Photos: 75th Anniversary of Iwo Jima
The Enterprise — Michael Koff
At the Home Front Café, Thomas Lemme, left, and Porter Bidleman, right, talk while, in the background, beneath a flag that was made by a prisoner of war, Darlene Stanton helps Thomas Smith to a seat. Smith who served in the 4th Marine Division, 2nd Battalion, was a runner on Iwo Jima and was 18 at the time. He worked between the lines at night. “The job was to listen,” he said. Smith was wounded three times and has two Purple Hearts. He saw the iconic flag-raising on Mount Suribachi twice. “The first one was a small flag; they sent to a ship to get a bigger one,” he said. “It was quite a thrill.”
The Enterprise — Michael Koff
Thomas Lemme talks with a younger Marine, Steve Garry, at Wednesday’s gathering about a book Garry has of World War II photographs taken by George Burns for Yank Magazine.
The Enterprise — Michael Koff
Salvatore Famularo wears both a poppy and a purple heart. Salvatore, with the 4th Marine Division on Iwo Jima, recalled earlier the moment he knew Mount Suribachi was conquered. “I was lying in a hole on my back with my rifle over my shoulder,” he said. “I started hearing all these horns from ships. I said, ‘What the hell is going on?’” Another Marine answered, “They just secured Mount Suribachi.” As Famularo struggled to get up and take a look, he was told, “Pal, stay where you are or you’ll get picked off.”
The Enterprise — Michael Koff
Old warriors, new friends: Ambrose Anderson, left, of Gloversville, among the first African-American Marines awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, on Wednesday joined the regulars who meet at the Home Front Café. He talks with Thomas Lemme of Albany who spent 13 days in the front lines during the Battle of Iwo Jima without knowing most of his company — Company G, 2nd Battalion, 25th Marines — was killed. “I was always down in the foxhole,” Lemme said earlier. “You didn’t dare raise your head.”
The Enterprise — Michael Koff
Head to head: Dick Varone, left, from Troy talks with Altamont’s Porter Bidleman who served in the Navy during World War II. Varone said, when his priest talked about purgatory and hell, he would tell him, ‘I’ve already been there. I was at Iwo Jima.’ Varone was a forward observer with the Fifth Division of Marines. “They’d send me up to the front. I was a radioman. When a machine-gun nest held us up, I would radio back so the flame-throwers could burn them out.”
The Enterprise — Michael Koff
At the head of the table sits Cindy Pollard, owner with her husband, of the Home Front Café in Altamont, which she designed to be reminiscent of her mother’s kitchen during World War II. Pollard has welcomed veterans over the years and on Wednesday hosted a gathering of Marines who fought at Iwo Jima and were commemorating the 75th anniversary of that bloody battle.