Munson: D.M. veteran making return to Iwo Jima

Seventy years ago, he was among the first wave of Marines to storm the black volcanic beaches of Iwo Jima.

Now, Frank Pontisso of Des Moines will be among the final wave of Greatest Generation veterans to return to the tiny Pacific island that saw one of the bloodiest battles of World War II.

Still remarkably spry at 90, Pontisso departs Tuesday with a small and ever-shrinking group of fellow vets on a long-overdue pilgrimage to 8 square miles where thousands laid down their lives, and his own was forever changed.

Back then, he was one of 30,000 Marines who on Jan. 19, 1945, swept onto the island, where 21,000 Japanese troops were waiting for them inside an underground labyrinth of caves and tunnels.

Both sides in the war coveted Iwo Jima as a strategic air base. It also gave Japan an early warning about attacks on Tokyo, 750 miles to the north.

More than 70,000 American troops eventually swarmed ashore in the 36-day battle.

Today, Pontisso, a retired auto-parts salesman, still lives in the ranch house that he and his late wife, Bonnie, built in 1955. His northwest Des Moines neighborhood had been nothing but a cornfield.

Three times a week, Pontisso (pronounced POHNT-isso) still drives his Buick LaCrosse to Plaza Lanes, where he bowls in an over-50 mixed league.

On a recent afternoon, he threatened to break 200 except for one nagging pin in the ninth frame that refused to fall.

Pontisso bowls left-handed. He lost his right arm below the elbow to shrapnel from a mortar blast on Iwo Jima.

So he grabs a 12-pound ball (or a 10-pounder to precisely target a spare) with his left hand. Then he rests the ball on his right, gloved prosthesis. He takes meticulous aim and shuffles five steps to hurl the ball down the lane with an expert spin.

He's the sole Italian on a team named Uffda, founded by Norwegians who have since given way to Irish and German bowlers.

He's also among fewer than 12,000 World War II vets alive today in Iowa. These vets nationwide are expected to slip below 1 million this year, out of more than 16 million who served. Nearly 500 die each day.

The Greatest Generations Foundation, based in Denver and run by a former kindergarten teacher from Australia whose grandfathers fought in World War II, is paying the way for Pontisso and 19 other veterans on this trip (most of them in their 90s). The foundation had to sift through 1,400 applications.

The nonprofit in the last decade has ushered more than 2,800 veterans back to their battlefields for closure. Later this year, it will shift focus to Vietnam.

A tiny jar of Iwo Jima's black volcanic sand sits on a bookshelf in Pontisso's basement guest bedroom. Bonnie, who died in 2006, converted the shelf into a Marines shrine for her husband.

The centerpiece of the room is a large black-and-white portrait on the wall that shows Pontisso among 172 uniformed Marines in C Company of the 1st Battalion, 28th Regiment, 5th Division, all arranged in four neat rows.

"I want to go to particular areas of the island," Pontisso said of his trip, "especially one where I saw a friend of mine from Minnesota get blown out of the side of a hill."

"If that ravine's still there, I'll find it."

WOUNDED AT WAR

Pontisso grew up a first-generation Italian-American on the south side of Des Moines — about a block east of where Tumea & Sons restaurant now stands, across the river from Principal Park.

Famed Des Moines boxer and restaurateur Babe Bisignano (who ran Babe's downtown) occasionally gave him and his friends a ride to school.

A Marines recruiter swept up many of the young men in Pontisso's neighborhood — at least 10 within two blocks.

Pontisso enlisted in July 1942 and was called to report to boot camp in March 1943. He trained in San Diego and wound through a series of bases until he hit Iwo Jima on Feb. 19, 1945.

The private 1st class landed at Green Beach, nearest to Mount Suribachi.

"There was not a shred of green," Pontisso said of the island.

The Allies had bombarded Iwo Jima for months to prepare for the invasion. Fighting among the first wave initially improved Pontisso's odds of survival.

"We were like dummies, standing up like idiots," Pontisso said. "They didn't fire on that first wave, till the beaches got full, then that's when they started in."

Four days later, Pontisso witnessed what became perhaps the most iconic image of World War II: the raising of the Stars and Stripes on Mount Suribachi. It happened twice on Feb. 23 — first a small flag and then a second, larger flag. It was AP photographer Joe Rosenthal's photo of the second flag-raising that won him a Pulitzer Prize and helped the military raise a staggering $26 billion as the central image in a war-bond drive.

When Pontisso saw the flags go up, he thought to himself, "Maybe this is all over. We can go."

But he didn't see the worst of the fighting until the invasion's 12th day. A fellow Marine on the battlefield yelled to Pontisso, "Hit the deck!"

"Three of us got it," Pontisso said of the mortar blast that he and two other Marines survived, although it would claim half of his right arm. "Good thing we weren't standing."

A medic and fellow Iowan hollered at Pontisso to run and dive into his foxhole, where he gave the wounded Marine a shot of brandy.

"And that's the last I remember for a while," Pontisso said.

He was transported to a hospital ship offshore and then to Guam.

C Company suffered nearly an 89 percent casualty rate, with 47 killed.

The battle saw 6,825 Americans killed. All but 216 of the 22,000 Japanese fighters died on the island.

Pontisso's right arm was packed in ice, but gangrene set in. Doctors realized too late that a pair of main arteries had been severed near his armpit.

His arm was amputated within the month. He arrived at a naval hospital in California in April 1945.

In June, he wrote (or dictated) a one-page letter home to his sister, Helen.

"P.S. Don't worry I am OK," he added to the bottom of the letter. "Love, Frankie."

Earlier this month, Pontisso sat in his Marines bedroom with his Purple Heart encased on the wall behind him and the sort of book titles familiar to World War II literature: "A Special Valor," "Hero of the Pacific," etc.

Like so many other veterans of his era, Pontisso is blasé about recognition and awards and refuses to portray himself as a hero.

"The guys that deserve (a Purple Heart) are the ones that are buried there, you know," he said.

The oldest of Pontisso's three daughters, Debra, lives in Falls Church, Va.

"I remember looking in the closet, finding this old tattered shoebox with a Purple Heart thrown in it along with some other stuff," she remembered.

It was only when she became more politically aware during the Vietnam era that she learned more about her father's bloody combat service.

READY TO RETURN

Pontisso's discharge papers include this line next to his fingerprint: "I certify that this is the actual print of the right index finger of the man herein mentioned."

But the word "right" is blotted out with x's and "left" typed above it.

The wounded Marine "loafed" for a year after he returned to Des Moines in November 1945.

His Veterans Administration job-training representative asked whether he was interested in selling auto parts.

Soon he was celebrated in the Register as the featured profile for "National Employ the Physically Handicapped Week." A photo shows Pontisso smiling from the driver's seat of his delivery truck.

"He shifts gears — and even writes — with the artificial hand," the story proclaimed.

Learning to bowl again was "kind of rough," Pontisso admits today.

"I still think right-handed and bowl left."

But Pontisso downplays any notion that he faced a difficult transition back into civilian life.

"You mean like post-traumatic stress?" he shook his head. "Shell shock?"

Only after I became intrigued by Pontisso's story did I learn that he also was best friends with my colleague Mark Marturello's late father. The two men grew up across the street from each other.

Marturello, the Register's renowned artist, as a kid sometimes accompanied Pontisso to the bowling alley, where he drew pictures for a quarter.

Pontisso attended his first of several reunions of Iwo Jima veterans in 1985.

Many of his Marine buddies already have revisited the island. One of them from Arizona implored him to take the trip while he could.

Iwo Jima ("sulfur island") has since reverted to its original name, Iwo To. Pontisso knows it will be different. There's now a road that leads to the top of Mount Suribachi, a path strewn with bodies 70 years ago.

As one of the lucky survivors, Pontisso keeps a tradition each Christmastime of calling his fellow Marines.

"I got a roster that I keep calling," he said.

"I never send cards out any more. I call."

When his fellow veterans die, he continues to phone their widows until they, too, pass away.

Pontisso made about 20 phone calls this most recent December.

The Iwo Jima veteran worries that modern war has become almost an industry. It drags on for years and years.

But when Pontisso gets really nostalgic, he doesn't mention war. He strikes a familiar chord, pining for his simple, happy childhood growing up on the south side of Des Moines.

"I wish I could go back to those days," he said. "Nobody had nothing."

Every generation seems to be burdened with growing up, killing each other and relearning a few crucial lessons.

Pontisso this month will be able to stand on a speck in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, bookend his life and ponder it all.

Kyle Munson can be reached at 515-284-8124 or kmunson@dmreg.com. See more of his columns and video at DesMoinesRegister.com/KyleMunson. Connect with him on Facebook (/KyleMunson) and Twitter (@KyleMunson).