Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in this edition is Charles Kram. He's a US Navy veteran of World War II. Mister Cram served as a Navy corman embedded with a company, first Battalion, twenty sixth Marines from the fifth Marine Division in the critical Battle of Ewojima.
The battle began on February nineteenth, nineteen forty five. In the course of our conversation, mister Cram will tell us about training as a corman, coming ashore at Ewojima, the vicious fighting, and how he was ultimately wounded and evacuated. Charles Kram was born in March nineteen twenty six. He was fifteen years old when he learned about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
I had just come from church and we arrived at our home in Glendale, California, and the news came over around noontime. I believe it was. At that time, I didn't know that much about it. I didn't realize that we might be in a conflict where we were going to be in a war.
Cram was initially too young to join the service, but he still found ways to help the war effort, including working as a messenger boy, and it was in that role that he received word of enemy action along the California coast.
That was I was a messenger for the air raid warden there in Berduga Woodlands, which was part of Glendale, and we went out and I remember the search lights were going on all over. We heard that the Japanese were attacking the southern California coast. We didn't ever see any, but apparently they came in around Fort MacArthur in near San Pedro, California.
By nineteen forty three, Cram was only seventeen years old, but decided he was ready to join the fight. He explains why he made that decision at such a young age and why he chose the Navy.
I was working, I was going to high school at the time and working after high school doing war work for a company called Gladdie mc bean. And one of the supervisors there was a Navy veteran. He had been discharged from the Navy a result of falling down the hatch of a submarine and he was out. But he talked about the merits of the Navy, about clean sheets and one thing or another. So John Newlan, my friend
and buddy. We both thought this was great, so we signed up for the Navy in Burbank, California.
From there it was off to basic training in Idaho.
My original training was in Los Angeles to get the train station there and we were to go to Idaho. At that time, they had a naval facility called Camp Fellragut. It was in Cord Lane, Idaho, and that's where the train was going to take us to Spokekane, Washington. And then from Spokane we went over to Cordlane and that's where I went through my boot camp training for the Navy.
After boot camp, the Navy decided to make Charles cram a Corman, a medic embedded with ground forces from the Marine Corps. He says that decision was based upon his family history.
Apparently through the information when you sign up for going into the service, there's information about your parents in their livelihood and one thing or another, and it happened that my mother happened to be a nurse, and they looked at the situation and figured from my background, this was probably a good field to put Charles into. So that's why I ended up in the Navy as a cloud pharmacists mate or hospital apprentice.
Next came Corman training and Cram explains what he and the other Cormen were equipped to treat on the battlefield.
Any type of wound that you would get, a gunshot wound to the lung area or to the head, and administering morphine for patients who were able. They were suffering a lot of pain and you would mark identify these people with a thing on their forehead, so where they were moved back to a battalion aid station, they knew that they had had morphine injections for pain and one thing or another, and just the preliminary work that you could do in the field.
Before shipping off to the Pacific theater, Cram and many other personnel took part in very realistic invasion training exercises in places like San Clemente, California, and one of those exercises involved a surprise visitor.
Well, we had walked from Camp Pendleton down to Santa inefre Beach, which is in southern California on the coastline, and from there we practiced landings in vehicle LCVP landing craft vehicle personnel. We made landings on the southern California coast. But prior to that, we made landings on San Clemente Island, which was a naval station that was out on the
Pacific col and off the southern California coast. And then from there we came back in and we had attacked southern California beaches, and at that time when we landed on the area of the beach, we were going through all sort of simulated gunfire and everything else. And after that quieted down a little bit, we looked up on the top of the hill there. They told us to look up there and lo and behold who was there? The President of the United States, who at that time
was Franklin D. Roosevelt. And then from there we had the joyful word that you head back to your tent camp or the camp area at Camp Pendleton and start preparing for invasion and fighting the Japanese.
From there it was off to Hawaii for more training and then to Saipan. Only after departing from there and heading farther west did they start to figure out where they would be fighting.
And then at that time we realized we were going to go into combat. They didn't tell you where, but I think the word came out that where we were going to go was situated like a pork chop. If if you looked at a pork chop, this would be the outline of what Ewojima would look like.
By mid February nineteen forty five, it was time for the invasion of Ewojima. Charles Kram walks us through his memory from the night before to the morning of the landing.
Well, the night before the invasion, I slept on top deck. Below deck. You were in not bunks, but kind of like hammocks, and there are about seven deep in there, and it was hot, and I just couldn't sleep that well. But you could get out on the deck, and they wouldn't allow you to even wear a watch which had a fluorescent glow to it, for fear that maybe somebody would be able to see the thing and bomb the
ship or something. But anyway, I stayed out on the what do you call it, till the early morning shp shelling started on eve Jima, and then from there went back down and I think I believe it was two o'clock in the morning. We had steak and eggs. That's a good combat breakfast, I guess They figured troops were going to need good food and healthy body. So that's what we had that morning, what do you call it?
And then later the morning we knew all the shelling that was going on on the island and a naval gunfire that was going on and everything else. We knew we were going to go in there, and we didn't go in until around eleven or twelve in the morning, I guess it is what he called. We didn't go in on the track vehicles at that time. Some of the original people at the nine o'clock morning went in on track vehicles, amtraks and water buffaloes or things of
that nature. But we went in what we called LCVPs landing craft vehicle personnel where the gate went down, the front door went down, and you went charging out of it.
When it was time to go. Cram says he landed at a time the Japanese were no longer covering the beach with withering fire, but there was still plenty of chaos from all of the vessels disabled and destroyed along the shore. Cram explains what he saw and did from the landing until later that first day on Ewo Jima.
Well, it was kind of hairy because we didn't know what to expect it, and some of the beaches had been so cluttered up with equipment not being able to get in there, and with the volcanic sand and ash that they had from the volcanoes on that island, it made it rather difficult. So some of the original plans didn't go as they were supposed to. But we eventually landed down on the beach there and I remember digging into a fox hole in the granite and the volcanic
ash there. I had a little book that I had. It was a Catholic missionary book, and I opened it up and it just opened up to a page called the Active Resignation, and I said, oh, my Lord, maybe this is the end of things. So anyway, I read that and tried to get formulated with with the company that we had and try to take care of some of the fellows. As we moved off the beach, we
moved over to the one end of the island. We were down where the a big volcano was, where Mount Serabacci was, where the Japanese were pretty well dug in, and that's we moved from there and camped at the base of Mount Serabacci that night. In fact, the area that we dug into, well, you didn't really have to dug there were a lot of artillery holes and mortor shell holes, and you had a place where we could dig in, but some of that volcanic sand would come
in on you. And the area that we dug into was an old bayonet course, so it was kind of spooky that night. Who we didn't know whether the Japanese were coming in on unswer what was going on that way because of the statues and things that they used for bayonnet course.
Training's first thoughts were looking out for the Marines and his company, and that included the specialized troops that were with them.
My direct influence in the situation was with Company A, first Vettack twenty six Marines was as a first platoon, which also I took care of the assault squad, which was the flamethrowers and var and the demolition people as well as the regular mortar people and the infantry people in Company A. In the Infantry division there was a machine gun squad and the rest of those. So I was pretty well worked up with what I was doing.
That's Charles Cram a US Navy veteran of World War Two who served as a corman for a company of Marines on Iwo Jima. Still to come, the flag raising at Mount Surabaci, fighting an invisible enemy and how he was wounded. I'm Greg Corumbus and this is Veterans' chronicles.
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This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbas. Our guest in this addition is Charles Cram, a US Navy veteran of World War Two. After pressing on from the landing beaches and surviving the night in the eerie bayonet training fields, combat against the Japanese forces proved difficult. In the early days were full of encouraging advances and disappointing retreats.
Well, we moved back, and I can't remember the exact date, but after we had moved back and kind of got organized a little bit more, we went up the side of the island and we got there, and then we had to retreat back again. The Japanese had put in a freshure. Honestly, we had to retreat back a little bit, and then we stayed there, and then the next day we started moving ahead again. So it was kind of up and down, and we did the best we could at the time.
Like the other Navy coreman serving along side the Marines. Charles Kram was right in the middle of it.
That was right on the front line. You couldn't get any farther I had than where we were at, and Company A did what they could. I mean, we would be on frontline two or three days and hopefully try to move ahead. We move ahead a little bit and then have to be moved back again because we couldn't get into the cliff area where some of these implanted Japanese, where they had firepower that they could shoot us.
One of the biggest challenges for Cram was gauging when it was safe enough to emerge and care effectively for a wounded marine. He says he had no commanders giving him orders, and deciding when to act was entirely upon his eighteen year old shoulders.
You didn't have a company commander or somebody like that, an order of seniority that says, hey, cram out there and do which you could. You were trained to take care of the troops that you were connected with, the infantry troops or the assault squad troops that were injured. If somebody yelled Corman, we'd entertained the idea where the thing was in an area like Iwajima. Because of the closeness of everything, everything was with somebody within five or
ten feet of where you were. The front lines were twenty yards or so away from where your lines were. It would end up with some of the troops. I was never involved with hand to hand combat, but I knew part of our company when the Japanese were trying to infiltrate our lines, got involved not only with hand grenades to kill them as they were coming in, but actually got involved with hand to hand combat with the Japanese.
And Cram says the injuries he was seeing were not for the faint of heart.
They were mostly wounds that were pretty pretty ghastly. As far as the damage was concerned, it wasn't so much from just rifle shots or anything. It was more from artillery or mortar shellings and things of that nature.
Cram says it could be a complicated process to treat, stabilize, and evacuate the wounded, especially with a huge battle playing out on a very small island.
Well, initially there was a big problem because you had the stretcher bearers and the other people who went out to get these troops that were there. It was a lot of commotion in the initial landings on I Regima on the first day, there was a lot of chaotic situations. You just couldn't depend You did what you could, and that was the best of it until he organized a little bit more the second and third day.
Cram and his company of marines also got a good view of the most iconic moment of the week's long battle, the raising of the American flag atop Mount Surabaci.
From the vision where we were at the base of Mount Sarabacci, where we're being called off the front line back to the rear area, we could look up there. We could see that we didn't know what was going on. People would try to tell us what was going on, and then we would see the flag go up on the Mount Serabacci. Because Sera Bacci had apparently was five seven hundred feet up in the air there was an ex volcano.
Cram says the sight of Old Glory being raised was a great morale boost and a misleading indication of how long the fight on Iwo Jima would last.
Oh yes, we thought that was going to be the end of the war. We were attacking what it calls an American flag going up on the top of Mount Sera Bacci. We thought this is going to be what do you call it? But it wasn't there. It was just a preliminary invasion. Because most of the Japanese forces were being directed from the northern part of the island, and through their communication system they developed from the south,
they lied infiltration. They would get troops at night to try to get through our lines or try to cause problems with us.
That's Charles Kram, a US Navy veteran of World War Two and the Battle of Ewojima. When we come back, Cram tells us what he saw in the Japanese caves and tells us how he was wounded. I'm Greg Corumbus, and this is Veterans Chronicles. This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbas. Our guest in this edition is Charles Kram. He's a US Navy veteran of World War Two and served as a corman with a company of marines during the first several days of the Battle of Ewojima in
February nineteen forty five. As Kram explained earlier, the fight against the Japanese ebbed and flowed and the biggest challenge for the Marines is that the enemy was largely invisible.
You couldn't see the enemy and you didn't know where they were, but you knew they were trying to get in filtright through your lines to go through there, and it was became very stressful at that time. I couldn't go out at that time and treat any anybody. I mean, you stayed in your fox hole and you're ready for Japanese if they jumped into the foxhole with you.
Undaunted, the Marines made their way to higher ground and were finally able to confront the caves from which the Japanese were launching their attacks.
Well, that had been after we had been on the front line. We'd been on frontline for four days, and they would bring some of the chow or food that we would have. We had mostly rations. There's breakfast, dinners,
and suppers they called it. That was for about four days we were doing that, and we were pulled back to area where we could see what was going on, and that was I'm trying to remember on a daily basis whether it was the fourth or fifth day that the flag went up on the top of Mount Sarabachi. That's where I could see. We were down at the bottom. We could see commotion going on up there, and the twenty eighth Marines had made me we knew they were on that part of the island, and they'd gone up
and made the flag racing there. And then from there on I went snooping around with part of the assault squad. We got into some of the caves and one thing or another that had been shelled, and one thing or another, and there were a lot of Japanese soldiers that we were dead there. And I had picked up piece of equipment. I thought it was a good good thing to take back as a souvenir, but it wasn't. It was some
part of an artillery piece. But I think the important thing was that I had found a Japanese soldier and I had taken the flag. They wrapped it around their waist and I had taken it off of him, and I have that as a souvenir of I Regima.
At that time, the Japanese were famous for turning the islands they held into fortresses because of their ability to hide in caves and tunnels and even build living quarters, medical facilities and more. Underground. It's also how they were able to withstand the relentless Allied bombardments prior to our amphibious landings throughout the Pacific. But when Cram got a peek inside the caves, he just saw how they were used to attack his fellow Americans.
They were mostly battle conditions where they put snipers and other people who had a clear avenue of sight of troops coming in on them, where they could shoot at them and one thing or another. So that was my knowledge, and I remember getting into some of those caves and there were Japanese that had been killed as a result of either bombings and maybe their bodies had been brought back in Again.
Cramp says it's hard to remember the day to day developments in the battle, pointing out that the longer the fight went and he and the Marines hardly got any sleep, it became almost impossible to tell one day from another.
No, everything seemed to run together. I mean, you didn't really have time. You worried about your own safety and the safety of the men that you were treating or going to treat. Felt as that you'd been in field training back in Hawaii or back here in the state plan. I lived with these Marines as a Navy veteran. I was in the Navy, but I spent most of my
time with the Marine Corps. And you learn the habits of how marines were treated and how you lived is what he called the staff nco officer, and how you ate with these people, they were your life.
The action at night brought an added dimension of danger as the Japanese used the cover of darkness to emerge and tried to infiltrate enemy lines. In those dire moments, Cramp found himself lobbing grenades towards the enemy alongside the Marines.
Yeah, that we had been been moved up from the first or second day. We moved up on the front lines there and we were infiltrated because the Japanese at that time apparently were trying to move some of their troops from the southern island, the southern portion of the island where Sarabachi was, and get them back to the northern end of the island. So they had what they called the Bonzai attack. They would come in the middle of the night and tried to get through the lines.
And at that time I remember with the group that I was with Sergeant Kelleherne and Billy Graham in the fox hole there. We were throwing fox hand grenades out about as fast as we could because the Japanese were coming through there.
And it wasn't just the grenades. Cram also recounts firing his car being at the enemy on Ewo Jima.
Well, at that time, when we had moved back, we could see ahead of us some of the Japanese running from one cave to another, and we could see them. And at that time I remember I had a weapon. I had a forty five, but I'd also had a carbing weapon, and so I tried shooting that thing that the Japanese who were we could see moving ahead of us. But I don't recall everly hitting anybody with what do
you call it? The distance was something else, and you couldn't tell whether you had hit or subdued Japanese soldier or anything.
Cram seventh day in combat on Ewo Jima would also be his last. He was injured while tending to a wounded marine in the midst of combat.
I had been told that Sergeant Angelus and part of the first squad of Company, a part of the Infantry Section he was corfil. Angelus was out in the front lines there, a little bit ahead of where I was dug in, and so I got up and I was
able to move. It was daylight at that time, so I was able to get up, and I moved ahead, and I found Angelus laying on the ground there, and I laid down beside him, and as I remember, I lifted his helmet a little bit to the side and I tried to speak to him, and then I realized that he was at that time, and so as I started to get up, I was laying down. I started
to get up. All of a sudden, I felt something go through my leg hit me, and what it was was apparently a Japanese sniper was trained in on that area and he shot me at that time. So at that time it was kind of ironic. As I look back that I realized that I was going to get off that island. I was going to get taken back to a battalion aid station or something. I wouldn't be
fighting anymore. I didn't like the idea we were fighting the Japanese that way, that there were too many casualties, and I figured I was going to be a complete casualty. So I was able to manage myself to get back. And I remember the first group of guys that I got back was a fella from Salt Lake City, roof Egbert was his name, Big Fellow. He was with a machine gun squad and with the first platoon, and he had gone that night or that morning and jumped into
a fox hole. But at that time, one of the Marines who was in there, he had a bayonet on the end of his one figure maybe they're going to be hand to hand combat and he was going to have to use that. When Egbert jumped into the fox hole, he caught it on his foot and the thing was bleeding quite heavily. And I treated him there and bandaged him up at that time, and I waited to see if I could get back to the battalion aid station and where I was going to be taken care of.
Despite his wounds, Charles Kram stayed true to his mission and kept administering aid to the Marines. For his devotion to duty, Cram would later be awarded the Silver Star. He humbly says he'd just tried to do as much as he could.
I guess it was whether it's human nature or whether it was the training that we had gone through through Field medical school where we were taught how to administer first aid to wounded troops in one thing or another. And I just tried to do the best that I could under the situations that I was confronted with.
But before long Cram needed to be evacuated and for him, the Battle of iwo Jima was over. He explains what happened after he was moved away from the battlefield.
After I was evacuated, they got me back onto the beach area and they put me on a an LCVP I believe it was, and took me out to the HMS Reaper. There was a British aircraft carrier and it had come from Australia, and from there they took me back to Guam, the island of Guam. They had a base eighteen hospital at Guam, and I was stationed, not stationed, but taken back medically to Guam. From Guam, I was taken back to Pearl Harbor. I was not going to
do any more fighting or anything else. I guess my wound was healing through my leg and one thing or another, so there wasn't any situation where I was going to be put back into this to the war again. I was being brought back to Rui for more medical treatment.
Cram would not see combat for the remainder of the war, but he didn't know that at the time. Before long, he was back in Hawaii preparing for a massive invasion of Japan that would thankfully never come.
We're going to have to go to Japan, and so they organized us. And I've been back in Hawaii at Camp Tarawa again after I'd been treated at Pearl Harbor, and we went back into training because we were going to go into training to go into the Japanese homeland. We were going to land in Japan, and I guess the nearness of the war was getting to the point.
The B twenty nine's from Saipan and Tinian we could hear they were they were going to do more bombing in Japan, and one thing or another and the next thing, and we knew we were loaded for trips who were going to go fight into Japan.
Of the two hundred and fifty marines Cram landed with, only twenty five walked off the island at the end of the battle. A ninety percent casualty rate. In all, the battle resulted in twenty six thousand American casualties and a critical victory in the Pacific Theater. Looking back at his service with his customary humility, Cram says he was just trying to do the best he could.
I don't know, I think because I was pretty young figure seventeen to go into the service. It was a kind of a good feeling at that time because I did the best that I could. That was all I could ask for.
Charles Kram is a US Navy veteran of World War Two. He served as a corman embedded with a company, first Battalion, twenty sixth Marines from the fifth Marine Division in the critical Battle of Ewo Jima. He was awarded a Silver Star, Bronze Star, and a purple heart. I'm Greg Corumbus and this is Veterans Chronicles. Hi, this is Greg Corumbus, and thanks for listening to Veterans Chronicles, a presentation of the American Veterans Center. For more information, please visit American Veteranscenter
dot org. You can also follow the American Veteran Center on Facebook and on Twitter. We're at AVC update. Subscribe to the American Veterans Center YouTube channel for full oral histories and special features, and of course please subscribe to the Veterans Chronicles podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks again for listening, and please join us next time for Veterans Chronicles