OSU
History Minute - September 1, 2000
Number
11 of a 12 part series: Honoring Oregon Staters
who died in WWII
|
William T. Vessey from The Beaver, 1941.
|
Growing up on Sixth street in Oregon City,
the son of Mr. and Mrs. Frank W. Vessey, S/Sgt.
William T. Vessey, '43, was a Marine Corps
combat correspondent killed at Iwo Jima, Feb.
20, 1945, two days after the American invasion
began.
While at OSU, Vessey was sports editor of
the Barometer and a member of Delta Chi Fraternity.
He was active in intramural sports, winning
a campus-wide softball competition in the
Spring of 1942.
He landed in the fourth wave of the First
Battalion of the 28th Marine Regiment, the
initial assault unit in the drive to capture
Mount Suribachi.
|
Less than three hours ashore, tragedy struck just
as he had completed writing his first eye-witness
account of what would become the toughest battle
in Marine Corps history.
One of the best-liked correspondents assigned to
the 5th Marine Division (of which the 28th was a
part), Vessey and seven others were severely wounded
when a mortar round hit the command center where
he was doing a final edit on his copy.
Two fellow correspondents and two photographers
rushed to his aid and carried him to a field hospital.
He died two hours later.
He left behind a wife, Patricia, and a son, Randall.
Iwo Jima cost the Marines over 31,000 casualties,
6,000 dead, 25,000 wounded.
--
By George
Edmonston Jr.
|
