Rapid City Men Linked to Iwo Jima Invasion on February 19th
February 19th will commemorate the US amphibious assault on Iwo Jima in 1945, the costliest operation in Marine Corps history (19,938 casualties, 4,630 killed or missing).
Loyd Brandt (left), who lives in Rapid City with wife Joyce, was fighting on Iwo Jima’s Mt. Suribachi when the famous photo was taken. All in all, Brandt was involved in the Marine Corps invasions of Tinian, Saipan, and Okinawa, and several others. He was on 55 Pacific islands.
“On one reconnaissance landing in an Amtrak,” Loyd relates, “we found ourselves disoriented in the dark and smoke of what we thought was a lagoon, only to find ourselves floating directly under the thundering big guns of offshore Navy ships, frantically scooping water with our helmets to keep from sinking. We were deaf for days.” Reconnaissance often meant going ashore before the main invasion.
Six of the seven Brandt brothers from South Dakota served as Marines. Herbert was killed at Saipan. On June 15, 1944, Loyd landed at Saipan. Time passed, and the sounds of combat softened. “I went to the 24th Marines’ area to visit my brother, Herbert. I asked someone where he was and was told, ‘He was killed about a week ago, on the Fourth of July.’ He asked who I was.’”
Rapid School High School graduate (1942) and School of Mines student and Navy lieutenant Delbert Mont Gerlach was killed in action on Iwo Jima while spotting artillery for the Marines. Marine Jack First of First Gun Shop was on Iwo Jima too. Bombardier Les Snyder (Mines professor emeritus) was one of the first to land his shot-up and burning B-29 on the newly captured island.
More of their stories are collected on the Black Hills Veterans Writing Group website at battlestory.org. Loyd later lived in the “Electrician’s Shack” (now gone) on the Mines campus, where he would talk now and then to fellow Marine, athletic director Dud King, who was in the invasions of Tarawa and Saipan.
