POST #22-37
Day Twenty-Seven...Leaving Iwo Jima, 18 March, 1945..
Mikey's Dads 100th Birthday Was on 2-22-2022...
This will be the last post following Dad and the 24th Marines, Baker company in the battle of IWO JIMA...
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| Day Twenty-Seven...Departure |
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On 2-22-2022 Mikey's Dad, Willard W. Wemple would have been 100 years old. We have followed Dad's time in the First Battalion, 24th Marines, Baker company, from February 19th to his departure on March 18th, 1945. We will be finishing this series with this post...
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On this day, 18 March 1945...Dad and the 1-24 Marines moved down from their last overnight post at Hill 382, down to the beach to prepare for departure from Iwo Jima. This group of Marines, a mix of men from the companies of the 1-24 gathered for one last photo before they boarded the ships for departure....
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18 March, 1945...Dad Circled
Inset of Dad from the photo...
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Dad and the rest of the 1-24th Marines boarded the USS Pickaway....
And departed Iwo Jima for good on March 20, 1945 for Pearl Harbor, Hawaii...Arriving there on April 5th, 1945. As
the Marines began to leave Iwo, many felt these emotions...
"I stood on the
rail of the ship as it pulled out. As we left I thought of my friends that had
fallen and were buried there. I felt like we were leaving them back there
alone, that we were deserting them. We are Marines, fighting men, that are
supposed to be hard, with no feelings, but we have them. We talk of our fallen
buddies as though they were transferred - we sound indifferent, but when we are
alone we would cry. A buddy is something precious, and to lose that buddy is a
hard blow."Dad (Willard W. Wemple) returned on the USS Pickaway to Maui with the 4th Marine
Division and settled into a tent at Camp Maui as a permanent and fully accepted
member of Baker Company. He was promoted to Private First Class on 23 April
1945, and kept his role as a squad BARman. The division continued training
through the summer, anticipating an invasion of the Japanese home islands, but
the war came to an end due to the dropping of the two atomic bombs on Japan before they saw further combat.
While on Maui, Dad posed for a few pictures with some 1-24 guys that he served with on Iwo...
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| Willard Wemple, Robert Gabourie, Levon Kinsey, Robert White and Chester McCoy |
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| Robert White and Willard Wemple |
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| Willard Wemple and Robert Gabourie |
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| Robert White, Robert Gabourie, Willard Wemple and George Werre |
Insets and info from the photos...
George E. Werre - Tappan, North Dakota
Robert K. “Chick” Gabourie - Escanaba, Michigan
Chester McCoy is still living and we have been in contact with him through his son, also Chester....
As 1-24 Marines rotated back to the United States for
discharge, newer men like Dad (Willard Wemple) were reassigned to garrison and
service posts. Many Baker Company veterans wound up with the 6th Service Depot
at Oahu for a few weeks or months; Dad enjoyed a period of relatively easy
duty with the depot’s ordnance company before receiving orders to return to
California. He was honorably discharged on 9 March 1946.
After the war, Dad used his GI Bill to enroll at the
newly-founded Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara.
Willard pursued his new career with
passion, learning to repair cameras in Connecticut and landing a job at
Prestwoods Photo Shop in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
He rented a room from Samuel
and Edith Harvey...and their daughter, Naomi...
Naomi was quite taken with the “handsome
young Montana Man” and the two struck up a relationship. Although Willard moved
back to Montana, they kept up a correspondence – and he proposed by mail.
Willard and Naomi married in September, 1952...
The Wemples settled in Billings and raised three sons...
And the marriage lasted the rest of their lives...
Willard
continued to work in photography and engraving until 1977, and then managed
rental properties for another fifteen years. An avid outdoorsman, he was fond
of fishing, camping, and hiking...
Willard was a fixture at auctions and garage sales
around Billings until his death in 2007...
This will be the end of the daily updates that followed Dad and the 1-24-B in the battle through logs and stories of the battle as told by a Military Historian and battle participants on the 1st Battallion-24th Marines Website...
Thank you for following along!
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