THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 16, 1995 TAG: 9508150119
SECTION: ISLE OF WIGHT CITIZEN PAGE: 09 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY LINDA McNATT, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SMITHFIELD LENGTH: Medium: 99 lines
FOR 50 YEARS, Joseph A. ``Gus'' Barlow has kept memories tucked away in a yellowed, heavy paper folder.
There are palm trees and white sand beaches, a beautiful island girl he danced with, the superior officers he served - and the image closest to his heart, Marines with the 3rd Division of the 21st Marines raising the American flag on Iwo Jima.
``We lost 5,000 Marines in that invasion,'' says Barlow, leafing through long-treasured photographs. ``I didn't go because I'd been assigned to the MPs. I guess my mother's prayers were answered.''
He wasn't just an MP. He was a military policeman assigned to Adm. Chester W. Nimitz's headquarters on the island of Guam.
But Barlow, 70, remembers hearing the horror of the invasion through the eyes of the men he served with. He recalls the death and destruction involved with taking the South Pacific islands, one by one, from Japanese control.
He says he will never forget it.
``One of the guys said he saw one of our boys pick up a flame thrower. Not knowing how to use it, he threw it in the wind. It came back on him and killed him.''
Barlow was just a boy when he came home from Virginia Tech with an injury he sustained at an obstacle course while enrolled there in military training. For a few months, he delivered milk.
His older brother, Gurley, was an officer in the Army, stationed in Europe with an anti-aircraft regiment. Gus turned 18 in August 1943. The following June, he enlisted in the Marines.
``I volunteered. Everybody else was in the service. I wanted to be a Marine. It never dawned on me that I might go into battle.''
With 2,000 ``replacement drafts,'' Barlow shipped out of San Diego after just five months of training at Parris Island, in South Carolina. It was late 1944. They didn't know it then, but they were involved in the final months of World War II.
``That wasn't much training,'' Barlow says. ``We knew what we were getting into. `Replacement troops' - all we were was to stop bullets.''
Barlow and his comrades landed on Guam in early January 1945. After just a couple of weeks on the island, 200 names were called. His was one of them.
``They told us to pack up. We didn't know where we were going. They finally told us to report to headquarters, that we were going to be MPs.''
The Smithfield native spent the following months patrolling the 30-mile-long tropical island, mostly at night. Japanese soldiers still lurked there. One of his last stops for the night, he says, was typically the photo lab, where he and another MP were invited to help themselves to copies of original war photos.
``We were all in it together,'' Gus Barlow says, still fingering his collection of photographs.
``Regardless of what it took, we had to win. We had to do what we had to do.'' MEMO: [For related stories see page 8 of THE ISLE OF WIGHT CITIZEN for this
date.]
ILLUSTRATION: [Cover]
REMEMBERING THE WAR
[Color] Staff photo by JOHN H. SHEALLY II
Gus Barlow holds an aerial photo of the base on Guam where he was an
MP. He witnessed the war's final hours and had photos of those very
moments.
On Guam, Joseph ``Gus'' Barlow served as an MP. Among his treasured
memories of the war was dancing with a beautiful island girl.
Staff photo by JOHN H. SHEALLY II
Gus Barlow looks over pictures he has saved of World War II in the
Pacific theater.
by CNB