Hero of the Pacific_ The Life of Marine Legend John Basilone - James Brady [100]
Did he die on the beach, on the approaches to the airfield, from a mortar round or gunfire? On this last question, the official USMC casualty report backs up neither the family biographies nor Colonel Alexander. No mortar explosion is cited. Basilone’s death in this report, drawn up on March 7, 1945, two weeks after he died, reads like this: “Nature of wound, GSW [gunshot wound], right groin, neck, and left arm.” Robert Aquilina of the Corps’ History Division reference branch in Quantico concludes that Manila John probably bled to death from these gunshots.
Marine casualties that first day ashore amounted to some 2,400 wounded and 501 killed, and Alexander reports in a small but very human sidebar that survivors of that deadly February 19 still remember how cold it was the first night after the landing, so unlike the tropical Pacific many of them knew from earlier fights.
Jerry Cutter, Basilone’s nephew, has his version of his uncle’s death, conflicting dramatically with his mother’s more detailed version. Here, probably no truer but less flowery and imaginary, is what Cutter and writer Jim Proser wrote: “Sergeant John Basilone was killed by an enemy mortar shell at approximately 10:45 a.m. February 19, 1945. He suffered massive abdominal wounds but lingered for approximately twenty minutes before succumbing from shock and loss of blood. Four Marines died from the same explosion. His last words were spoken to a Navy corpsman who attended to him following the explosion. That corpsman has vowed never to reveal those final words.”
So the two Cutters, mother and son, differ. In Jerry’s story, no final message to George, no last cigarette, no Lord’s Prayer, only twenty minutes of life, no three or more talkative hours, no peaceful look on his face. As to death by mortar shell or small-arms fire, Joe Alexander and the official casualty report are also at odds on that one specific item. There are other versions of his death as well. But it is the family versions that appear to stray furthest from the facts.
Clearly, they love the man, but trying to make a great warrior even better—a superman, an icon, conjuring up dialogue never spoken, prayers never prayed, inventing scenes that never happened, laying it on thick about feats of arms surely within Basilone’s competence, but which never happened—is no service to a great man.
The service record book on Gunnery Sergeant John Basilone, his dates of enlistment, promotions, duty stations, transfers, and the like, filed at Marine Corps Schools, Quantico, Virginia, ends with this simple entry on his death: “Killed in action, February 19, 1945, Buried in grave 41, row 3, plot 1, 5th Mar Div cemetery, Iwo Jima, Volcano Islands.” That’s all there is, no poetry, no flourishes, no heroics.
PART FIVE
COMING HOME
Gunnery Sergeant John Basilone, originally buried on Iwo Jima, was re-buried in 1948 at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors. Marine comrades are seen holding the American flag during services as members of the family look on. (Seated left to right) Basilone’s sister Phyllis (in light jacket); his mother, Dora; and his father, Salvatore.
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In the traditional Marine Corps protocol of death, the family must be officially notified before any media are contacted. Inadvertently, though quite properly, it was a Basilone clan member who first learned of John’s death on Iwo long before anyone at home got the news. George, John’s brother, whose Marine unit went ashore several days after the first waves, was approached by a sergeant assigned to seek him out with the bad tidings. The sergeant saw the name Basilone stenciled on a backpack, and according to Bruce Doorly’s account, called out, “George, I need to talk to you.” Alarms went off, since George had never seen this sergeant before. “How come you know