WWII Veteran Was At Iwo Jima

Eighty-nine year old Griff McMichael, a life long resident of Jasper County and Monticello, was one of seven boys and grew up in the Glades.

Mr. McMichael also served in the U.S. Army Anti Aircraft from 1942 through 1945. His division left Hawaii and he encountered his first action in the South Pacific, where he operated a M150 caliber machine gun.

From there his unit went directly to Iwo Jima. His observations of that time are as follows: “I saw that flag go up on Iwo Jima from aboard ship through binoculars. The Marines had already taken the beach when we went onshore and the beach was red with blood and bodies were floating everywhere. Some 6,000 Marines got killed in that battle.”

“The Battle of Iwo Jima took place from February 19 through March 26, 1945, and it was a battle in which the U.S. fought for and captured Iwo Jima from Japan.
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“The Japanese positions on the island were heavily fortified with vast bunkers, hidden artillery and 11 miles of underground tunnels. It was the first U.S. attack on the Japanese Home Islands, and the Imperial soldiers defended their positions tenaciously. Of the more than 18,000 Japanese soldiers present at the beginning of the battle, only 34 were taken prisoner. The rest were killed or were missing and assumed dead.”

The battle was immortalized by the photograph of the raising of the U.S. flag on top of Mount Suribachi by five Marines and one Navy Corpsman, the scene Mr. McMichael observed through his binoculars 60 years ago.

After the war Mr. McMichael returned to Jasper County, and said he was too poor to ever get out of it. He tried farming, drove a gas truck, worked at a sawmill, and on a dairy farm before he went to work at a cotton mill, from which he retired.

Today he still manages to take care of his yard and grows a vegetable garden.

Approximately 860 WWII veterans pass away every day, and as of February 2010, their median age was 86 years.