WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.240 --> 00:00:05.519
Sixty Seconds of Service. This sixty
seconds of Service is presented by T Mobile.

2
00:00:05.639 --> 00:00:10.720
T Mobile offers exclusive discounts for veteran
and military families and are proud supporters

3
00:00:10.759 --> 00:00:14.599
of the National Defense Network. Visit
t mobile dot com to learn more about

4
00:00:14.599 --> 00:00:19.199
how they support our military community.
Near San Diego, California, Imperial Beach,

5
00:00:19.320 --> 00:00:23.000
veterans and active military personnel now have
a new way to help shape the

6
00:00:23.000 --> 00:00:27.399
way their city addresses issues affecting their
population. Earlier this month, the city

7
00:00:27.440 --> 00:00:32.359
Council approved the creation of the Veterans
and Military Affairs Committee and outlined its duties.

8
00:00:32.719 --> 00:00:36.840
We have a very vibrant and active
veteran and military community within our community,

9
00:00:36.880 --> 00:00:40.799
said Mayor Palomo Aguiar. I think
having this committee will help us just

10
00:00:40.840 --> 00:00:44.439
guide our work better. Aguiar,
whom voters elected as mayor last year,

11
00:00:44.759 --> 00:00:49.520
introduced the idea of establishing such a
committee after campaigning and hearing across the board

12
00:00:49.600 --> 00:00:52.759
there is a need for that.
The coastal city of about twenty six thousand

13
00:00:52.799 --> 00:00:56.960
people is home to more than sixteen
hundred veterans. For more great veteran stories,

14
00:00:57.240 --> 00:01:14.280
just go to National Defense Network dot
com. Welcome to Veterans Chronicles I'm

15
00:01:14.359 --> 00:01:19.319
Greg Corumbus. Our guest in this
edition is John de Gennaro. He is

16
00:01:19.359 --> 00:01:23.680
a US Marine Corps veteran of World
War II. He served in the Pacific

17
00:01:23.760 --> 00:01:27.920
Theater and at the critical Battle of
iwo Jima. John de Gennaro was born

18
00:01:27.920 --> 00:01:34.040
in Pennsylvania in nineteen twenty six,
and to put it mildly, it was

19
00:01:34.079 --> 00:01:37.200
a full house I was. I
was born and raised in a little town

20
00:01:37.319 --> 00:01:44.319
called Yulitzen. It's about eight miles
from Altoona. My family, we had

21
00:01:44.359 --> 00:01:49.079
brothers and sisters. We have a
family of thirteen. The Great Depression consumed

22
00:01:49.079 --> 00:01:52.640
the nation for most of the nineteen
thirties, but by the end of the

23
00:01:52.680 --> 00:01:57.519
decade, a World war was quickly
emerging. Brutal Japanese aggression against its neighbors

24
00:01:57.959 --> 00:02:04.040
was followed by the German Blitzkrieg throughout
Europe. De Gennaro was fifteen years old

25
00:02:04.040 --> 00:02:08.159
in December of nineteen forty one when
the Japanese attacked the US Pacific fleet at

26
00:02:08.199 --> 00:02:14.120
Pearl Harbor. He remembers spending that
day like so many other kids, when

27
00:02:14.120 --> 00:02:17.599
the shocking news of the attack reached
him in Pennsylvania. Well, I remember

28
00:02:20.439 --> 00:02:24.639
we were playing in a playground,
and these folks come out and they called

29
00:02:24.759 --> 00:02:29.840
us in the house and say,
hey, it says we've just been bombed

30
00:02:29.840 --> 00:02:36.120
by Japanese and wow. Of course
I was only very young at that time,

31
00:02:36.439 --> 00:02:39.520
you know, nine forty one.
Being just fifteen, de Gennaro could

32
00:02:39.560 --> 00:02:45.560
not join the military right away,
but once he turned seventeen and nineteen forty

33
00:02:45.599 --> 00:02:50.439
three he joined the US Marine Corps. Then it was off to basic training.

34
00:02:51.240 --> 00:02:55.080
De Gennaro says his active lifestyle as
a civilian paid off for him in

35
00:02:55.159 --> 00:02:59.759
boot camp. Well, of course, you know, I was pretty active

36
00:03:00.400 --> 00:03:04.199
in civil life because I did a
lot of uh actually, you know,

37
00:03:04.439 --> 00:03:08.199
athletic. I was pretty well athletic. And when I got into basic training,

38
00:03:08.240 --> 00:03:15.360
well I was pretty well in conditioned. It was mostly calisthetics and uh

39
00:03:15.680 --> 00:03:21.159
marching with a full pack so forth, like that Malcom ship. Yeah,

40
00:03:21.400 --> 00:03:25.360
at the at the range, I
became a marksman. After basic training and

41
00:03:25.439 --> 00:03:31.199
becoming a marksman, Dejenia was off
to Quantico, Virginia to receive more specific

42
00:03:31.240 --> 00:03:38.240
training in the emerging field of sound
ranging. We were signed to Quantico and

43
00:03:38.280 --> 00:03:46.560
that was a school of sound ranging. Okay, it was called Dodart that

44
00:03:46.680 --> 00:03:53.599
time, and of course involved in
UH schooling, you had to learn UH

45
00:03:54.159 --> 00:04:01.080
trigonometry, and of course then we
had all occasions we went on bivouac and

46
00:04:01.199 --> 00:04:10.520
practice and the whole purpose was was
to sound ranging, was to find locate

47
00:04:10.599 --> 00:04:15.840
hidden enemy Autori paties, and that's
what we did of their new Regina.

48
00:04:15.439 --> 00:04:20.319
Training kept him stateside for months,
but before too long it was time to

49
00:04:20.399 --> 00:04:25.360
fight, and as a marine,
that meant he was off to the Pacific.

50
00:04:26.079 --> 00:04:30.160
By then, the US was making
great strides and the island hopping campaign

51
00:04:30.319 --> 00:04:34.120
against the Japanese, so De Gennaro
would first see action in the fight for

52
00:04:34.199 --> 00:04:40.519
Ewo Jima, starting in February nineteen
forty five. His job was to use

53
00:04:40.560 --> 00:04:46.240
sound ranging to locate and help eliminate
Japanese artillery. But before any of that

54
00:04:46.319 --> 00:04:50.399
could happen, de Gennaro and his
teammates needed to get ashore. After finally

55
00:04:50.480 --> 00:04:55.360
getting onto the Black Sand beaches,
de Gennaro and his men were ordered to

56
00:04:55.480 --> 00:04:59.560
hunker down on the beach for the
night. It was anything but RESTful.

57
00:05:00.319 --> 00:05:05.959
Japanese attacks made the night deafening deadly, and Dejanio says he was fortunate to

58
00:05:06.000 --> 00:05:11.480
survive. My show bought. She
wasn't too far from us, and they

59
00:05:11.600 --> 00:05:17.680
was they were firing moators down on
the beach, and I didn't actually realize

60
00:05:17.720 --> 00:05:21.240
that we were so close to a
Nammo dump at that time. And finally

61
00:05:23.040 --> 00:05:27.439
the motor start came down and hit
hit the AMMO dump, and all the

62
00:05:28.000 --> 00:05:32.600
one of five howitzers, the shelves, the seventy five, the thirty thirty

63
00:05:32.680 --> 00:05:40.240
calves exploded and they came up on
top, clean above above us upon the

64
00:05:40.279 --> 00:05:45.519
beach and burst it, and all
the sand came down, came down on

65
00:05:45.639 --> 00:05:49.160
me and my buddy was there.
Of course, we were in the fox

66
00:05:49.160 --> 00:05:53.800
all that time, and all the
sand came down on me, and he

67
00:05:54.680 --> 00:05:59.560
had a shovel he thought shoving me
out. Of course, he got out

68
00:05:59.560 --> 00:06:02.519
of himself, and we were very
very fortunate to be get out of there

69
00:06:02.519 --> 00:06:11.920
alive. And then the next day
the patrol came up and they said some

70
00:06:12.000 --> 00:06:17.480
of the shelves went down floors fifteen
to eighty yards along the beach, really

71
00:06:17.600 --> 00:06:23.319
injured a lot of marange and killed
a lot of range from that particular instant.

72
00:06:24.680 --> 00:06:28.920
And while that a move was going
on, we had two marines actually

73
00:06:29.120 --> 00:06:34.160
cling enough with a fire trying to
put the farm down. So one of

74
00:06:34.199 --> 00:06:40.399
them didn't make it, and of
course the other one he finally got it

75
00:06:40.399 --> 00:06:44.839
put out. The fight for Iwo
Jima was far longer and much costlier than

76
00:06:44.879 --> 00:06:48.800
any of the American commanders could have
imagined. But early on Degennaro and so

77
00:06:48.920 --> 00:06:55.480
many other marines received a massive dose
of inspiration when their fellow marines took Mount

78
00:06:55.519 --> 00:07:00.879
Surabachi and raised the American flag above
it, and John dj Narrow had a

79
00:07:00.920 --> 00:07:08.120
perfect view of it. This marine
had a tripod with a telescope. He

80
00:07:08.279 --> 00:07:10.480
hollered at me, hey, marine, come on down. He says,

81
00:07:10.519 --> 00:07:14.560
you want to see history made us? So I went. So I went

82
00:07:14.639 --> 00:07:16.480
down. He says, come on, look through that telescope. I looked

83
00:07:16.560 --> 00:07:21.079
up there. By God, there
he was. The first time he was

84
00:07:21.680 --> 00:07:27.000
the first time I saw the flight
being raised. And then, of course,

85
00:07:27.079 --> 00:07:29.519
you know, they raised it a
second time. They went down to

86
00:07:29.600 --> 00:07:33.519
the ship and got a much larger
flag to be brought up to be placed

87
00:07:33.560 --> 00:07:38.480
up there. For more than a
month, the battle on Ewo Jima raged,

88
00:07:39.000 --> 00:07:45.199
and finding and eliminating Japanese artillery became
a critical priority. Dejennaro now takes

89
00:07:45.279 --> 00:07:50.600
us inside that work and the many
different calculations they conducted to determine exactly where

90
00:07:50.600 --> 00:07:57.040
they needed to strike every time the
Eneview would fire. We went prior to

91
00:07:57.160 --> 00:08:00.720
that though, we had to check
out the microphones, so we had to

92
00:08:01.319 --> 00:08:05.120
we had to put a canvas cover
around the microphone that's covered with dirt and

93
00:08:05.120 --> 00:08:13.439
they'll be clapped our hands and of
course the needles at our base would move

94
00:08:13.160 --> 00:08:20.680
because we're picking up sound. Any
sound was very delicate because it's so during

95
00:08:20.720 --> 00:08:28.519
the process of all that. Whenever
the whenever the Japanese father their weapons or

96
00:08:28.600 --> 00:08:31.840
the microphones will pick the sound on
them. Okay, it would come down

97
00:08:31.879 --> 00:08:41.039
to the wires intometer it would register
and course we have positive signs and minussigns,

98
00:08:41.120 --> 00:08:46.000
and how we determined where that position
was. Of course, prior to

99
00:08:46.120 --> 00:08:52.399
that, we had a map with
O Hooi Reguma and we had colaw business

100
00:08:52.519 --> 00:08:58.600
on each end of the allan.
When we had set the the authility pieces,

101
00:08:58.679 --> 00:09:03.000
we make sure that they were in
a grid, knowing what the cordons

102
00:09:03.039 --> 00:09:05.320
were, and we knew where the
cordons were at the other end of the

103
00:09:05.360 --> 00:09:13.000
allen, somewhere in that area where
the Jets had their artillery. That's the

104
00:09:13.720 --> 00:09:18.440
only way we could tell, oh, well they were by the Cordin's So

105
00:09:18.519 --> 00:09:24.840
anyway, when they fired, the
sound comes into the microphones, it comes

106
00:09:24.879 --> 00:09:30.000
into our command posts. Of course, like I said before, we would

107
00:09:30.039 --> 00:09:35.320
get a we get a series of
plus readings and series of minstreams. So

108
00:09:37.240 --> 00:09:41.600
the more plus reasons we got,
the more accurate accuracy we was getting to

109
00:09:41.679 --> 00:09:46.600
the to the position. All of
that work was done to pinpoint the enemy

110
00:09:46.720 --> 00:09:52.080
artillery positions. Then it was time
to collaborate with American artillery to fire on

111
00:09:52.200 --> 00:09:56.919
those positions, and they got good
at it, really good, so good

112
00:09:58.120 --> 00:10:03.960
that Dejonnaro's unit was recognized for the
effectiveness of their work in neutralizing the enemy.

113
00:10:03.279 --> 00:10:07.279
So after we get all that data, of course we had a log

114
00:10:07.320 --> 00:10:13.200
walk. We knew exactly between one
hundred to two hundred that the plus rds

115
00:10:13.720 --> 00:10:22.360
was in range, so we had
to calculate the elevation, the range and

116
00:10:22.399 --> 00:10:30.600
a distance for the artillery. So
they set the things on our eyepiece,

117
00:10:31.360 --> 00:10:37.159
and then we had a fourth verine
and a fifth division they had to do

118
00:10:37.240 --> 00:10:41.279
the same operation. So that night, at nine o'clock at night, we

119
00:10:41.320 --> 00:10:46.600
had an artillery branch, so they
all fired at one time with all this

120
00:10:46.840 --> 00:10:54.559
data we gave them okay, and
they fired for about one hour solid.

121
00:10:54.639 --> 00:11:01.039
The next day we had a foos
or and they knocked out a lot of

122
00:11:01.120 --> 00:11:07.679
artilleries. At the end of the
campaign, which is about thirty some days,

123
00:11:07.360 --> 00:11:15.759
they knocked out fifty Japanese artilleries and
we got a presidential citation on that.

124
00:11:16.480 --> 00:11:22.679
We had two instruments with in operations
and we had two follows offered.

125
00:11:22.759 --> 00:11:28.200
I was one of the operators,
and I make sure that the posts were

126
00:11:28.200 --> 00:11:33.759
secured. But during that time,
because you know, we have some filtrations

127
00:11:33.879 --> 00:11:39.639
from the enemy, sometimes they convenion, you know, and if they see

128
00:11:39.720 --> 00:11:43.480
something like that, they were tearing
up. You know what. Luckily they

129
00:11:43.480 --> 00:11:48.799
didn't come around that close. In
thirty six days of fighting at Iwo Jima,

130
00:11:48.200 --> 00:11:54.960
the US suffered nearly seven thousand killed
and roughly twenty thousand other casualties.

131
00:11:54.879 --> 00:12:00.799
The island had been one, but
at a very high cost. At that

132
00:12:00.879 --> 00:12:05.399
point, the Marines thought even tougher
fighting was ahead in attacking Japan itself.

133
00:12:05.360 --> 00:12:11.200
Two atomic bombs in August of nineteen
forty five convinced the Japanese to surrender and

134
00:12:11.279 --> 00:12:16.399
a land invasion would not be necessary. That news came as a relief to

135
00:12:16.440 --> 00:12:22.600
Degennario and many other Marines. In
reflecting upon the plans that would have been

136
00:12:22.639 --> 00:12:26.559
followed if Japan had not surrendered,
Degennaro says the toll in American lives,

137
00:12:28.080 --> 00:12:31.919
in particular his unit, would have
been horrifying if we had to evade Japan.

138
00:12:33.519 --> 00:12:39.960
We divaded Fatiable anyway, they told
us that we had to go through

139
00:12:39.960 --> 00:12:46.799
this canal to get into Satiable,
and if we had to invade that they

140
00:12:46.840 --> 00:12:50.919
had artillery on each side of the
channel. We would have never made it

141
00:12:50.960 --> 00:12:56.000
through that channel. I think our
whole division would have been wiped out really

142
00:12:56.840 --> 00:13:03.519
if we had to go there.
So we were very fortunate that the war

143
00:13:03.679 --> 00:13:07.200
was over. Instead of a bloody
and protracted ground campaign, the Marines and

144
00:13:07.320 --> 00:13:15.080
other US service members found themselves on
occupation duty in Japan. Dejanio remembers having

145
00:13:15.200 --> 00:13:20.399
pretty basic duties and getting along well
with the Japanese people, but several months

146
00:13:20.440 --> 00:13:24.720
later he got the assignment that he
and everyone else wanted most going home.

147
00:13:26.440 --> 00:13:31.240
Well, when we got there,
they're very they were very friendly, and

148
00:13:31.879 --> 00:13:37.919
we couldn't drink their water or food
because we had to carry purification tables for

149
00:13:37.919 --> 00:13:41.480
our water just in case, you
know, we had to have water,

150
00:13:41.759 --> 00:13:48.559
and we had to go through an
area where we had to disarm uh some

151
00:13:48.759 --> 00:13:56.559
Japanese troops all their weapons, rifles
and all that stuff like that. We

152
00:13:56.600 --> 00:14:03.559
got there in November and then of
course you know they had points. Didn't

153
00:14:03.600 --> 00:14:09.240
have forty points in discharged and I
had that many. We packed up,

154
00:14:09.559 --> 00:14:18.200
we we boarded the boat. We
went to back to Camp Pendleton, and

155
00:14:18.240 --> 00:14:22.879
then from there we took a train
all the way into Great Lakes, Michigan.

156
00:14:22.960 --> 00:14:28.159
That's where we were discharged. I
remember it was on April the sixth.

157
00:14:28.159 --> 00:14:33.919
We were in nineteen forty six.
We were discharged. Dejannara was enthusiastically

158
00:14:33.039 --> 00:14:37.320
welcomed back home, but he did
bring some vestiges of the war back with

159
00:14:37.440 --> 00:14:43.039
him, one in particular that his
brother couldn't wait to use. My dad

160
00:14:43.159 --> 00:14:48.399
brother came to the railway station and
picked me up. Of course I had

161
00:14:48.440 --> 00:14:56.639
to carry a part of the sea
bag, and of course we all picked

162
00:14:56.720 --> 00:15:03.159
up a Japanese thirty one thirty one
rifle. So in order to ship we

163
00:15:03.200 --> 00:15:09.799
had a territor apart, it screw
apart. We had a shipping back and

164
00:15:09.200 --> 00:15:16.519
our seabacks went also. So we've
been by a couple of months after that

165
00:15:16.600 --> 00:15:20.960
we got off seabags and my wife
was intact. Later on, of course,

166
00:15:22.039 --> 00:15:26.279
you know, we had we had
to regiter to the courthouse. And

167
00:15:26.320 --> 00:15:28.919
then of course my brother he was
he was a hunter. He said,

168
00:15:28.919 --> 00:15:33.919
hey, I like to use that
for hunting seasons. So he why not

169
00:15:33.080 --> 00:15:37.919
use a hunting season. That's John
de Gennaro, a decorated US Marine Corps

170
00:15:39.000 --> 00:15:43.799
veteran of World War Two and the
Battle of iwo Jima. Upon returning home

171
00:15:43.799 --> 00:15:46.919
in the spring of nineteen forty six, de Gennaro worked as a surveyor for

172
00:15:48.000 --> 00:15:52.480
the city of Altoona, Pennsylvania,
for the next forty four years. About

173
00:15:52.519 --> 00:15:58.039
six months after this interview, mister
de Gennaro passed away at the age of

174
00:15:58.159 --> 00:16:03.919
ninety six. We were to meet
him and to share his story with generations

175
00:16:03.919 --> 00:16:18.799
to come. I'm Greg Corumbus and
this is Veterans Chronicles. Hi, this

176
00:16:18.919 --> 00:16:22.519
is Greg Corumbus, and thanks for
listening to Veterans Chronicles, a presentation of

177
00:16:22.559 --> 00:16:29.919
the American Veterans Center. For more
information, please visit American Veteranscenter dot org.

178
00:16:30.440 --> 00:16:33.399
You can also follow the American Veterans
Center on Facebook and on Twitter.

179
00:16:33.519 --> 00:16:41.080
We're at AVC Update Subscribe to the
American Veterans Center YouTube channel for full oral

180
00:16:41.159 --> 00:16:47.080
histories and special features, and of
course please subscribe to the Veterans Chronicles podcast

181
00:16:47.120 --> 00:16:51.600
wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks
again for listening, and please join us

182
00:16:51.639 --> 00:16:52.639
next time for Veterans Chronicles