Veterans of Iwo Jima: Exhibit pays homage to USS Missoula, Louis Charlo
By KIM BRIGGEMAN of the Missoulian
Consider the things that make the USS Missoula worth remembering in its namesake county.
The attack transport ship was one of hundreds of military vessels off the shore of Iwo Jima in the South Pacific in February 1945.
A small American flag from the ship named after Missoula County was carried up Mount Suribachi and planted at the summit by a platoon of Marines on Feb. 23, 1945, four days after the attack on the Japanese-held isle began.
Charlie Crookshanks, Tate Jones and Ty Robinson: front to back, recently look over a scale model of the USS Missoula that is part of a new exhibit at the Rocky Mountain Museum of Military History at Fort Missoula. The exhibit, which will be dedicated Saturday, memorializes the role that the ship played in the South Pacific battle for Iwo Jima during World War II.
Photo by TOM BAUER/Missoulian
It was the first invader's flag ever raised on Japanese territorial soil. And one of the men who raised it: Marine Pfc. Louis Charlo of Evaro, in Missoula County.
Charlo and other Marines from the 5th Division arrived on the ship called the USS Missoula. Six days later, he was killed on the island, one of nearly 7,000 Americans who died to secure the key air refueling base.
A group of men from the Rocky Mountain Museum of Military History at Fort Missoula agreed that such ties to the decisive World War II showdown needed to be memorialized in Missoula.
“It was Gen. Bo Foster's thought that we should do something,” said veteran Charlie Crookshanks. “He is heavily involved in the military museum, and it seemed a very appropriate thing to have in the museum.”
Years after the initial concept took root, and a year and a half after the USS Missoula Commemoration Committee launched a campaign to raise some $12,000 to fund it, the project has reached fruition.
At 2 p.m. Saturday, the museum at the west end of Fort Missoula will play host to the dedication of the USS Missoula model in an Armed Forces Day commemoration.
A 4-foot, 9-inch scale model of the ship, built in what Crookshanks described as “exquisite detail,” will be unveiled.
Among those on hand will be Charlo's brother, Victor, and Bill Worf. Victor Charlo is a poet, playwright and teacher who lives in Dixon. The Charlos were and are great-grandsons of Chief Charlo, head chief of the Bitterroot Salish from 1870 to 1910.
Worf, of Missoula, is a Marine veteran who fought on Iwo Jima at age 18. He joined in the cacophony of cheers and whistles from some 35,000 American troops when the flag went up. Ships offshore, presumably including the Missoula, sounded horns in celebration, little realizing that the battle had another month to fight.
The flag from the Missoula was replaced a few hours later by a larger one. It was the second raising, by a different set of Marines, that Joe Rosenthal captured in a photo that quickly became an icon for American conquest in the Pacific. It was the basis for James Bradley's book, “Flags of Our Fathers,” which in 2006 was made into a movie directed by Clint Eastwood.
The premiere of “Flags of Our Fathers” at the Wilma Theatre in Missoula in November 2006 marked the formal kickoff of the USS Missoula commemoration fundraising campaign.
The USS Missoula was one of more than 500 Victory ships built during World War II to replace vessels lost to German submarines. Some 117 Victory ships were Haskell-class attack transports like the Missoula, which could transport 1,475 troops and their combat equipment.
Built in less than three months in 1944 at the Richmond Shipyards near San Francisco, the Missoula left for Pearl Harbor on Dec. 6 of that year, arriving six days later.
Carrying units of the 5th Marine Division, it sailed for Iwo Jima on Jan. 27, 1945. According to the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, the Missoula carried all the men who participated in both flag raisings on Mount Suribachi.
The Missoula was nearly two miles offshore of the island when it began debarking troops for the initial assault early on the morning of Feb. 19. The ship was in the same transport area at 10:35 a.m. Feb. 23 when a message was received: “American flag now flying on Mount Suribachi Yama.”
Louis Charlo, a son of Mr. and Mrs. Antoine Charlo of Evaro, was 18 the day he climbed the 566-foot mountain. He'd enlisted in the Marines in November 1943 and left for boot camp the following month.
He'd been overseas roughly seven months at the time of his death.
The initial news account after Charlo was killed said he “shared with three other Marines the distinction of being the first Americans to scale Mount Surabachi.”
Charlo wrote his last letter home from the base of the mountain, the story reported.
A letter written by his platoon leader, Ray Whelan, in 2004, said Charlo was advancing in an area called the Meat Grinder on March 2 when a friend was hit.
“Chief went out to him and managed to get him on his shoulder and was well back to cover when he was hit by machine gun fire. They both were killed,” Whelan wrote to Charlo's cousin, Roger Shourds of Polson.
While at Iwo Jima, the USS Missoula and her four surgical teams provided medical facilities for casualties. They treated 59 men the first day of fighting alone.
The ship left for Saipan on Feb. 25, arriving three days later and dropping off its wounded Marines.
The USS Missoula continued to be a front-seat witness to the closing events of World War II.
It went to battle again at Okinawa and was in the Philippines when Japan ended hostilities in August 1945. The Missoula was anchored in a different part of Tokyo Bay when the Japanese formally surrendered on the battleship Missouri on Sept. 2.
The following month, the Missoula debarked troops for the occupation of Hiroshima, devastated by an atomic bomb in August. Then it jumped in to help transport the victorious troops home.
The Missoula made two such “Magic Carpet” runs, completing the second in San Francisco on March 5, 1946. It was decommissioned later that year and entered the Pacific Reserve Fleet at Mare Island, north of San Francisco.
It spent its final 29 years in the National Defense Reserve Fleet at Suisun Bay, Calif., before being scrapped in 1977.
Reporter Kim Briggeman can be reached at 523-5266 or at kbriggeman@missoulian.com
Dedication ceremony
A 4-foot, 9-inch USS Missoula model will be dedicated at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Rocky Mountain Museum of Military History at the west end of Fort Missoula. The ceremony honors the USS Missoula and Marine Pfc. Louis Charlo of Evaro for their roles in the battle for Iwo Jima during World War II. The dedication is free and open to the public. For more information, call 549-5346.
