Dear
Editor,
In
late February each year, my mind reaches back to a little island in the far
Pacific called Iwo Jima and a man named Elmer Montgomery. A Bible-toting Maine
clerk. We first met on Guam in late 1944 during the final phases of that
campaign. I had been ordered to take over logistics for the third Marine
Division. We needed a clerk-typist. And, Sgt. Elmer Montgomery reported. Elmer
looked like the vindication of the whole Marine Corps personnel system. He wore
the stripes of a buck sergeant, but there was nothing tough or fierce about
this young Montanan. His sensitive face, deep-set eyes, thin, almost frail
figure hardly matched the gung-ho Marine prototype.
As
we began to work together, I became more and more convinced that Elmer was the
right man in the right job. He typed well, took shorthand, understood
administration, kept things moving. He was the perfect man behind the man
behind the gun. After Guam was secured, attention shifted to the invasion of
Iwo Jima. Work piled high and the hours were long in that little Quonset hut
office. But when Elmer did have a moment, I notice he would lean hi chair
against the wall and pull a small, white, leather covered Bible from his hip
pocket of his fatigues. Wherever the bible fell open in his hand, he would
begin to read and find serenity.
I
remember one evening when we were working late, Elmer’s glace fell on a stack
of books. “I see you have a copy of Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat,” he said. “It’s
one of my favorites.”
“What’s
your favorite verse?” I asked. “I sometimes think that never blows so red, the
rose as where some buried Caesar bled,” he responded. He had it perfect.
In
February 1945, we sailed for Iwo Jima. After day of fierce fighting, division
staff sections were ordered to provide replacements for badly mauled frontline
units. I had to provide two. It’s not a pleasant job to pick men trained in
support tasks for the “meat grinder”, but I selected the two I thought could
best be spared from my supply operation. I was about to send the names to the
adjutant when my XO popped into the dugout. Sgt. Montogomery wanted to see me.
The sergeant saluted and informed me he had heard about the call for
reinforcements. He explained that he wanted to go forward. I’ll never feel
right if I don’t go up when I’m needed, he said. “I’m needed now. I’m older
than most of these kids. I’ve had a lot of experience looking after myself
while hunting back home. I can look after them up forward.”
“All
right,” I said. “I’ll grant your request, but only because you’re old enough to
know what you’re doing and because it means so much to you.”
I
never saw Elmer again. A Marine from his front line unit told me the story: The
platoon commander had been killed and Elmer was assigned, under a staff
sergeant, as assistant platoon commander. The order came to attack. The patched
up platoon moved across a slight rise and into a small saucer-shaped area where
it was pinned down by a carefully camouflaged Japanese machine gun. If the men
tried to move back, the gun would get them. If they stayed, they would soon be
blasted apart my mortars. Elmer crawled and rolled within yelling distance of
the staff sergeant. “When I draw the fire,” Elmer shouted. “Roll the platoon
back over the rise.”
And
while the platoon commander was shouting “no”, Sgt. Montgomery stood up and
firing his rifle from his hip, walked into the machine gun. They never found
Elmer. A few minutes after his platoon reached safety our artillery laid down a
barrage on the machine gun emplacement. The big shells churned the ground and
everything on it mercilessly. He and his little white, leather covered Bible
became, forever, part of the hallowed ground of Iwo Jima. I suppose memories
fade and maybe Sgt. Montgomery’s Navy Cross is almost forgotten. But whenever I
think back to all the brave men I have been privileged to know, Elmer heads the
list. And whenever my eye falls on a copy of the Rubaiyet, I can’t help but
believe that if a rose were ever to bloom where Elmer fell, it would be redder
than any “where some buried Caesar bled.” Later a Knox-class frigate was named
after Elmer that heroic Marine.
Submitted
by Fred Collins
Iwo
Jima Survivor
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