Iron Man

From the spotless decks of San Diego's Naval Hospital last week came word that the Paul Bunyan of the Marine Corps had pulled through again: 45-year-old "Jim" Crowe had persuaded the doctors to let him go back to war.

Leading his battalion of the 8th Marines into another beachhead landing--at Saipan last June -- 6-ft, 200-lb. Lieut. Colonel Henry Pierson Crowe came about as near to getting killed as a man could, and still live. First a Jap bullet pierced his left lung, not far from his heart. Then he was almost killed by one of his own men who mistook him for a Jap. Just as the man was aiming, Jim Crowe raised his head feebly, identified himself by twirling his famed red mustache. Finally dragged back to a shell hole in the sand near the water, Jim Crowe was treated by a Navy-hospital corpsman. There a Jap mortar shell killed the kneeling corpsman; another fragment wounded a doctor who took the corpsman's place.

By that time mortar and artillery shells were dropping on the slender beachhead every 30 seconds. Colonel Crowe covered his chest wound with his poncho, covered his face with his helmet. A shell fragment tore through the poncho, pierced his chest in two more places. Five other fragments hit him in the left arm and shoulder, another in the right leg. A sliver tore off his thumbnail. A doctor who examined him said, "Not much chance."

Crowe croaked: "First thing you do, cut off that hanging thumbnail. It's damned annoying." Leatherneck's Career. Like many an other famed Marine (e.g., Generals "Lem" Shepherd and "Red Mike" Edson, Colonel "Chesty" Puller), Kentucky-born Jim Crowe started in the ranks. He was an enlisted man up to 1934, when he became a Marine gunner (warrant officer). After Pearl Harbor, he was commissioned a captain ("I was never a lousy second looey").

During his 16 years in the ranks Jim Crowe was Marine-famed for two things: he was one of the world's topnotch rifle shots and for six years he was a crack player on the all-Marine football teams. He quit football in 1934, a year after an officer remarked: "Jim Crowe must be getting old. He used to make seven out of eight of the team's tackles. Today he made only half."

At Guadalcanal bull-voiced Jim Crowe contributed his bit to Marine folklore: leading a charge against the dug-in Japs, he yelled: "Get out of those foxholes, men, you'll never get the Purple Heart layin' there!" Jim Crowe lasted through Tarawa before he got his Purple Heart, added it to his Silver Star (Guadalcanal), Navy Cross (Tarawa) and his Good Conduct medal (four enlistments) which he says he prizes most of all.

Colonel Crowe's fondness for what he calls his "Baptist Cocktail" has made him also feared by his friends. His recipe: "Go into the kitchen, get a tall glass, and put into it everything you can reach without taking more than three steps." If there is any roach powder, ant paste or canned heat within three steps, Jim is likely to mix a spot or two with the gin, brandy, whiskey and tabasco sauce. But he apparently thrives on such concoctions. At San Diego a doctor told him: "Colonel, you owe your life to a strong constitution and good, clean living." Jim smiled.

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