The Giant Warrior on Iwo Jima

USMC Cpl. Vernon Waters was a Marine who everyone looked up to, literally and figuratively. By the time he reached Iwo Jima, with all the good cooking in the Corps, he stood 6’6” (he grew 1.5 inches between Boot Camp in 1943 and Iwo Jima in 1945) and weighed around 245 pounds, all muscle. He had hands that were bigger than most people’s heads. Moreover, he was a gentle giant and wise beyond his years—an authentic person. Everyone loved the man and wanted to be around him.

Waters grew up on a farm in Froid, Montana, and he came from a family of titans: his father, George Senior, stood around 6’10”; his brother, George Junior, stood 6’7” (he was a Marine in the 4th MarDiv who fought at the battles of Saipan and Tinian); and his other brother, Edgar, stood at 6’4”. Vernon’s mother Verna (Vernon’s namesake) was the runt of the family standing 5’10” (such a petite woman!).

Waters graduated from Froid High School in 1940, where he was an excellent student and the star athlete on the football, basketball and track teams. After graduation, he worked on the farm for awhile and then in a shipyard in Seattle as a welder until the middle of 1943, when he decided to enlist in the Marine Corps. After signing up, he kissed his sweetheart, Marceline Sorenson, goodbye and told her he would return to marry her. He then hugged his mother and left on a train for Marine Corps Depot, San Diego, where he would become a Leatherneck.

Waters wanted to be with the branch of the service that touted the phrase “first to fight,” and he wanted to give some “payback” to those who had attacked America. Due to his good-natured manners, his size and physical adroitness, his superiors loved him and he quickly obtained more and more responsibility. He seemed to always rise to the top of anything he did.

While stationed on Guadalcanal getting ready to liberate the island of Guam, due to his intelligence and leadership skills, he was selected to become a flamethrower operator and demolition expert. He learned how to spray flaming fuel into pillboxes by carrying and handling 100 pounds of flamethrower gear or blow them up with C-2 explosives by throwing satchels into embrasures or sticking wooden poles, called pole-charges, into their openings. In other words, when he and his comrades encountered an enemy position, he had learned how to either “burn it or blow it.”

During the battle for Guam, he engaged the enemy with rifles, grenades and flamethrowers and survived one of the largest “Banzai” attacks (this one was a large counterattack actually) of the Pacific War on 25 July 1944 when 5,000 screaming Japanese hit his battalion’s lines at midnight. His Charlie Company was almost obliterated, but he survived.

After the battle, he trained on Guam for the next battle—the exact location no one knew, but they all knew there was going to be another island to conquer. Eventually, in mid-February, Waters division loaded up on ships and headed north toward another Japanese-held island. Once at sea, they were told they were going to take Iwo Jima and briefed on the island’s defenses. They were told that the 3rd Marine Division, Waters’ outfit, would be held in reserve in case things got bad on the island. They were incorrectly told the island would probably fall into American hands within a week.

Waters’ ship anchored off the shore of Iwo Jima on 17 February and waited. On 19 February, the 4th and 5th Marine Divisions hit the beaches of Iwo Jima and attacked. The defense was so much more elaborate and expertly defended than American commanders thought possible that the Marine generals decided to put the 3rd Marine Division also on the island by 20 February. After only one day of battle, the Marines had got their noses so bloodied and had experienced such horrendous losses that higher command needed to put an entire new division on the lines (this was the first time something like this had happened in the Pacific War fighting the Japanese). Something was not right.

Eventually, Waters unit hit the beach on 21 February, and Waters slogged through the defenses of the Japanese burning them up with flamethrowers (100 pounds of gear always felt light as a feather to this mammoth of a man), with grenades and with C-2 explosives. When he did not want to use his flamethrower, he seemed to prefer to run around enemy positions throwing 12-pound satchel charges into bunkers, pillboxes and caves. All that military training, and years of being a star football and basketball player, were paying off for Waters as he navigated enemy defenses, killing dozens of Imperial Japanese Army personnel.

On 28 February, Waters really put his skills to the test when he encountered stiff resistance against a line of defense around the Second Airfield. Japanese bunkers held them up once again. There were two “mutually supporting pillboxes… ahead of the unit” and Waters volunteered to take them out with only a squad using small arms fire to support him, Waters worked his way across the expanse with satchel charges. He was a huge target standing probably 6’7” with his boots on, but in a remarkable feat of dexterity, he traversed 30 yards to reduce one structure by throwing explosives into it while receiving fire from the other pillbox, and then, undeterred, turned his attention to the remaining structure and blew it up as well. After taking out the second pillbox, Waters confronted a small Banzai of three armed Japanese emerging from a cave. Waters “coolly eliminated [them] with a hand grenade.” This Goliath threw a big “stone” at his small attackers and killed them. His official citation noted: “His heroic action undoubtedly saved the lives of many…and immeasurably contributed to the advance of his unit.” For his actions, Waters received the Silver Star (signed by USMC Lt. Gen. Roy S. Geiger).

A few days later, Waters’ luck ran out. On 3 March, Waters lined up with other now hardened veterans on a skirmish line and headed out in another attack. His best friend and fellow flamethrower, USMC Cpl. Joseph Anthony Rybakiewicz, was by his side. Although 5’10” and 170-pounds, “Rybak” looked like a midget next to his leviathan friend. According to Rybakiewicz’s testimony, the height of “Big Waters,” as they called him, became a liability, and, as they started to engage the enemy, Waters took a sniper bullet to the neck knocking him to the ground.

Rybakiewicz ran to Waters, got him into a secure area and tried to get the bleeding stopped. Waters was alive and struggling to breathe reaching up to his friend for help. Blood was spurting out of his neck so Rybakiewicz put his arm around Waters’ huge shoulders and neck and took his free fist and tried to press it with all his strength against the open jugular to stop the bleeding, but it was pointless. As Rybak sat there with his friend, Waters died in his arms. Rybak saw the life leave him as his eyes went cold. Covered in his best friends’ blood, Rybak started to cry while holding his dead friend, but then, with the sound of war ringing all around, Rybak snapped out of it, grabbed his rifle, and engaged the enemy. There was no time to mourn a dead comrade when the battle was in full force.

“Big Waters” was left on the battlefield for six days until they were able to retrieve his body on 9 March. Waters’ fellow Marines placed his bloated and horribly decayed body in an ash grave on Iwo. The bloody harvest of war continued. Waters would be one of 7,000 who would end their lives on this island during the 36-day-campaign. After the battle, Waters’ platoon leader, USMC Lt. Richard Tischler, wrote his mother Verna the following:

“It is with the deepest and heartfelt sympathy on behalf of your son’s comrades that I take this means of expressing their and my own personal condolences. There are few words that can be said to comfort you in your bereavement…Your son gave his all for the cause that is to ensure the future security and posterity of our nation and the world as a whole. His sacrifice and your’s [sic] will not have been in vain…under extreme enemy fire during several actions, he acquitted himself most gallantly…the memory of him will serve as an inspiration to those of us who remain to carry on.”

Soon after the notification, Mama Verna placed a Gold Star in the window of their home to denote to others they had sacrificed a son for the preservation of freedom. She had unwillingly become a “Gold Star Mother.” She told the family and Waters’ girlfriend (the daughter-in-law she almost had) of Waters death, put on a black dress and mourned. Another Marine had fallen to preserve the nation and the Corps, and another mother would never see her son again.

#WWII #WorldWarII #MarineCorps

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