Minesweeper cleared way for Iwo Jima invasion

Jim Hadlock was a sonar-signalman on the USS Rebel, a minesweeper that patrolled the Pacific Ocean during World War II.

The crew of the USS Rebel cleared mines and searched for enemy submarines in preparation for the invasion of Iwo Jima.

A demolition squad of Navy SEALs went to work ahead of the minesweepers, blowing up obstacles placed in the ocean by the enemy that were intended to sink ships, he said.

Once on the move, the minesweepers, in a stair-step formation, would cut cables attached to the mines — and the ship behind would destroy the explosives, Hadlock said.

“Our ship would cut one, the next ship would blow it up, another ship would cut one and we'd blow it up,” he said.

Offshore, the ships were getting raided by bombers, but the action looked much worse on the ground.

“Those poor Marines had their hands full,” said Hadlock. “We needed Iwo Jima for an air base to get into Japan.”

After the battle, “we were close enough to see the flag (by telescope) the Marines put up,” said Hadlock, recalling the iconic image of Old Glory flying above Iwo Jima.

The USS Rebel was on the move again, this time headed to Okinawa to sweep the area before the invasion forces were sent ashore.

“We got it all clean and ready for them to go in, then here comes a flight of B-24 bombers,” said Hadlock. “It was like a checkerboard bombing,” with bombs dropping one after another on Okinawa.

“How anything lived through that bombing, I don't know,” he said. “It was a big cloud of dust.”

But, he came to find out, the massive air raid didn't inflict that much damage on the enemy.

“The bombing didn't do a bit of good,” he said. “The Japanese were all underground” in caves.

“Now we start getting the kamikazes,” he said.

The planes were flying below the radar, just above the water.

“They came out of nowhere,” said Hadlock.

“We see this big splash. It was almost dawn. We could see a plane sitting on the reef the pilot and co-pilot were floating in their life jackets. We picked them up we came running up to them with knives,” to cut off pieces of the Japanese uniforms for souvenirs, he said.

“I got a little Rising Sun flag from one of their uniforms.”

On another mission, when the USS Rebel was pulling survivors out of the water from a battle-damaged destroyer escort, two kamikazes were headed for the ship, coming from different directions.

Preoccupied by the recovery mission, the ships couldn't maneuver their way out of the situation.

“We were dead in the water,” he said.

“In retrospect, I wasn't the least bit afraid,” Hadlock said.

That's because both planes looked like they were coming in off-course.

The planes exploded, but didn't hit their target.

“The pilots just chickened out,” he said.