Two Marines reconnect after 65 years

Just before I left for the 65th Anniversary Iwo Jima Reunion and Symposium in Arlington, Va., last February, I received a particularly intriguing e-mail from John Butler, son of LtCol. John Butler, commanding officer of 1/27 who was killed on Iwo Jima on March 5, 1945. 

The e-mail was a story of two Marines who had found each other after 65 years, both thinking the other hadn’t made it off the island alive. Both were in John’s father’s First Battalion, 27th Marine Regiment, both in C Company, one a rifle platoon sergeant (who had been a paramarine), the other a machine gun section leader (who had been a Marine Raider) in GySgt. John Basilone’s platoon, the Medal of Honor recipient who was killed on Iwo Jima and was featured in the recent Hanks-Spielberg mini series, The Pacific.

As a result of a chance encounter, the two buddies who shook hands as they embarked on their amtracs for the ride to Red Beach Two reconnected all those years later. One man was Clarence Rea, the rifle platoon sergeant, the other man was Clinton Watters, the machine gun section leader.

“He was wounded early on,” Rea had written. “I received information that he had died from wounds. At a party in Los Angeles last Saturday night (Feb.13, 2010) for my grandson, my nephew walked up to me and said he had a fishing friend in Orange Country whose name was Mark Watters. The friend mentioned that his dad had been on Iwo.”

Rea’s nephew recalled a photo his uncle had showed him of five Marines (one of whom was Basilone) and recalled the name of Watters as one of the men. Mark Watters reportedly called his father in Medford, Ore., and asked him if he knew Clarence Rea. His dad reportedly replied, “Yes. Where the heck is he?”

During the party, the nephew tapped his uncle on the shoulder and handed him a piece of paper with Watters’ e-mail, address and phone number and told him to call when he got home. Which he did on Monday morning.

“The tears rolled on this end,” Rea had written in the e-mail. “I could not believe this, and I still can hardly believe it. We talked for an hour and a half and have been in contact almost daily since. What a reunion."

Watters, who was Basilone’s best man at his wedding to Marine Sgt. Lena Riggi before they left Camp Pendleton for Camp Tarawa on the island of Hawaii, was originally with Basilone in 1/7 on Samoa but was in the hospital with jaundice when the battalion left for Guadalcanal where Basilone was awarded the Medal of Honor. Watters was reassigned to the 2nd Marine Division and later hooked up with the 3rd Raider Battalion and fought on Bouganville before joining 1/27 for the Iwo Jima campaign.

“We (Watters and Rea) had been good friends and buddies all through the forming of the Fifth Marine Division at Camp Pendleton,” Rea had written. “Clint was wounded a few days before I was on Iwo Jima. He was taken to the hospital on Guam and then back to the States to a hospital on the East Coast.

“When I was wounded on March 3, I was taken to the hospital on Guam, too. I was there a little longer than usual, arguing to save my arm, which was going to be amputated. It was here that I was told that Clint had died.”

From Guam, Rea was shipped to Aiea Heights Naval Hospital in Hawaii and then back to the States to Oak Knoll Naval Hospital in Oakland, Calif., where he had “experimental work done on (his) arm and saved it. Rea said he was in the hospital for a year and a half, Waters said he was in one for six months.

“All these years, I thought he had perished,” Rea said. “I did not sleep most of last night (after they talked on the phone) I was so elated to know he was still with us. I will really believe it when I see him again.”

After they had reconnected, they planned a reunion in Northern California that took in Vacaville and “what a wonderful reunion!” Rea later wrote. “We spoke of many of our old friends that we lost. After 65 years we both look the same, although Clint is still the better looking Marine!”

Watters wrote in an e-mail to note “that it was almost 65 years to the day that we last greeted each other while boarding the landing craft to land on Iwo on Feb. 19. Another item we have learned since getting back together is that we have the same birth dates, only a year apart. Clarence is the old man.”

“What a joy to re-connect,” Rea told me later at his home in Grover Beach, Calif.