Four amphibious assaults — and a Purple Heart

U.S. Marines raise the flag of victory after the Battle of Iwo Jima.

U.S. Marine James High at the end of WWII.

Private First Class James E. High was a World War II Marine who experienced some of the most horrific combat of the Second World War against the Japanese. His unit, the 4th Marine Division, carried out four major amphibious assaults, in the battles of Kwajalein (Roi-Namur), Saipan, Tinian and Iwo Jima. High was wounded in action on Iwo Jima just after he saw the raising of the first and smaller flag on Mount Suribachi. 

Iwo Jima was the only battle in the Pacific theater in which U.S. casualties (wounded and dead) outnumbered the Japanese casualties. He recovered at the San Diego Naval Hospital. He was then scheduled to return to his unit for the invasion of Japan, which was called off when the Japanese surrendered after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. High then quickly separated from the service. 

Jim High was my father. Dad passed away in 2009; however, his Purple Heart hangs in a place of honor in our living room. It was his example of military service that led me to join the peace-time Marine Corps in 1983. 

My father never talked about the combat he experienced. I once had a student complete a National History Day project on the Battle of Iwo Jima. I sent the student to another room at Gunnison Middle School to call my father. (This was before cell phones were common.) The student returned to me within a few minutes and explained that my dad — a tough Leadville retired Miner and the strongest man I’ve ever known — was sobbing uncontrollably and was unable to talk. So, I never learned about the details of the four battles he experienced, and I did not inquire again. However, my father often told the story of how he became a Marine. 

Dad was born in 1924 and grew up in the middle of the Great Depression in a small town just south of Florence, Colorado. He went to a two-room schoolhouse. My mom (Dorothy High) recalled that my father was the bad boy of the school, so he was asked to leave after 8th grade. However, he never learned to read. This was before intervention programs were introduced, so, according to both my mom and dad, nobody particularly cared that Jimmy was illiterate as long as he behaved himself (which was seldom, according to my mom). My dad then joined his father in a small business that transported supplies over the mountains to the mining camps in the Wet Mountain Valley. 

During the first few years of WWII, my dad and grandfather worked on construction in Leadville to help expand the Climax Molybdenum Mine for war production. It was here that my father learned the local draft board was about to call him in. 

In Dad’s words, “I’d rather ride than walk,” so he traveled to Denver to the armed forces processing station to volunteer for the U.S. Navy before he could be drafted for the U.S. Army. 

Remember that my dad was illiterate? According to him, he could not read the signs or the paperwork and somehow ended up in the Marine Corps. However, he slowly learned to read as his buddies took turns tutoring him on the long and slow transport voyages across the Pacific. Later, Dad learned to love reading, especially Western novels and the newspaper. 

Dad always ended this story by stating, “The only good thing that came out of that damned war was me learning to read!”