Valor Friday

We lost another of The Greatest Generation this week. Kob sent in the sad news that on Monday, August 2nd retired US Marine Corps Colonel Dave Severance passed away after a solid 102 years, 30 of those years were spent fighting in two wars in service to his nation.

Colonel Severance’s biggest claim to fame was that he commanded E Company, 2nd Battalion, 28th Marine Regiment (2/28 Marines) during the Battle of Iwo Jima. Some of his men were the ones that raised the American flag on Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima, which was captured in what became probably America’s most famous photo.

Born in 1919 in Milwaukee, Severance briefly attended college after high school, but when he ran out of money he enlisted into the Marine Corps in 1938. After boot camp he briefly served at sea before volunteering for the Paramarines in 1941. He attended Paramarine training in July of that year. I’ve discussed the Paramarines previously in another Valor Friday piece here (about MoH-recipient Corporal Tony Stein, who was with 1/28 Marines for the assault on Iwo Jima).

When the US joined the World War at the end of 1941, then-Sergeant Severance was selected for officer training and sent to Officer Candidate School. By 1943, now-Lieutenant Severance was deploying to the Pacific Theater with the Paramarines. He’d first see action at Bougainville, part of the Solomon Islands Campaign, in November 1943. Severance distinguished himself in the battle by leading his men out of an ambush with minimal casualties.

In January of 1944 the Paramarines were withdrawn to San Diego and shortly thereafter disbanded as they were not being employed as paratroopers. Now a captain, Severance was assigned to command Easy Company 2/28 Marines, part of the 5th Marine Division (5th MarDiv). The 2/28 Marines were sent from San Diego to Hawaii in late 1994 and then on to Iwo Jima.

The name Iwo Jima literally translates to “Sulfur Island” to give you an idea what a lovely place it is. Only about eight square miles in land area, the island is pretty much barren. Strategically important as a launching point for attacks on the Japanese home islands, it holds virtually no other importance.

Severance led his Marines ashore at Iwo Jima as part of the twelfth wave on D-Day of the battle on 19 February 1945 just before 1000 hours. Severance’s company landed on Green Beach, the closest beach to Mount Suribachi, which is on the southern end of the island. Landing unopposed, they were at the rally point for 20 minutes before the defending Japanese opened fire on them.

When one of Severance’s platoons went off course and became separated from the rest of the company during the landings, Severance’s CO threatened him with court martial if he didn’t find them in the next five minutes. Was it a hollow threat? Probably, but Severance found them soon after, so the colonel never had a chance to try him for it. Since the Marines were facing more than 20,000 well entrenched, fanatical Japanese defenders on the island, it was probably more the colonel wanted to impart the sense of urgency with which he wanted the captain to find his wayward men.

Severance led his men off the beach under heavy fire. Their objective was to cut Suribachi off from the rest of the island’s defenses. Easy Company was able to do this by the end of the day. Unfortunately, the battle for the mountain itself would be arduous.

Over the course of the next two days, Severance and his company would fight through the island to the base of the mountain by the end of 21 February.

On the 22nd, US Navy planes began bombarding Suribachi, softening it for the frontal assault by the Marines. In the fog of war, the naval aviators mistook Severance and his men for Japanese. With friendly bombs falling closer and closer, Severance called for flares to mark his position, but none were available. In a final effort he contacted his CO, who called off the airstrikes. With that threat gone, he spent the rest of the day organizing and preparing for the attack on Suribachi.

On the 23rd, 2/28 Marines commanding officer Lieutenant Colonel Chandler Johnson ordered Severance to have a platoon make the assault up the mountain. Severance selected his executive officer Lieutenant Harold Shrier, who volunteered for the assignment, and his 3rd Platoon (reinforced with 12 men from the heavy weapons platoon) to lead the charge.

Severance had *ahem* acquired a United States flag from USS Missoula (APA-211) through the battalion’s adjutant. He knew the defenses of the mountain and the ferocity with which his enemy fought to the last man (very, very few Japanese surrendered during the war). Fully aware and expecting he was sending his men to their deaths on that hill, he gave the flag to Shrier and said, “”If you get to the top, put it up.”

Shrier was the best man to assault that hill though. A former Marine Raider, like Severance, he was a mustang officer. He’d served since 1936, was a former drill instructor, and spent the early parts of the war as an enlisted Raider. He rose to the rank of platoon sergeant (a line Marine rank co-equal with the non-line rank of staff sergeant) before receiving a battlefield commission after his exemplary performance during the famous “Long Patrol” during the Battle of Guadalcanal (and earning a Legion of Merit w/ “V”).

Despite what was anticipated to be a horrendous bloodbath, Shrier led his Marines up Suribachi. Only taking occasional sniper fire, they made it to the crest of the top of the volcanic mount. After a short firefight with the enemy there, the mountain was theirs. It had taken them less than an hour to take the hill.

Shrier and his Marines found a length of watering pipe left behind by their enemy, tied the flag to it, and hoisted it. The flag was visible for miles and miles, across most of the beaches where Marine reinforcements were still landing.

The symbolism of the flag flying over the imposing Suribachi buoyed the spirits of the Marines, sailors, and coast guardsmen across the island and on their ships. It immediately provided a welcomed morale boost to the men, who were fighting tooth and nail, inch by inch northward across the island in the darkest early days of the battle.

Shier, for leading the mountain assault, would earn the Navy Cross. Days after raising the flag on Suribachi, he was made commander of D Company 2/28th Marines and earned a Silver Star for combat gallantry the following month. He remained in the service after the war, earning a Bronze Star w/ “V” and a Purple Heart in Korea. During the Korean War he was a company commander in 3/5th Marines during the battle where the 1st Marine Division earned their nickname the “Frozen Chosin.” He retired as a lieutenant colonel in 1957 and died in 1971 at age 57.

Shortly after the flag had been raised, Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, had landed on the beach. Seeing the flag and the effect it had on the Marines around him he remarked, “The raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next five hundred years.” Witnessing history, he realized he wanted a souvenir and then ordered the flag to be brought down for him.

When word reached 2nd Battalion, Colonel Johnson said, “The hell with that!” He felt the flag belonged to his battalion and wanted to secure it before it could become a war trophy of the SecNav. He had one of his lieutenants go down to the beach to procure a larger flag to replace the original.

Meanwhile, Johnson had Severance and his men run telephone wire up the mountain from the command post. When the Marines arrived there, the lieutenant had returned with a flag twice as large as the one atop Suribachi (96×54 inches vs 54×28 inches). Johnson ordered the Marines to raise the new flag and to relay the order to Lieutenant Shrier to “save the small flag for me.”

Once atop the hill, the Marines raised the larger flag. It was this second flag raising which was iconically captured on film by war correspondent Joe Rosenthal. The picture would appear in newspapers across the US (along with radio interviews of some of Schrier’s Marines) within two days. It would go on to be one of the most instantly recognizable photographs of the 20th Century. The symbolism of the flag raising has been seen on postage stamps, murals, magazine covers, and in statues in the ensuing decades with no sign of going out of fashion.

The original flag was soon secreted to Colonel Johnson who put it in the battalion’s safe.

Severance continued leading E Company. A week after the flag raising, on 1 March, he led his men on a difficult assault along a heavily defended ridge. Holding the position despite heavy enemy bombardment, Severance earned a Silver Star for his bravery during the action.

Lieutenant Colonel Johnson, 2/28th Marines’ battalion commander, was killed in action the next day by an enemy mortar while moving between his companies. He was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross for his bravery in action during the entirety of the Battle of Iwo Jima.

By 17 March, Severance was getting requests to identify the Marines in the flag raising photo. He ignored them because he was still in the thick of the battle for the island. Finally, on 26 March, Severance led what left of his company off the island.

Through the month-long Battle of Iwo Jima a total of 310 Marines and Navy corpsmen served with Easy Company. Severance led only 40 men off that island physically unscathed. They had suffered an 84% casualty rate. He’d started the battle with six officers and 240 men. At the end, none of the officers were still with him. Shrier had been transferred to command a company, the others were killed or wounded and evacuated.

The Navy corpsmen of E Company had it the worst. They landed with seven, all of them were killed in action. They were replaced by seven more. All of those men too were killed tending to the large number of casualties. Severance called for more corpsmen and all the command could provide were two ambulance drivers. They too were fatally wounded valiantly doing what they could to aid the dead and dying.

Returned to Camp Tarawa, 2/28 Marines were preparing replacement personnel for the Invasion of Japan, but the war ended before that became necessary.

Severance elected to remain in the Marines after the war. What is a combat decorated officer and former Paramarine going to do to up his war game? Become an aviator naturally. He completed flight training in April 1946.

During the Korean war, Severance, flying fighter aircraft, completed 69 combat sorties. He earned a Distinguished Flying Cross for heroism and extraordinary achievement against the enemy. He also received four Air Medals.

Promoted to colonel in 1962, when he retired in 1968 he was assistant director of personnel at Marine headquarters.

In the 1980’s, Severance began to contact and organize his men once again, organizing reunions of surviving E Company Marines. In the 90’s he gave interviews to James Bradley, author of “Flags of Our Fathers.” Bradley’s father was an E Company corpsman who earned the Navy Cross on Iwo Jima (on Severance’s recommendation). John Bradley was identified as one of the men in Rosenthal’s photo, but this has been called into question with recent analysis of the photo(s). When Clint Eastwood turned the book into a movie in 2006, Colonel Severance worked on the production as a consultant.

The NY Times reported this on the occasion of Severance’s death this week;

In a February 2021 interview with Coffee or Die, Colonel Severance said that from the perspective of the battlefield, he had not realized what an emotional chord the second flag-raising would strike back home. It took Hollywood and John Wayne to do that for him.

“It wasn’t until 1949, when the ‘The Sands of Iwo Jima’ came out — I realized the impact that moment and battle had on the nation,” he said.

When Colonel Severance celebrated his 100th birthday, the Marine Corps commandant, Gen. Robert Neller, sent him a letter stating, “You played a crucial role in shaping the warrior ethos of our Corps.”

On that occasion, Colonel Severance took a wry look back on his career in an interview with the newspaper La Jolla Light.

Asked how he would like to be remembered, he said, “I never thought about it,” then added, “Just that I was a Marine for 30 years and I never ended up in jail.”

Colonel Severance leaves behind two daughters, two sons, several grandchildren and great grandchildren, and a most gracious nation.

At a time when it’s so in vogue for our sports stars, celebrities, and even sitting politicians to speak the ills of America and to specifically denigrate our flag, it’s worth remembering the sacrifices of men like Severance, Shrier, and Johnson and Marines, sailors, coasties, and airmen who died or were wounded there. The battle involved some 110,000 Americans and saw more than 6,800 killed and more than 19,000 men wounded. It was and remains the US Marines’ bloodiest battle.

The Marines fought against roughly 21,000 Japanese, of which 18,000 died and 3,000 went into hiding. The Japanese, characteristically, fought to the death and only 216 were captured. As with most other battles, most of those captured were only captured because they’d been wounded so severely they were unconscious, but alive, when they were overrun by the Americans.

The powerful image that one flag, hoisted above a barren volcanic rock, had for the tens of thousands of American men fighting on and near Iwo Jima. The visage of that flag being raised rippled across the world and through time. Proving Francis Scott Key’s poem that that Star Spangled Banner serves as a shining beacon of freedom and bravery. “O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave. O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

Category: Historical, Marines, Real Soldiers, Silver Star, Valor, We Remember