Servicemen’s burial flags presented to local Marine Corps League
Marine Cpl. Richard L. “Dick” Pittman was killed in action on Iwo Jima on Feb. 21, 1945, the third day of the savage battle on the small island 750 miles from Japan that was needed to provide a landing strip for U.S. planes that were damaged on bombing raids in preparation for the invasion of the Japanese mainland.
Loda (Illinois) American Legion Commander Ronald Dudley, right, presents the flags on behalf of Norma Pittman to Marine Corps League #1231 Commandant Bill Schultz.
The battle for Iwo Jima raged on for another 33 days before victory and saved the lives of more than 2,400 pilots and crews who would have otherwise crashed into the ocean.
But it was a costly campaign. Pittman was one of the first of the 6,821 Americans, mostly Marines, who gave their lives in this historic battle. Its significance made an impact around the world when Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal took the now-iconic photo of a small squad of Marines raising the U.S. flag on Mount Suribachi. That photo helped raise an incredible $26.3 billion in the last war bond drive needed to fund the U.S. effort.
Pittman had played on Urbana High School’s football and basketball teams with his friend James M. “Jim” Kelly, who was also a Marine fighting on Iwo Jima. Kelly was able to see Pittman’s body before he was buried in the temporary 5th Marine Division Cemetery on the island. Other divisions involved in the battle had their own cemeteries, as well.
Years later, the remains of the U.S. servicemen buried on Iwo Jima were exhumed and either sent home to their families for burial or buried in permanent U.S. military cemeteries in the Pacific.
Pittman’s remains were taken to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific — known as the Punchbowl — for internment. As was the custom, each man had a funeral flag that was sent to the person the service member had listed as next of kin.
A simple cardboard box containing the 48-star flag for “Pittman, Richard Leo Cpl, 834857” was postmarked from the Army postal service on March 11, 1949. It was mailed to Pittman’s mother, Mrs. Jessie M. Archimede, in Sacramento, California, who later gave it to Dick’s brother, Don, a longtime teacher who retired in 1983 from Central High School in Champaign. He was in the Navy serving in the South Pacific at the same time Dick was on Iwo Jima but didn’t hear of his brother’s death for several weeks.
Don passed away in 2018, but his widow, Norma, still had Dick’s funeral flag, as well as their father Frank William Pittman’s 48-star flag from his Army service in World War I.
When it recently came time to find a home for these historical items, Norma wanted to make sure they would be in good hands.
“I wanted to be sure they were some place they would be taken care of and preserved properly,” she said.
The 5th Marine Division cemetery on Iwo Jima after the battle, with Mount Suribachi in the background
For Dick’s flag, the appropriate home was the Richard L. Pittman Marine Corps League #1231 in Urbana-Champaign. When the league chapter was established in 2006, Dick’s buddy, Jim Kelly, had proposed that it be named in Dick’s honor. His brother Don was an honorary member.
At the April 17 MCL meeting, Commander Ronald Dudley of the Loda American Legion post brought the flag on Norma’s behalf and presented it to MCL Commandant Bill Schultz. Dudley also presented the league with Frank Pittman’s World War I-era flag, as well as Don’s funeral flag from 2018, which was neatly folded in a triangular-shaped case.
As time passes, such historic artifacts and mementos are difficult for families to keep for posterity. Fortunately, in the case of these flags, the Richard L. Pittman Marine Corps League will determine how to properly preserve them at the Urbana VFW Post 630, where Dick’s photo and other information about him and the Marine Corps League are posted and continue to honor the service and sacrifice of our military.