Private First Class James A. Connolly, son of Mr. and Mrs. D. J. Connolly, 3336 Nebraska street, is home on furlough from Camp Atterbury, Ind. He recently was awarded the good conduct medal. Private Connolly has three brothers overseas: Technical Sergeant Robert Connolly, stationed with an ordnance group in Ireland; Petty Officer First Class Edward Connolly, who has taken part in several campaigns in the South Pacific; and Sergeant Maurice Connolly, who served with the Marines in the battles of Rsi and Namur in the Marshall islands. The latter’s wife recently joined the WAVES to add to the number of the family in the service. A fourth brother, Bill, received an honorable discharge from the Army in January, having been hospitalized nine months of the 22 months he served. He also saw overseas duty.
Source: The Sioux City Journal, April 14, 1944
SGT. CONNOLLY WRITES PARENTS OF IWO FIGHTING
Sioux Cityan Says He Never Will Forget First Two Days
Sgt. Maurice J. Connolly, Company B, First battalion, 23d regiment, Fourth division, United States Marines, in a letter to his parents, Mr. and Mrs. D. J. Connolly, 3336 Nebraska street, said he would never forget “those first two days and nights” on Iwo Jima—that “the Lord was good to me and I am thankful.”
Sgt. Connolly wrote that he was “in it from start to finish”—that “the Japs started firing artillery and mortars at us when we were 300 yards away from the beach,” that they added machine gun fire as the marines reached the beach, and that “about an hour later all hell broke loose,” the enemy giving out everything it had, including “buzz bombs (flying box cars),” the terrifying sound of which young Connolly expects to carry with him all his life. He described the north end of Iwo Jima as “the roughest country I ever had seen” and stated that the only way to get to the fortified Japs was by infantry attacks, “which is what made it so rough and costly.”
Sgt. Connolly’s wife (Mrs. Connolly, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Henry C. Doerr) is a WAVE at Chatham, Miss. His brother Ed is a chief petty officer at the naval receiving station at Brooklyn, and his brother Bob, a technical sergeant on the western European front. Another brother, James, was killed in action on the same front.
Source: The Sioux City Journal, March 27, 1945
