Randall, Bob
Posted on 15 September, 2021 by in Veterans By Name, R
9 January 2019
This bio of Bob Randall USMC Serial number 812472 was filmed and written in February 2012 in Zephyrhills Florida.
Bob Randall was born in 1925. He enlisted in August 1943 he was in both the 2nd Marine Div. At Siapan and the 5th Div. At Iwo Jima.
Bob tried to get into the Marine Raiders because he felt like they were tougher and got into battle quickest. He fought at Siapan and Tinian but felt like that was easy compared to Iwo Jima because you could not did a fox hole since the ground was volcanic ash and would just fall back into your fox hole. (I was told the exact same thing about Iwo Jima being much worse than Guadalcanal by a Marine Raider from Edson’s Raiders named Bill Dakin Lansing Michigan in 2001 who fought on Guadalcanal before the Raiders were disbanded in January 1944 when Bill got transferred to the 4th Marine Div. Where he fought at Iwo Jima.) According to Bob the Marine Raiders had more training and were very tough.
Bob was in F Co. of the 28th Reg. 5th Marine Div. While fighting on Iwo Jima. The six flag raisers on Iwo Jima were in E Co, Bob knew all of the flag raisers from Camp Tarawa on Hawaii. Bob knew Ira Hayes quite well. Ira drank to much and sprayed some of the tent’s with a BAR rifle. From my notes from 2012 Bob said from the two Regiments only about one third were not injured. (I do not know what Bob was referring to though it may be on the DVD interview, Today’s writing is just from the notes that I Larry Martin took while we were doing the DVD interview.
Bob was only the second man who got into hand to hand combat during WW II that I interviewed out of over 120 WW II interviews. Bob was wounded on the 26th of February1945 on Iwo Jima. While Bob was in the hospital he was next to a sailor from the Bismark Sea aircraft carrier that was sunk off of Iwo Jima. The sailor died of his burns. My Larry Martin’s cousin Max Reed was killed while aboard the Bismark Sea. According to his brother Marvin Reed who I knew well until 1999 when Marvin died Marvin told me that Max was machine gunned while he was in the water by the Japanese planes that attacked the USS Bismark Sea.
Bob Randall has PTSD every day of his life after his WW II Fighting. I could see that Bob was deeply troubled during the interview that he gave me in 2012.
Ira Hayes did not get into trouble for shooting the tents up with a BAR. Ira also taught young Marine replacements to use the BAR rifle. He taught to shoot into the ground at a slight angle to make the bullets bounce at a angle into the Japanese to kill and injure more of the enemy. This may sound cruel but, WW II was a vicious war and the Pacific theater of war had particular type of hatred.