John Witt

“Because I was born after John’s death, I have no memory of him other than the picture that hung in my parents’ home and that is now in my son’s possession. My mother told me how her family grieved when they received the news of John’s death, and I often visited his rural gravesite with her in Kentucky.

Sixty years after the Battle of Iwo Jima, my son was present at a recognition ceremony on the island and had the opportunity to tell John’s story on the radio during that event. Of the 12 uncles on both sides of my family, nine served in the military; John was the only one to die in battle.”

– Belva Collins, Professor, Cato College of Education

John Witt, remembered by his niece, Belva Collins

John Witt left the hills of Kentucky to enlist in the Marine Corps, where he served during the Pacific War.

Belva Collins’ mother’s brother, John Witt, left the farming hills of Kentucky to enlist in the Marine Corps during WWII. He served in the Pacific and survived the Battle of Tarawa, the Solomon Islands campaign and the Battle of Peleliu before he was killed on Iwo Jima. Collins’ son, a Marine officer stationed on Okinawa, decided to investigate his great-uncle’s death. He located a couple of Marine WWII veterans who were with Witt the night before the Battle of Iwo Jima. It was their first battle, and they were scared. They said that they watched Witt calmly eat his rations while showing no sign of fear. They knew he had survived several battles on Pacific Islands prior to that night so they decided that if John could remain calm, they could, too. In the end, they survived but Witt did not. He was killed by a sniper on Iwo Jima following the battle.

Military service to the country seems to run in the family. Collins’ father served as a navigator on a plane in the Air Force and was sent to England at the end of WWII, and she married a Vietnam veteran who had a connection to WWII. His father, Theodore Collins (now deceased), was a tail gunner in the Navy during the war and was shot down over North Africa. The crew was rescued and were all back on duty the next day. Later, her son served in the War in Iraq as a Marine Corps officer and currently works for the Department of Defense in South Korea.