Iwo Jima Survivor Jim Freel

Use controls above or click here to open this Hometown Heroes podcast in a new window
99-year-old Jim Freel of Topeka, KS appears on episode #773 of Hometown Heroes, airing February 18-23, 2023, in conjunction with the 78th anniversary of the Battle of Iwo Jima. Serving with the 5th Marine Division, Freel was wounded by shrapnel from an enemy mortar on the initial day of the invasion, February 19, 1945.

This episode begins with Jim’s memories of growing up in the Topeka area during the Great Depression as the oldest of five children, and the silver lining he found in a period spent at home, missing school because of a childhood illness. He was very close with his brother, Bill, who was just 14 months younger. Jim and Bill would spend summers together as teenagers, working on their grandfather’s farm. The brothers were together in McLouth, KS on December 7, 1941, when the radio brought news of an event thousands of miles away that would forever change their futures.

“Listening to Dinah Shore singing St. Louis Blues,” you’ll hear Freel recall. “They interrupted the show to announce the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Nobody knew where Pearl Harbor was, they’d never heard of it before.”

Both brothers wanted to join the military “right away,” but their mother wouldn’t allow that. Eventually, Bill would enlist first, and survive the intense Pacific campaigns for Guadalcanal and Peleliu. Bill volunteered for the Paramarines, swayed by the promise of an extra $50 per month in jump pay.

“We jumped from 800 feet, and the static line of a plane was 75 feet,” he recalls of their training jumps. “So you weren’t really in the air all that long. About 13 seconds and you were on ground.”

They never made any combat jumps, instead finding themselves attached to Marine Raider battalions for his first tastes of the Pacific War. You’ll hear him remember spending Thanksgiving on the island of Vella Lavella in 1943. He was on Bougainville by the time Christmas rolled around. “Tokyo Rose,” the infamous radio propaganda queen, had been promising a “Christmas surprise,” and feeling the ground shaking that Christmas Day had Jim wondering if the surprise had arrived. Listen to Hometown Heroes to find out the real explanation.

You’ll also hear Jim share memories of a fellow paratrooper he had grown close to, Ira Hayes. Like Freel, Hayes would have his life forever changed at Iwo Jima, but in a much different way. Hayes was one of the men raising the flag atop Mt. Suribachi in the famous photograph taken by Joe Rosenthal. Both Hayes and Freel were assigned to the 5th Marine Division after the Paramarines were disbanded in 1944, training on Hawaii’s “Big Island” until it came time to deploy again. Before heading to Iwo Jima, Hayes was assigned to Easy Company, while Freel went to Dog Company in the 2nd Battalion, 28th Regiment. The pair shared a taxi from Camp Pendleton to the San Diego Airport, then never saw each other again. Hayes became a celebrity after surviving Iwo Jima. The Marine Corps sent him on war bond drives and thrust him into a spotlight he never asked for. Hayes passed away at age 32 and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Jim Freel’s experience on Iwo Jima was brief but intense. You’ll hear him recall the briefing he received before going ashore with the second wave of invading Marines, expecting the battle to last no more than a few days. Carrying his Browning Automatic Rifle, he landed at Green Beach just below Mt. Suribachi, quickly becoming familiar with an element of the terrain there that would become infamous.

“We didn’t realize that lava was gonna be so difficult to walk on or crawl on,” you’ll hear him say of Iwo’s volcanic sand. “It would cut right through your dungarees.”

Operating from the left flank of that second wave, Jim was expected to move inland before eventually making a left turn up the slope of that now famous volcano. The young Marine hadn’t been on the island long when an enemy mortar shell sent shrapnel into his neck.

“It was just kind of like a bee sting, you reach up here, a handful of blood, you reach back there to see if you’ve still got a head,” you’ll hear Freel candidly relate. “Corpsman came by and put a bandage around your neck, made you go back to the aid station.”

Still ambulatory, Freel would have preferred to return to his unit, but instead was taken to a hospital ship, where four days later he heard a celebratory reaction when the first flag was raised atop Mt. Suribachi. Watch the video below for more of Freel’s memories of February 19, 1945 and what followed:

You’ll hear Jim credit “the grace of God” for his survival, drawing on a quote from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade” when asked whether the timing and relative lack of severity of his wound – avoiding the jugular veins & carotid arteries – might have spared him from a more devastating destiny the 5-week battle for Iwo Jima might have produced for him. “Theirs not to reason why,” Tennyson wrote. “Theirs but to do and die.” Jim Freel offers this summation: “You can’t choose your place in time, particularly in the battlefield.”

Once Jim was discharged from the Naval Hospital in Corvallis, OR, he hitchhiked his way home to Kansas, and you won’t want to miss his explanation of how that journey ended up including his “spending a night in jail” in Steamboat Springs, CO. He remembers his mother almost fainting when he surprised her by walking through the door, but a more sobering memory was produced not long after that, when two Marine Corps officers showed up with devastating news: Bill Freel, Jim’s younger brother, had been killed by mortar shrapnel in the Battle of Okinawa.

“He was involved in the first battle of the war, Guadalcanal,” you’ll hear Jim say. “And killed on the last battle of the war, Okinawa. It didn’t really seem fair, but then who’s to say who’s fair?”

Jim traveled to Washington, D.C. with Kansas Honor Flight, visiting the National World War II Memorial, featuring 4,000 gold stars that represent Bill Freel and the more than 400,000 Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice during that period. You’ll hear Jim’s reflections on that experience, as well as his long career in law enforcement, highlighted by a stint as Topeka’s Chief of Police.

As he approaches his 100th birthday at the end of February, he still drives an SUV complete with the USMC’s famous globe and anchor insignia, and is active in the congregation at Topeka Bible Church, which featured Jim’s story in a recent newsletter. When asked to reflect on a century of life on earth and pinpoint what brings him the most pride, Freel doesn’t hesitate to respond.

“Being able to serve the American people in as many capacities as I have through my life,” you’ll hear him state. “To serve this country is a privilege, not a duty.”

—Paul Loeffler