ended. That’s when West hopped on a bus in Detroit on Valentine’s Day 1946 to travel to Rodgers’ wedding reception in Birmingham, Ala.

They stayed in touch for a while in the late 1940s but drifted apart over six decades until Rodgers’ daughter, Maryhelen Smith, of Las Vegas, used the Internet to find his long-lost buddy.

“He was saying he sure wished that he knew what happened to him. So I went online … and was able to find him in Michigan. They’ve been talking on the phone since then and they’re both so excited,” she said before last week’s reunion party that their children arranged to celebrate their 90th and 91st birthdays.

Rodgers reflected on their days as young Marines while waiting for West’s flight to arrive at McCarran International Airport on Feb. 8.

“Bob West was a good Marine. He was a loyal friend and we just had a good time together,” Rodgers said.

“I’m real excited about seeing this guy. He’s 91 years old now. He went into the Marine Corps when he was 17. I went in when I was 16,” said Rodgers, who lied about his age to join after Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941.

BROTHERS IN ARMS

Rodgers recognized his buddy as soon as he walked through the baggage claim area wearing his 4th Marine Division cap. Hustling toward each other about as fast as nonagenarians can walk, they embraced in a “bro hug” that almost caused them to tumble.

“Hey, you haven’t changed much,” Rodgers said.

Said West: “Yeah. Yeah. You’re looking good. How many years?”

“It’s been 69 years. Do you believe that?” Rodgers asked.

Until Feb. 7, West had never flown in an airplane, nor had he ventured outside the state of Michigan for many years. The next day, he and Rodgers enjoyed their joint birthday party with dozens of friends and family members who packed a private venue near the Fremont Street Experience.

Then on Sunday, at Smith’s home, they flipped through scrap books and reminisced about the battles they fought on Saipan, Tinian and Iwo Jima. They also remembered friends they lost and lives that were saved.

“I got a real taste of combat on Saipan,” West said, describing the scene from June 1944 as mortar rounds exploded near his Higgins boat as it approached the beach.

Marines were already dug in with doctors in the middle operating on the wounded. “We were told to stay awake all night long because they expected a counterattack,” he said.

Both men made it through the war without being wounded although they were shot at more times than they cared to remember. West said he “came close a few times” to getting killed.

“I had machine gun bullets hit about four or five inches in front of my hands one time, and another Marine pushed me out of the way when a machine gun went off or I would have been dead,” he said.

ON IWO JIMA

“Iwo Jima,” West said. “Well that was a bad place to be.”

It was so dangerous, that when it was time for West’s platoon to board a landing craft “they stopped us and said go back … There’s no room on the beach. There’s too much slaughter going on there and there isn’t any room for anything more. There were two men getting killed every three minutes on the beach.”

In all, about 27,000 people were killed during the battle from Feb. 19 to March 26, 1945. More than 20,000 of the deaths were Japanese soldiers, most of whom had been entrenched in tunnels and burrowed in pillboxes throughout the 8-square-mile, porkchop-shaped volcanic island.

Heavy Japanese guns hidden on high ground behind steel doors bombarded the beaches while enemy soldiers fired machine guns from caves and tunnels.

Of the nearly 7,000 U.S. servicemen killed in the battle, about 5,500 were Marines, according to the Naval Historical Center. More than 19,000 U.S. military personnel were wounded.

Rodgers, a special troops private first class, ran communications for captains. His unit from Headquarters Battalion, 4th Reconnaissance Company landed in the second wave.

Japanese artillery were “firing down directly on the beach. People were getting hit all over the place and people were digging frantically to try to get underground so they could survive.”

They maintained a foothold on the beach for several days until Marines advanced for the iconic flag raisings on Mount Suribachi on Feb. 23, 1945. Rodgers was at the base of the mountain and West was on board ship ready to come ashore. Marines cheered, horns on ships blared and tears of joy rolled down the faces of many Marines.

“There were some bright spots when they raised the flag up on Suribachi,” Rodgers said. “We looked up at it and there was applause for that. There was still a lot of killing after it though,” as West and more troops came ashore.

“Bob went one way and I went another,” Rodgers recalled. “And our company got ambushed. They let us get through this pass, and they had machine guns set up cross fire into that pass. Our company was 67 percent casualties in the next two hours. A bunch of our buddies got killed there.”

SAVING CORPORAL VERWERS

For his actions on March 6, 1945, Rodgers was awarded a Bronze Star medal for valor.

“The captain gave me the order to go across this gap and get in contact with the commander on the left flank and have him move his men to close up the gap in this line,” he said. When he did, Japanese soldiers opened up with machine guns.

“Bullets were kicking up around my feet. I guess I was never so scared as I was in all my life as I was then,” Rodgers said.

“I’d just look ahead and find a crater where a bomb dropped and I’d take a head dive when I’d get to it. I came to this one that I was in midair looking into this crater and there was a dead Marine … already bloated up. I was going to come down on top of him. I kind of got sick to my stomach.”

After reaching the captain on the left flank, he returned across the same terrain.

“We laid down a covering fire for the wounded,” he said. “We went down to get as many of our wounded out as we could.”

One of them was Cornie C. Verwers, who had multiple bullet wounds.

“He was lying there and the pallor on his face was death,” Rodgers said. “We debated among ourselves whether it was a waste of time to get him out.”

Rodgers along with Pfc. Norman McMahan and two other Marines decided to evacuate Verwers on a makeshift stretcher.

“Three months later that guy rejoined us and went to the end of the war with us. He told us when he came back, ‘I could hear every word you said. I wanted to tell you so bad that if you get me out of here I’ll be all right.’ But he said, ‘I couldn’t speak,’ ” Rodgers said.

“This guy made it through the war when it looked like he didn’t have a chance. One of the joys of being on Iwo was getting that guy out of there,” he said, choking back tears.

Verwers lived to be 89 before he died Feb. 1, 2012, at his home in Eldorado, Ill. His youngest son, Brent Verwers, said in a call Friday from Columbus, Ind., that he can’t thank Rodgers and the others enough.

“Without their actions, Dad wouldn’t have married Mom and they wouldn’t have had four kids, eight grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. That’s quite a legacy for what those men did back then.”

Contact Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0308. Follow @KeithRogers2 on Twitter.