This man's name is/was Angelo Klonis (sorry, I can't find any source saying if he's still living), born in Kephalonia island Greece, he smuggled himself into the US in the mid 1930s on a ship from Piraeus Port to assist financially his family. Sources also claim he wasn't even an US citizen at the time of his enlistment but he was determined to fight for freedom and he was allowed to join the US Army
The United States Marine in this photograph, most commonly said to be either Angelo Spiros Klonis or T.E. Underwood, (see my second and third links at the bottom) is often mistakenly reported to have fought both at Saipan (for which evidence, this photo, as well as another of him drinking from a canteen, exists) and in Normandy. Even if this man is not actually Underwood or Klonis, this is not realistically possible. The invasion force destined for the landing on Saipan, part of Operation Forager, the invasion of the Mariana and Palau Islands, departed from Hawaii the day before the D-Day landings. The debate over who actually is in the photograph has often come to dead ends due to mislabeling of photographs, as well as loss and muddling of records, both official and personal, and may never be definitively solved. For what it's worth, an Angelos S. Klonis that hailed from Greece and was not yet a citizen of the United States was drafted into the U.S. Army from Santa Fe, New Mexico on August 10, 1942 and given Army Serial Number 38166479.
I live on Saipan. A couple weekends a month I'll go out into the jungle and find medicine/ alcohol bottles, helmets, canteens, guns, bullets, grenades and bones (of which there are many). There are some places on this small island that are pretty difficult to get to.
![image showing U.S. Marine: Battle of Saipan , 1944 [550×615]](b2cd9669-9546-56c6-ab15-4c465062f103.jpg)
MitsosGate13 on April 5th, 2017 at 04:04 UTC »
This man's name is/was Angelo Klonis (sorry, I can't find any source saying if he's still living), born in Kephalonia island Greece, he smuggled himself into the US in the mid 1930s on a ship from Piraeus Port to assist financially his family. Sources also claim he wasn't even an US citizen at the time of his enlistment but he was determined to fight for freedom and he was allowed to join the US Army
http://www.ww2f.com/threads/angelo-klonis-the-real-life-story-of-an-army-soldier.32778/
edit: he was US Army, not usmc
the_howling_cow on April 5th, 2017 at 04:04 UTC »
The United States Marine in this photograph, most commonly said to be either Angelo Spiros Klonis or T.E. Underwood, (see my second and third links at the bottom) is often mistakenly reported to have fought both at Saipan (for which evidence, this photo, as well as another of him drinking from a canteen, exists) and in Normandy. Even if this man is not actually Underwood or Klonis, this is not realistically possible. The invasion force destined for the landing on Saipan, part of Operation Forager, the invasion of the Mariana and Palau Islands, departed from Hawaii the day before the D-Day landings. The debate over who actually is in the photograph has often come to dead ends due to mislabeling of photographs, as well as loss and muddling of records, both official and personal, and may never be definitively solved. For what it's worth, an Angelos S. Klonis that hailed from Greece and was not yet a citizen of the United States was drafted into the U.S. Army from Santa Fe, New Mexico on August 10, 1942 and given Army Serial Number 38166479.
More information here, here, and here.
OmegaMoose on April 5th, 2017 at 07:32 UTC »
I live on Saipan. A couple weekends a month I'll go out into the jungle and find medicine/ alcohol bottles, helmets, canteens, guns, bullets, grenades and bones (of which there are many). There are some places on this small island that are pretty difficult to get to.