HEROES: The Life & Death of Manila John

As a boy on the streets of Raritan, N.J., John Basilone used to run alongside the Italian peddlers’ carts, shouting at the top of his voice, “Any vegetables today, lady?” John was a lively boy; he had nine brothers & sisters, and his Italian-born parents had a hard time keeping track of him.

John finished St. Bernard’s Parochial School at 15, and his mother wanted him to go to high school. But John had other ideas and quietly stuck to them: he started driving a truck for Gaburo’s Laundry. He was big and dark and handsome, except for his jug ears, and he was everybody’s friend. He was also restless. At 18 he joined the Army, won a sweater in a Golden Gloves boxing tournament, in due time he was shipped off to the Philippines.

Soldier in the Islands. Private Basilone was always laughing. One day his C.O. stopped in front of the ranks and said: “Wipe that smile off your face.” But John Basilone could not turn down the corners of his mouth, and he spent a week on K.P.

He had both his arms tattooed : a woman on the right, and an unsheathed sword on the left, with the legend, “Death before Dishonor.” Back in Raritan, his mother was surprised one day when she got a beautiful black silk kimono from a Filipino girl. Mrs. Basilone already had two daughters-in-law and she now thought she would soon have a third.

But Son John was not settling down. After three years he came back with an honorable discharge. He went to work in a chemical plant. But by 1940 he was restless again. He kept telling his cronies that the U.S. would soon get in the war, and that he would be in it, too. He joined the Marines.

News from the Canal. For two years his family had only the briefest notes from him as he made the rounds of Quantico, Parris Island, New River. He was a natural soldier, quick, alert and full of quiet, easy leadership. His buddies gave him their highest accolade—”a good marine.” He was made a corporal, then a sergeant. One day a note came to Raritan on brown wrapping paper from a place called Guadalcanal. “I have arrived safely,” was all it said. John’s family mailed him paper and pencils, but for all the good it did they might just as well have sent him a dictaphone and secretary.

One night in October 1942, “Manila John” Basilone (his endless store of Philippine yarns had won him the nickname) lay wet, miserable and alert in his foxhole. He heard the sudden crack of bullets. The Japs were attacking.

John Basilone commanded two machine-gun emplacements. When one gun crew was wiped out, he rolled back & forth over the ground, firing first one gun, then the other, kept them chattering through the long night. When the guns got too hot, he used his pistol. When the ammunition got low, he went back through enemy fire for more. When the Japs gave it up, there were 38 dead in front of just one of John Basilone’s emplacements. He and his handful of survivors had virtually annihilated a Jap regiment, had helped save Henderson Field.

“For the Other Day. . . .” Not until the following June did his family hear from him again. Then came a letter on cheap note paper, in John’s schoolboy hand: “I am very happy for the other day I received the Congressional Medal of Honor, the highest award you can receive in the arm forces. . . . Tell Pop his son is still tough. Tell Don thanks for the prayer they say in school for us. . . .”

On a bright September Sunday of 1943, John Basilone got his welcome home. At the estate of Doris Duke Cromwell, 30,000 assembled to greet Hero John—mayors, judges, ex-Governors and ex-Senators, and a movie star with upswept hairdo, who kissed John Basilone on the mouth. His picture stood in all the shop windows, alongside General MacArthur’s. A portrait of John Basilone was hung in Town Hall.

John got a $5,000 war bond, and went off on a Treasury-conducted war bond tour. Marine officers who accompanied him found that Sergeant Basilone was still steady, modest about his honors, anxious to get back to his outfit.

“I’m becoming a museum piece,” he said. “And what if some marines should land on Dewey Boulevard and Manila John isn’t among them?”

Offered a chance at a commission, he turned it down. “I’m a plain soldier—I want to stay one.”

When the first waves of marines went ashore on Iwo Jima, Gunnery Sergeant John Basilone was there, commanding an assault team of the 27th Regiment, 5th Division. By noon Medal-of-Honorman Basilone had his outfit on the edge of Motoyama airfield. There he met the shell that had his number on it. By nightfall John Basilone, a good marine, was dead.