JOHN BRADLEY (IWO JIMA)

'John "Jack" "Doc" Bradley' (July 10, 1923 — January 11, 1994) was a United States Navy corpsman during World War II, and one of the six men who took part in Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima. Accompanying him were SGT Michael Strank, CPL Harlon Block, PFC Ira Hayes, and PFC Franklin Sousley. About halfway up the mountain, they were joined by PFC Rene Gagnon, who had a larger flag on orders to place it so that it could be seen from great distance.

Contents

Early years

World War II

Awards

Navy Cross citation

Post-war life

References

Portrayal in film

External links

Early years

Born John Henry Bradley in Antigo, Wisconsin to James and Kathryn Bradley, he was the second of five children. He grew up in Appleton, Wisconsin, and reportedly had an interest in entering the funeral parlor business from an early age.

World War II

When he was 19, his father suggested he enlist in the Navy so he could avoid ground combat. However, the Navy chose him to become a medical corpsman and he was eventually assigned to the United States Marine Corps. As a Marine medical corpsmen, he took part in the assault on Iwo Jima, one of the most bitterly fought battles of the Pacific War's island-hopping campaign.
In March 1943, Bradley began his medical corpsman training and was initially stationed at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Oakland. He was then assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 28th Marines, of the 5th Marine Division, which was being formed at Camp Pendleton, California.
After participating in the famous flag-raising at Mt. Suribachi, John Bradley was awarded the Navy Cross for rushing to a wounded man's aid under heavy Japanese fire. A few days later, he received several shrapnel wounds in his legs, and was evacuated from the combat zone to a hospital in Hawaii.

Awards

Pharmacist's Mate Second Class Bradley was awarded the following decorations and awards:


★ Navy Cross

★ Purple Heart

★ Presidential Unit Citation with one star (for Iwo Jima)

★ American Campaign Medal

★ Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with one battle star (for Iwo Jima), and;

★ World War II Victory Medal

Navy Cross citation

Post-war life

Sgt Strank, Cpl Block, and Pfc Sousley were all killed in action later on in the battle. Only Bradley, Hayes and Gagnon survived the battle, and were brought back to the United States to tour the country for the seventh war bond drive. The bond drive helped lift morale back stateside.
Following his appearances at the last bond tour, John Bradley married his childhood sweetheart, Betty Van Gorp, settled down in Antigo, and had eight children. He rarely took part in ceremonies celebrating the flag raising, and by the 1960s avoided that altogether. He fulfilled his life-long dream by buying and managing his own funeral parlor, but was tormented by memories of the war; Betty says he wept in his sleep for several years and kept a large knife in a dresser drawer for "protection". He also had many flashbacks of his best war pal Iggy, who was captured and tortured by Japanese soldiers. Bradley never could forgive himself for not being there to try and save his best friend's life.^[1]

He rarely spoke of the raising of the flag, stating once that he "just happened to be there." His son James Bradley (who wrote a book about the flag-raisers in 2000 titled ''Flags of Our Fathers'') speculated that his father's determined silence and discomfort on the subject of his role in the Battle of Iwo Jima was largely due to memories of John's best friend, Ralph "Iggy" Ignatowski. In his own words, and only once, he briefly told his son what happened with "Iggy".
According to official reports, Ignatowski was captured, dragged into a tunnel by Japanese soldiers during the battle, and was later found with his eyes, ears, fingernails, and tongue removed, his teeth smashed, the back of his head caved in, multiple bayonet wounds to the abdomen, his arms broken, and his severed genitalia stuffed into his mouth. Bradley's recollections of discovering and taking care of Ignatowski's remains haunted him until his death, and he suffered for many years from Post-traumatic stress disorder.
John Bradley died of a stroke in an Antigo hospital on January 11, 1994, at the age of 70, the last of the six men to raise the second flag. He said more than once to his children that the only real heroes on Iwo Jima were those that did not survive. John Bradley's family had no idea he had received the Navy Cross until after his death.

References

1. Flags of Our Fathers, James Bradley (John Bradley's son) & Ron Powers, , , Bantam, 2000, ISBN 0-553-11133-7

Portrayal in film

★ Bradley portrayed himself in the 1949 war film, Sands of Iwo Jima. It starred John Wayne. The other two surviving flag-raisers also participated.

★ Bradley was played by Forrest Compton in the 1961 film ''The Outsider''.

★ Ryan Phillippe portrayed him in the 2006 film ''Flags of Our Fathers''.

External links

★ John Bradley's account of the Battle of Iwo Jima from the US Navy's oral history program

★ Flags of Our Fathers, James Bradley (John Bradley's son) & Ron Powers, , , Bantam, 2000, ISBN 0-553-11133-7 A history of the flagraisers