Local World War II veteran recounts battle of Iwo Jima, kamikaze attacks

When Hadley Parker talks about his experience at the battle of Iwo Jima, two words come to mind that aren’t included in most war stories.

Mae West.

It’s not a typical word association with the famous battle in the South Pacific, but for Parker, it’s one that still causes him pause and his voice to quiver 65 years later.

After Parker was stationed to a U.S.S. Bismarck Sea aircraft carrier, the naval aviator encountered the ship’s chief petty officer.

“His life belt was leaking like crazy,” Parker recalls. “I had a Mae West (life preserver) from when I was in Astoria (Wash.), so I gave him my life belt.”
 

A few days after that exchange, two kamikaze Japanese fighters struck the carrier, and sank it, just two days into the battle of Iwo Jima.

“It was late in the evening and it was getting dark,” Parker said. “We landed our attacking planes and apparently, some suicide Japanese planes followed ours home to the carrier,”

The first one struck on the starboard side under a 40mm gun, crashing through the hangar deck and striking the ship’s magazine. The second one then crashed into an elevator shaft, disabling the ship’s salt water fire fighting system.

“It made quite an explosion,” Parker said of the second plane. “I went over the side to make my way to a destroyer nearby.”

After graduating from Emerson High School in 1937, Parker studied aviation in college, and decided the military was his best opportunity to pursue his piloting career.

Three days before the Pearl Harbor invasion, he joined the Naval Aviation corps.
Parker excelled in the naval training program based in Pensacola, Fla., so much so he was retained as an instructor.

In 1944, he was then deployed to the Bismarck, a part of the Casablanca class of aircraft carriers. The Bismarck also had the distinction of being the smallest carrier in the Pacific fleet, measuring at 512 fleet, with a capacity of 28 fighter planes.

Parker served as the ship’s flight deck officer, a position that had to be filled by an aviator. His responsibilities included spotting and respotting planes for take off and landing, and managing the flight deck.  

After the sinking of the Bismarck, Parker returned stateside, and was in training to learn to fly B-24s when the war ended.

He decided to leave the military with a rank of Lieutentant Senior Grade in 1945.

“I decided there wouldn’t be much future in the military during peacetime,” Parker said. “That, and I was kind of warm about a girl back home … and she didn’t want anything to do with the career I had.”

Parker went back home to Emerson and married that girl in 1947, settling down to a life on the farm.

Parker now lives in Stanton Care Center. Upon learning of Parker’s aviation history, the staff there organized a flight for him in a private plane.

“That was pretty neat,” Parker said of the short flight from the Red Oak airport.

“It was a lot of fun flying planes.”

As he looks back at his service, Parker is proud of the time he spent serving.

“I was glad I did it and had the opportunity to do what I like to do for my country,” he said.

But when asked about his singular moment in history, Parker tells the story of his life preserver commonly referred to as a “Mae West” by World War II veterans.

“A few days after the ship sank, the guy I gave my left belt to came around and thanked me personally, because he said that thing saved his life,” Parker said. “I might be more proud of that than anything.”