All photos are courtesy of Jack Ball, and are used by permission. Images have been scaled, please click to open at full size.
Sandy at New River, February 12 1943. He is performing maintenance on a Browning M1919 .30 caliber machine gun.
Members of Sandy's platoon in the field.
Thomas M. Harris, Robert DeNunzio, and Sandy Ball on a Higgins boat.(Thanks to Ronald, Thomas Harris' nephew, for the caption!)
Sandy and friends enjoying captured Japanese beer after the battle of Tinian. From left: Sandy, Sergeant Wilson Cook, Sergeant Charles Czerweic, Sergeant Michael Murray, PFC Giuseppe Giambone.Platoon Sergeant Murray was killed in action on Iwo Jima; he received a posthumous Navy Cross.
A lot of paperwork comes with the extra stripe and the pay raise. Corporal Ball displays an intimidating number of forms.
Sandy strikes a gunslinger pose at Camp Maui.
Sandy's squad before the battle of Iwo Jima.
The 24th Marines after the battle of Iwo Jima.
Sandy shows off a few souvenirs, including a sword and a flag. In addition, he brought home a Japanese rifle and a gold tooth which he had made into a watch fob.
Sandy (in football uniform) with "Iron Mike" Mervosh, Camp Maui.
4 comments:
Hi there! I am hoping that maybe you can help me or at least head me in the right direction. I just learned that my father was adopted and that his birth father Roland Jack Hulslander was part of the Able Company as a machine gunner sometime after the Tinian Campaign. He was wounded on Feb 26, 1945 and was evacuated and did not return to combat. He was rewarded the Purple Heart. My father is getting up there in age, now 74 and I would love to find out as much information as I can and even find some pictures to share with him. How would I or should I say where is a good place to find information about his military service? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. Jill R. Robinson-Campbell
Hello, Jill! Thank you for your comment!
Let me see what I can help you with.
The only service information I have on Private Roland Hulslander is basically what you read on my website. Based on some searching on ancestry.com, it looks like he was born in 1916, near Elmira, New York, and died in 1966. He was married to a woman named Adeline or Adelaide during the war; he listed his home address as 812 Otis Place, North West, District of Columbia. Looks like he remarried in 1952 to Mildred Faye Hoffman (she died in 2005).
Unfortunately, my records for the company are sparse between August 1944 and February 1945. I can tell you that Roland was probably part of a large draft of replacements assigned to the 24th Marines (part of the Fourth Marine Division) and likely joined at Camp Maui in September or October of 1944. His machine gun platoon would have been made up of about fifty percent new men, with the more experienced older hands leading squads and sections. (Older in the sense of battles fought; Roland was old for an enlisted Marine, most of his comrades would have been in their late teens or very early twenties.)
As for the nature of his wound, his company was pulled back into reserve the night before, so he might have been hit by a random artillery or mortar strike, or by a bypassed Japanese sniper. The company got clobbered in an assault the day before (23 casualties, including the commanding officer killed). It's a dead certainty that Roland was in heavy combat before being hit, and probably would have considered himself lucky - the company lost 148 of about 250 marines during the battle!
My recommendations for furthering your research are these:
1). Contact the USMC History Division at Quantico. Their website is here: http://www.tecom.usmc.mil/HD/
Since Roland was wounded, they will have a record of certain aspects of his service, such as his service number, date and nature of his wound, next of kin information, etcetera. They have fairly stringent requirements as to whom they will release information to, but the staff there is wonderfully helpful and tries their best to honor individual requests. They're your best bet.
2). As for pictures, I'm sorry to say that there's a very good chance that you might never find one of Roland himself. Once overseas, Marines were forbidden to own cameras, and while some ignored this rule, they were in the minority. Any personal photographs with Roland in them would probably have been in his possession when he died, and at best would have been passed down through his family. If you go to the main site, you can view some pictures of the company before Roland joined; he probably knew some of the men in them, since most of my pictures come from the machine gunners (my ancestor was commander of the weapons platoon before his death on Saipan), but unfortunately I do not know of any existing photos of Roland in the service. I will keep my eyes and ears open and let you know if I come across anything, but please know that it would be a long shot. However, we can hope!
3). You might be interested in general histories of the Iwo Jima campaign that will give you an idea of the hardships that Roland faced. Bill Ross' "Iwo Jima" is a classic history; John Shivley wrote an account called "The Last Lieutenant" about a platoon leader in the same regiment as Roland; Larry Smith's "Iwo Jima" contains interviews with veterans, including several from Roland's battalion; Henry Berry's "Semper Fi Mac" contains and interview with Irving Schechter, the commanding officer of Able Company; and Eric Hammel has been publishing a phenomenal collection of photographic histories of the Marines which you may find interesting.
I hope this helps! Please let me know at webmaster@ablecompany24.com
- geoff
In the photo of Sandy on board ship, I have that same photo. It is Robert Denunzio in the center and my uncle, Thomas (Melvin) Harris on the left. Melvin wrote on the back of the photo: Robert Denunzio, Sandy Ball and me on a Higgins Boat.
Ronald - thanks for the information!
Please email me at webmaster@ablecompany24.com.
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