Traverse City Record-Eagle

Terry Wooten: Elders Project

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February 22, 2010

Terry Wooten: Sharing the Elders Project

By TERRY WOOTEN

For the past few years I have been conducting a program called The Elders Project. We invite elders of a community into a middle or high school. I teach students about the interviewing process. After the interviews, students transcribe their favorite parts and then learn how to turn this rough prose into free verse poetry, using the elders' own words. I transcribe the rest of the tapes and write around the students' works.

The Elders Project is a great blending of Literature and folk history.

In my column, I'll use some of these oral history poems, along with my poetic ramblings. Sometimes I will include students' works. If there is not a student's name before the poem, it is mine.

Don Bellinger, 83, is a retired teacher and principal from Elk Rapids. He was interviewed by two Elk Rapids High School students, Jared Dreffs and Kelly Thelen. Sixty-five years ago, World War II was still raging. On Valentine's Day, 1945, Don was 19 years old and sailing toward his first battle. Tuesday is the 65th anniversary of the flag-raising over Iwo Jima.

Don Bellinger
Iwo Jima

When we got to Iwo Jima
we were constantly under attack
by Japanese planes.

Iwo Jima is not a big island.
It looks like a huge rock,
but a Japanese contingent was there
and an air field Americans wanted.

We shelled the island for seven days
before our troops went ashore.
Shelling Iwo Jima was like shooting a BB gun
at a barn door.
The rock was so hard,
and the Japanese were so entrenched.

I can remember vividly the day
our troops went ashore
February 19, 1945 ...
the LCI and LCT transport ships,
the heavy equipment
and the fighting.

In the Navy you were a half-mile offshore,
and didn't get involved
in the actual hand-to-hand combat.
But we were on deck February 23
when they raised the flag on Mount Suribachi.
I saw that happen.

The battle ended thirty-two days later.

American troops forced
the Japanese to the end of the island.
There was no place for them to go
except into the ocean.
Where they were trapped was quite high up.
Rather than surrender
a lot of the Japanese jumped into the water.

Our small ships surrounded them
and most were shot.
That was pretty much the end
of the battle of Iwo Jima.

Okinawa

After a few weeks of fighting
Okinawa was finally taken.
The battle was over.
We were lying a half mile off shore,
sort of dead in the water
taking on mail from a little ship.

It was Easter morning 1945.
A lot guys were up on deck
relaxing and watching the mail carrier,
hoping to get a letter from home.

Suddenly over the island
this small plane came straight out
about tree top level towards our ship.

It banked straight up,
did a couple barrel rolls
and came straight down.
We realized it was a Kamikaze.

It hit the deck in the bow of the ship
just in front of the six inch gun mounts.
The plane disintegrated,
but was carrying an armor piercing shell
with a time fuse.

The shell went down four decks and exploded
and blew good sized holes
in both sides of the ship.
Sixty-six men were killed almost instantly.

On a ship if you're hit,
first thing they do is close all compartments
where water is coming in.
Guys in their compartments
down in that area were trapped.
Some men drowned.

We had what was called a "body watch".
Three of us would stand over the openings
of the compartments that were flooded.
If a body floated by
you had to reach down
and pull it out.

Poet Bard Terry Wooten has been performing and conducting writing workshops in schools for 27 years. He is the creator of Stone Circle. Learn more about him at www.terry-wooten.com.

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