This Military Service Page was created/owned by
Shaun Thomas (Underdog), OSC
to remember
Lewis Jr., Lemuel Banks (Stepdad), GM1 USN(Ret).
If you knew or served with this Sailor and have additional information or photos to support this Page, please leave a message for the Page Administrator(s) HERE.
Contact Info
Home Town Savannah
Last Address Savannah
Date of Passing Aug 15, 1971
Location of Interment Bonaventure Cemetery - Savannah, Georgia
Lem married my Mother in January 1946, they were divorced in 1968. He died due to a massive heart attack in August 1971. I was deployed to the med at the time and was considered to valuable by CO to be given emergency leave since Lem was my step-father instead of my natural father. I was Leading Signalman on the Canisteo (AO-99) at the time.
Lem never discussed, in detail, his war time expierences, there for most of the information i have is based mostly on conjecture except for the two battles that I have listed. I have never known what wartime commands he was actually stationed on, however he did mention that he had had two ships sunk out from under him with in a month. I do know that one of those ships was an APA.
All of the commands that he was assigned to, after the war are from my memory and the actual commands are factual, though the actual time frames are, in sum cases, conjecture based on what school year I was in at the time and what school I was attending.
World War II/Asiatic-Pacific Theater/Iwo Jima Operation
From Month/Year
February / 1945
To Month/Year
March / 1945
Description The Battle of Iwo Jima (19 February – 26 March 1945), or Operation Detachment, was a major battle in which the United States Armed Forces fought for and captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Japanese Empire. The American invasion had the goal of capturing the entire island, including its three airfields (including South Field and Central Field), to provide a staging area for attacks on the Japanese main islands. This five-week battle comprised some of the fiercest and bloodiest fighting of the War in the Pacific of World War II.
After the heavy losses incurred in the battle, the strategic value of the island became controversial. It was useless to the U.S. Army as a staging base and useless to the U.S. Navy as a fleet base. However, Navy SEABEES rebuilt the landing strips, which were used as emergency landing strips for USAAF B-29s.
The Imperial Japanese Army positions on the island were heavily fortified, with a dense network of bunkers, hidden artillery positions, and 18 km (11 mi) of underground tunnels. The Americans on the ground were supported by extensive naval artillery and complete air supremacy over Iwo Jima from the beginning of the battle by U.S. Navy and Marine Corps aviators.
Iwo Jima was the only battle by the U.S. Marine Corps in which the Japanese combat deaths were thrice those of the Americans throughout the battle. Of the 22,000 Japanese soldiers on Iwo Jima at the beginning of the battle, only 216 were taken prisoner, some of whom were captured because they had been knocked unconscious or otherwise disabled. The majority of the remainder were killed in action, although it has been estimated that as many as 3,000 continued to resist within the various cave systems for many days afterwards, eventually succumbing to their injuries or surrendering weeks later.
Despite the bloody fighting and severe casualties on both sides, the Japanese defeat was assured from the start. Overwhelming American superiority in arms and numbers as well as complete control of air power — coupled with the impossibility of Japanese retreat or reinforcement — permitted no plausible circumstance in which the Americans could have lost the battle.
The battle was immortalized by Joe Rosenthal's photograph of the raising of the U.S. flag on top of the 166 m (545 ft) Mount Suribachi by five U.S. Marines and one U.S. Navy battlefield Hospital Corpsman. The photograph records the second flag-raising on the mountain, both of which took place on the fifth day of the 35-day battle. Rosenthal's photograph promptly became an indelible icon — of that battle, of that war in the Pacific, and of the Marine Corps itself — and has been widely reproduced.
My Participation in This Battle or Operation
From Month/Year
February / 1945
To Month/Year
March / 1945
Last Updated: Mar 16, 2020
Personal Memories
Memories Carrying men of the 3rd Marine Division, the attack transport departed Guam 17 February and arrived off Iwo Jima the 19th. Until 27 February she operated in the retirement area; then during the next week she debarked reinforcements, unloaded cargo, and embarked casualties. On 5 March she sailed for Guam where she arrived 8 March to debark more than 400 casualties of the bitter fighting on Iwo Jima.
From 9 to 27 March, James O'Hara sailed via the Solomons and the New Hebrides to New Caledonia where, during the next month, she practiced amphibious attacks. Between 3 May and 15 July she transported men and supplies from New Caledonia and New Guinea to the Philippines. After loading cargo at Guiuan, Samar, she sailed for the United States 18 July and reached San Francisco 4 August.
