Mendez, Mexico, and the Marines: The Oral History of Gilberto Mendez
4th Marine Division on Beaches at Iwo Jima D-Day, 19 February 1945. From the USMC Archives.
Gilberto Mendez was a U.S marine who served in both the Mexican Army and the U.S. Marine Corps, seeing some of the harshest fighting of the Pacific War. Mendez was born in Floresville, Texas, on 25th August 1924, to Sebastian Mendez and Maria Arroyo Mendez, Mexican Americans who immigrated to the United States to seek refuge from the Mexican Revolution. With a family of eight brothers and eight sisters, Mendez spent much of his early life in San Antonio. When Mendez was just a child his family, who had U.S. citizenship, was forced by the U.S. government to leave the United States amid the Great Depression and relocate to Mexico. Mendez joined the Mexican Army at only 17, either having his parents sign his enlistment papers or lying about his age. His service was only required for one year, and he was discharged in 1942. As soon as his service in the Mexican military had ended, Mendez was drafted into the U.S military, joining the nearly 500,000 other Mexican Americans that served in World War II. Given the choice of branches, he chose to serve in the Marine Corps
Front Gate at Camp Pendleton, CA, circa 1950s. Photograph from Marines.mil
So I asked to go into the Navy, but before they dismissed that group of people, which were quite a few, a gunnery sergeant came over and he says, ‘I need ten volunteers. You will be Navy personnel but you will be in the Marine Corps, which is the infantry of the Navy. And you will be the fighting force, land, sea, and air, and you will be at the disposal of the President of the United States… So I said ‘this sounds pretty good.’ So I was one of those volunteers.
Gilberto Mendez on volunteering for the Marines
Already experienced from basic training in the Mexican Army, Mendez began his training as a marine at Camp Pendleton in California. Mendez discovered a talent for boxing in the Marine Corps after an arranged bout with a fellow marine who harassed him for his Mexican heritage. As a boxer, Mendez won almost all his 19 fights, winning steaks and war bonds as prizes. Mendez served in the 23rd Marine Regiment of the 4th Marine Division, which would see combat at Kwajalein Atoll (1943), Saipan (1944), Tinian (1944), and Iwo Jima (1945) and was largely composed of veteran marines. Joining later in the war as a replacement for the 23rd’s diminishing ranks of veterans, Mendez served in the Battle for Iwo Jima, one of the bloodiest in Marine Corps history.
23rd Infantry Regiment command post in a culvert on Iwo Jima, 1945. U.S. Marine Corps photograph from the National Archives.
Landing on the 6th day after the first wave, Mendez watched as the flag was raised over Iwo Jima but quickly learned the battle was far from over. Waiting to hit the beaches himself, he witnessed Higgins boats ahead of his unit be demolished by enemy fire, with one “...receiving a direct hit, blowing at sky high, that’s when I got scared.” After Mendez landed, he was immersed in the fighting at Iwo Jima. His unit was suppressed by Japanese snipers, and he spent days with little to no sleep, attempting to stay out of the line of fire. Soon, the standstill came to a head, and his unit was charged by Japanese forces. Taking cover and staying hidden, Mendez personally shot 20 Japanese soldiers and helped seize the island’s Elinerton Airfield. When his unit advanced further after about a week of constant fighting on Iwo Jima, Mendez was wounded and nearly killed by an artillery shell. He would not be present to witness Iwo Jima’s role as a vital steppingstone and emergency landing area in the U.S. island hopping campaign.
Oh, your heart was beating a thousand times a minute, I guess. My skin was like chicken skin, you know, you get excited. You lost your fear. If those guys made it, but it was false, that feeling, it was false, because the good stuff hadn’t started yet.
Gilberto Mendez, on the flag raising at Iwo Jima
Mendez was transported by hospital ship to Maui then brought back to Oakland, California, where he was discharged. Reentering into the workforce, Mendez became a foreman at Lackland Airforce Base. Initially, he struggled to reconcile his violent actions in the war with his Catholic faith but eventually came to terms with his service and stated that he would gladly do it again.
It was, we were defending ourselves. And defending yourself was legal. In the faith. So that gave me a different point of view, and I said ‘I’m not guilty.’ Comparing the guilt that I felt with an acquittal.
Click here to hear Gilberto Mendez's story in his own words.
Read More:
Marines, History of the 4th Marine Division
National WWII Museum, "The Battle for Iwo Jima"
National Park Service, "Latinos in World War II: Fighting on Two Fronts"
Contributor
Alton Krueger
