I was in the
Navy and in Japan on my first assignment. Being an architect
by schooling, I was in the Navy's Civil Engineer Corps. The
assignment in Japan was with the Officer in Charge of
Construction, Far East. As such, we had responsibility for
construction at naval bases in Japan and Okinawa. On got the
task to construct for the Coast Guard four Loran C stations
in Hokkaido, Marcus Island (Tori Shima), Iwo Jima and
Okinawa. The stations on Iwo and Marcus were to have 1,350
feet tall towers and the other two 650 feet towers. We
provided support to American contractors on Iwo and Marcus
via LST (landing ship tank -- the ships that are capable of
being beached and the ramp drops from the bow) and airlift
for weekly needs and emergency items. My job was to arrange
and coordinate all this. For the airlifts, we utilized
C-130's flying out of Tachikawa on the weekends. Limited to
weekend flying to use "desk jockeys", pilots having a desk
job but needing flight hours to maintain flight status ---
and collect flight pay.
Okay, I made
two trips to Marcus and at least one trip to Iwo, it might
have been two because fuel was available at Iwo. Marcus
Island is about the same distance from Tokyo that Iwo Jima
is and it is east of Iwo. The accident that I mentioned was
that the first built tower collapsed killing 4 workers. The
tower was designed and built by Western Windmill (WW) and
erected by Hardin Construction. After it had been up for a
short time, a connector between the cable guy and insulator
failed under metal fatigue. The insulator, about the size of
a luxury size car swung into the tower and hit it quite hard
about 500 feet up the tower. It did a hell of a job knocking
the tower out of plumb but it stood. A group of WW engineers
went to the island and investigated the conditions. They
arrived at a plan to make repairs. The first step was to
jumper around a diagonal, thought to be in tension, with
cable and turnbuckle, take the load onto the cable and then
remove the diagonal. (I bet you can tell where this story is
going.) The diagonal did not come loose neatly so it was hit
with a fairly heavy hammer. The diagonal was not is tension
but in compression, it popped out, the tower twisted and
came down upon itself, taking the four workers with it.
The guy wires
(about 2-1/2 inches in diameter) were buried about six
inches into the ground. The upper insulators were half
buried. Pieces of the tower pierced the concrete roofed
building at the base of the tower, roof and floor, like
toothpicks stuck through a matchbox. It was, to say the
least, a total mess.
You asked
about photos from that time. I have 5 or 6 slide tray boxes
of slides from 1961 to 1964 while in Japan. I just looked at
a few seeing if I could stumble upon some taken at Iwo and
Marcus. I must look more but sadly I am seeing that many are
now a reddish tint. Our slides from Thailand in the late
60's are in great shape. I think I know what is happening. I
know for a fact that all the photos taken in Thailand were
processed by Kodak, I used mailers to send to a lab. I think
the ones from early Japan were developed by a lab other than
Kodak or a Kodak lab in Tokyo. I must give these photos some
attention.
Charles Simon
Note:
To view images taken by the web master on World War II
Stories -- In Their Own Words during his year on Iwo Jima,
please click on the following link to my World War II
Stories Photo Album:
WW
II Stories: Iwo Jima Photo Album
1965-1966
Did YOU serve on Iwo Jima?
Did you
know that there is a group of veterans who have gotten
together to form an association of servicemen, no matter
what branch of service, who served at one time or another
starting at the invasion of the island on February 19, 1945
and continuing until the island was eventually returned to
the Japanese in 1968?
Iwo
Veterans Organization
We, at
the Iwo Jima Memoirs web site wish to
offer to Mr. Charles Simon our most profound THANK YOU for
his poignant story of his personal experiences -- during his
tour of Iwo Jima and especially for allowing us to share
those memories.
Original story transcribed on 13 March 2007
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Updated on 19 October 2007...1918:05
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