Published: May 26, 2009 01:56 pm      

True Survivor, Real American Hero

Jim Flanagan is what some would consider a true survivor and a real American hero, though he would never describe himself as such.

When Flanagan was little more than 16 years old, he signed up to go into the Marine Corps at 5 feet 7 inches, weighing 137 pounds, complete with a baby face that belied his age.

“It took two days to get to California by train,” said Flanagan. “I had to be careful because all I had was $2.”

Once he arrived in California it was time for basic training, where he crawled under live ammunition, perfected his already impressive shooting abilities and learned jujitsu, which is a collective name for Japanese martial art styles including unarmed and armed techniques.

“War is something that’s hard to explain,” he said. “The main thing they taught us was how to kill and how to keep from being killed.”

A while later — around midnight — an officer woke the Marines saying it was time to go. They grabbed their bags and guns and headed to the San Diego docks, where they boarded an old Dutch cargo ship, whose sleeping arrangements left something to be desired.

“It had chains holding up a wire cot,” said Flanagan of the sleeping conditions on the ship. “No mattress or anything. You couldn’t sleep down there anyway because it was so hot.”

Instead of staying in the sweltering heat, the Marines remained topside.

“We all stayed on top and fought each other to see who could get closer to the edge to throw up because after you ate, that’s what you wanted to do,” he said with a laugh. “A lot of people were seasick.”

Aside from the somewhat uncomfortable sleeping quarters and queasiness, the Marines were left in total darkness at night, as lights of any kind were strictly forbidden aboard the ship. Even below deck, even though there were no portholes for the light to escape.

One night the Marines on deck noticed a white steak go through the water.

“It was a torpedo,” he said. “Once we realized what it was, we spotted another one a little farther out. Those were the only two we saw. The sub never did come up and try to shoot us.”

The ship made it intact to its destination — the island of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands — August 9, 1942.

“We didn’t lose as many people in the landing as we thought we were going to,” said Flanagan. “We tried to find a hole to crawl into because we were expecting fire to break us all to pieces, but it didn’t until we got a little further in.”

Once they arrived on the beach, the Marines headed into the thickness of the jungle. Only seven would return home.

“There were mosquitos on top of mosquitos,” he said. “They like to carried me off, and everyone else too. A lot of the guys ended up getting malaria”

Mosquitos weren’t the only thing waiting to strike in the jungle.

“There was a Jap in every tree, behind every tree and in every bush,” said Flanagan.

The Guadalcanal Campaign, part of the Pacific Theater of World War II, was the first major offensive launched by Allied forces against the Empire of Japan.

Landings were initiated on the island with the objective of denying its use by the Japanese as a base to threaten supply routes between the U.S., Australia and New Zealand.

They also intended to use the island to support a campaign to capture or neutralize the major Japanese base at Rabaul on New Britain.

“We were told the one thing we had to do — they wanted it done and we were going to do it — was to take the airfield,” he said. “The island was 25 miles wide and 90 miles long and the airfield was probably a mile from the beach. We went around and moved them back from around the whole field because we knew the Seabees (the construction battalions of the U.S. Navy) were coming with all our equipment and were going to build a new airfield. The Japs kept trying to run us off, but they never could. They couldn’t say Marine, but they could say ‘Ma-lean.’ ‘Ma-lean, tonight you die. Tonight you die, Ma-lean.’ We’d answer them back, ‘I don’t think so.’”

They overwhelmed the Japanese defenders, who had occupied the island since May 1942, and captured the airfield — later named Henderson Field.

“They told us if we lost the airfield back to the Japanese that we would lose the war,” said Flanagan. “‘You’re not going to lose this airfield, period,’ they said. ‘Whatever happens, we’re going to keep it.’”

It was a brutal campaign even though the Marines outnumbered the Japanese defenders and were better trained in the art of war.

“We were better trained than the Japanese, by far,” he said. “They thought the more they had, it didn’t make any difference, you couldn’t kill them all. They would keep running right up to the end of the gun barrel. We had more teaching, like how to look a guy straight in the eye and kill him. That saved many of us getting our cans kicked because they owned all the islands around us and kept coming from the north, from Rabaul and Tulagi. They’d bring troops in and unload as many as 600 at a time.”

At one point, the Japanese ran two boats ashore in an effort to drop off more troops.

“They didn’t stop to think how they were going to get off the beach,” said Flanagan. “On each side they had a ramp that went down that could only hold about two guys walking side-by-side. They tried to unload them guys. We were right in front of them and we killed everyone. I mean every one of them. If they jumped off the boat we shot them in the water. It was quite an ordeal.”

As if all this weren’t enough, while in the midst of fighting on Guadalcanal, Flanagan began to feel a strange pain in his lower abdomen.

“I got to hurting and couldn’t figure out what it was,” said Flanagan. “We had a tent for a hospital and that’s where I went. The doctor was an older German gentleman. He said ‘Don’t worry little boy. I’ll take care of you and I won’t cut you all to pieces.’ Where he took my appendix out he put two stitches and then told me I could go out and fight some more.”

During Flanagan’s time in Guadalcanal, he used a 1903 model bolt-action rifle, which he used to kill more Japanese defenders than he cares to remember.

“One thing they taught us was to never leave ammo behind,” he said. “If someone was killed, you took the ammunition off the bodies. Ammunition was a premium and you never left any behind.”

The Japanese made several attempts to reclaim the airfield between August and November 1942.

Three major land battles, five large naval battles and continual — almost daily — aerial battles culminated in the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal in early November 1942, in which the last Japanese attempt to land troops to recapture the airfield was defeated.

In December 1942, the Japanese abandoned further attempts to retake Guadalcanal and evacuated their remaining forces Feb. 7, 1942.

“I lost an awful lot of friends,” he said. “When I went and talked to the fifth graders at Lamar I told them ‘If you do anything in this class worth anything, make sure that you make friends with everybody and always remember that, because you never know when a friend is going to save your life.’”

Flanagan gave one of his own experiences, the time he had a heart attack, or rather multiple heart attacks, as an example.

“I got up one morning and my arms wouldn’t work, said Flanagan. “I fell on the floor and I used the cell phone I always carry with me to call my friend Duane May. I asked him to come get me and take me to the hospital, that there was something wrong with me. He was here quicker than a flash and less than six minutes later I was in the ER at the hospital.”

After looking him over they decided to send him to Dallas via the LifeStar helicopter.

“I remember Becky Drake kept watching me,” he said. “She kept asking how far away we were. The pilot replied ‘Two minutes,’ and she said ‘Good, cause I’ll need every minute, and the pilot replied ‘We’ll get him there.’”

After 19 minutes in the helicopter, Flanagan was delivered to Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas.

“I had friends right there, with Duane getting me up and getting me up there and then them coming in a helicopter and getting me to the hospital in time to get a balloon put in my heart,” said Flanagan. “They kept me from dying.”

The cardiologist in Dallas said if they hadn’t gotten that balloon in Flanagan’s heart when they did he’d have never made it. On top of that he had five bypasses.

“Not many people live through that,” he said. “I had so many people, it seemed like, lined up in a row to take care of me. Duane took care of me in getting me to the hospital. The people in emergency kept me alive until the helicopter got there and the helicopter set it down in less than 19 minutes, and the little nurse taking care of me and being so concerned. I owe so much to so many people.”

Flanagan survived so much and truly believes that there was — and is — something watching out for him.

“I told the preacher not too long ago that my mother died when I was 7 and I didn’t know what the inside of a church looked like,” he said. “But I knew who God was. I know that He was with me the whole time I was gone. There was something that kept telling me, or maybe it was me telling myself, ‘They’re not going to kill me. I’m not going to let them kill me.’”

Flanagan spent a total of one year, 10 months and 23 days at Guadalcanal. In that time he picked up four stripes and was one of only seven out of the 52 Marines in his platoon to make it back alive.

“I was the first one to come back to Greenville,” he said. “They all kept saying ‘You’re a hero,’ and I would say ‘No, I’m not. The heroes are still over there, buried.’ I couldn’t hardly stomach all the attention. I just couldn’t understand why I came back and the others didn’t. War is an awful thing and it’s hard to live through. As I was leaving I waved good-bye. I called them the Islands of Death. That’s what they were to me and as long as I live they’ll always be the Islands of Death. I lost so many good friends. They were the real heroes.”