| Birth: | Feb. 27, 1924
Elko
Elko County
Nevada, USA | | Death: | Mar. 4, 1945
Iwo Jima, Japan | 
VFW Post 2350 in Elko, NV. is named in his honor
Link to VFW Post 2350
Iwo Jima anniversary: A time for heroes
By DAVE WOODSON - Staff Writer Elko Daily Free Press
Wednesday, February 23, 2005 5:24 PM PST
ELKO - It was 60 years ago next month that a U.S. Marine from Elko died on a small volcanic island in the Pacific in a bloody, climactic battle during the final year of World War II.
Gasper Joseph Salaz was 21 years old when he stormed the beach on the heavily fortified Japanese island of Iwo Jima in the early morning hours of Feb. 19, 1945.
Less than a month later, Salaz gave his life on that 71/2 square mile island as American Marines battled the more than 22,000 entrenched Japanese soldiers.
"He was killed in action on March 4, 1945," reported Tom Moore, a U.S. Navy World War II and Korean War veteran.
Salaz's name and his sacrifice were memorialized when, in the early 1950s, the Elko Veterans of Foreign Wars post was renamed the Elko-Gasper J. Salaz Post No. 2350 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
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Moore, a member of the local VFW post, remembers Salaz. He attended Elko High School with him.
"He (Salaz) had just turned 21 about two weeks before he got killed," Moore added.
Moore said Salaz was fighting with members of I Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines at the time of his death.
Salaz is buried at the Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii.
"It is called the 'Punch Bowl,'" Moore said. "His grave marker there is A246."
Moore said Salaz was born in Elko on Feb. 27, 1924.
"He was a little bit younger than me but we were in high school at the same time," he recalled. "He loved to play baseball and softball as most of us kids did at that time."
Moore remembered that Salaz, a pitcher, had a different approach to the two games.
"In softball he would throw left-handed and if he played hardball he would throw right-handed," Moore said.
The local VFW post was named in honor of Salaz by the luck of the draw.
Moore said that he was involved in the name selection process back in the early '50s.
"We took all the names of the (Elko) people that were killed in World War II and put them in a hat," Moore said. "There were 50 World War II guys from Elko that were killed, and his name was drawn out of the hat."
He said members of the post had to check with the families of the fallen soldiers to get permission to name the post after the soldier's name that was pulled from the hat.
"As it turned out, I happened to be the man that had contact with Salaz's family," Moore recalled. "I got their permission."
Iwo Jima was the first of the Japanese homeland islands to be invaded during the Pacific "island hopping" campaign, and the task fell to the U.S. Marines' 3rd, 4th and 5th divisions.
"Iwo was considered part of the Japanese homeland," Moore said. "They had 22,000 soldiers to defend it and the entire island and Mt. Suribachi had been tunneled and the bombardment from the ships and the airplanes had very little affect on the defenders.
"So those poor Marines had to go in there and dig those guys out of those tunnels," Moore continued. "And they killed 95 percent of the 22,000."
It came at a high cost.
"Americans, too, at the time they suffered terrible," Moore continued. "They lost 6,140 men, Marines and sailors were killed there, and they had 17,910 wounded in action.
"It was described by the Marine Corps as the bloodiest single engagement in Marine Corps history."
Japanese troops were given orders to fight to the death and take 10 Americans with them.
That battle is best remembered for the picture taken by Joe Rosenthal of the Associated Press on Feb. 23, 1945, of the raising of the American flag on Mt. Surbachi, which became one of the most famous photographs of WW II.
Rising 556 feet above Iwo Jima, Mt. Surbachi provided the Japanese with gunnery positions that covered every inch of the island and left Marines constantly in their sights. It took four days for the Marines, dying for every foot of territory, to reach the summit and raise the flag.
"The Marines called it Mt. Son-of-a bitchee," Moore said.
The famous flag raising was done by soldiers from Easy Company, who paid a horrible price in the battle for the island.
Captain Dave Severance reported that his company landed with 310 men, but only 50 men boarded the ship after the battle.
"Seven officers went into the battle with me," he was reported as saying. "Only one - me - walked off of Iwo."
Veteran war correspondent Robert Sherrod called the battle for Iwo Jima "a nightmare in hell."
Americans faced stiff resistance from the Japanese defending an island less than 600 miles from Tokyo.
Marines fought in hellholes dubbed "Bloody Gorge" and the "Meat Grinder."
Moore said, based on the fighting death toll at Iwo Jima, the Joint Chiefs of Staff approached President Harry Truman and told him that an invasion of the Japanese mainland would result in an estimated 1 million casualties.
History reports that, after considering the considerable human cost of taking Iwo Jima and later Okinawa, Truman ordered the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
"Right then and there they decided to drop the two bombs,"
Inscription:
26 MARINES 5 MARINE DIV
Note: Gasper was Killed In Action against the enemy in WW2 | | | Burial:
National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific
Honolulu
Honolulu County
Hawaii, USA
Plot: A246 |
Created by: Charles W. Sanders
Record added: Sep 25, 2008
Find A Grave Memorial# 30063458 |
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