Tony Stein

Anthony Michael “Tony” Stein was born on September 30, 1921, in Dayton, Ohio, the son of Rose and Steve Stein. His parents had emigrated from Yugoslavia and were German-speaking immigrants with Austrian papers. They came to American to escape anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe and embrace the opportunities of the United States. Tony was a daredevil as a kid and never showed fear of anything. His care-free behavior did not lend itself to school and he dropped out of Kiser High School his freshman year.

Even though things were tough for his family, he found many ways to earn money for his parents and he learned toolmaking at a machine shop at Dayton’s Patterson Field.[1] He then did a stint in FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps working in a lumber camp and doing various construction jobs. After serving there, he returned to Dayton where he got another job as a tool and die maker apprentice at Delco Products plant.

A few factoids about Tony at this time will give one a better understanding of why he earned the Medal of Honor later in life. In 1940, seeing a boy drowning in Mad River, he rescued his life. Then he joined a boxing league in the city and reached the Dayton Golden Glove Championship and won it in February 1942, fighting at 128-pounds and standing at 5'6". He was physically tough, willing to take risks and helpful to others.

After Pearl Harbor, his tool company was deemed essential for the war economy, so he was not initially drafted, which relieved his Jewish mother. However, Tony had other ideas and joined the Marine Corps in September 1942. He knew they were the first sent into battle and he wanted to fight the fascist warmongers who had attacked his country.[2]

After he finished Boot Camp, Tony joined the ParaMarines (he was going to be part of the Marine Corps Shock Troops and become a Paratrooper). After this training, he deployed to the Pacific and fought in the battles of Guadalcanal, Bougainville, and Vella Lavella. On Bougainville, he became known as a “sniper exterminator,” taking out five snipers before they could continue killing any of his comrades. Such a position in the squad, being a sniper of snipers, required excellent knowledge of his rifle, patience, and excellent body control. He was becoming one of the best in his group of elite warriors.[3]  

After the battle of Bougainville in 1943-1944, Stein’s ParaMarines disbanded and he returned to the States for some leave. People were astounded by his transformation. In 1942, he left weighing 130-pounds; 20 months later he had grown two inches and weighed 190-pounds, all muscle. He was now built like a linebacker. While on leave, he  married one of his earlier co-workers from Patterson Field, Joan Stominger. After his honeymoon, he left for Camp Pendleton, California, to help set up and build out the newly formed 5^th Marine Corps Division (5^th MarDiv). He was promoted to corporal and put in charge of a squad of 13 men.[4]

During this time, he used his skills as a toolmaker to modify a machinegun that would define him on Iwo Jima. In February 1945, his division loaded on their ships and headed to what would become one of the most brutal battles of World War II. And Tony’s division would be the first, along with the 4^th MarDiv, to hit the island when it was attacked.[5]

Stein was unquestionably heroic on the first day of battle when the Marines hit the beach on Iwo Jima on February 19, 1945. This day was hell on earth for the Marines. Men could not get off the beach or see the enemy, which was hidden in pillboxes, bunkers, tunnels, and caves (the island is eight square miles and there were eleven miles of tunnels). Locating positions Stein wanted to attack, he stood up in plain view receiving fire while lugging a Browning .30 caliber machinegun that fired 500 rounds per minute. With help from others, Stein had salvaged a Browning machinegun from a crashed aircraft and modified it by “fitting the gun with a M1 Garand buttstock, a BAR bipod, a BAR rear sight, and a fabricated trigger.”[6] [7] When he fired it, men around could hear it above the roar of battle. They called it the Stinger.[8]

Carrying a Stinger, like the backpack flamethrower, required courage. “He was fearless…He didn’t know the meaning of the word fear,” according to James Hallas.[9]  The day Stein earned the Medal of Honor (the highest decoration for valor in the United States Armed Forces), he ran back to the beach to reload his Stinger with 100 rounds eight times after carrying back a wounded man or helping one to an Aid Station. To improve agility and to enhance visibility, he shed his boots and helmet. He helped get Marines moving off the beach and was a one-man wrecking crew destroying several pillboxes. A week later, he was killed leading a patrol.10]

During the review of the command’s recommendation that Stein receive the Navy Cross posthumously, Major General James L. Underhill, a member of Fleet Marine Force, Pacific’s Awards Board, believed a better description of Stein’s actions might upgrade the award. On May 17, 1945, he wrote Stein’s battalion commander, Colonel J. B. Butterfield, for more information.[11] Eventually, a more detailed report was submitted and sent up the chain of command and Lieutenant General Holland M. “Howlin Mad” Smith (head of Fleet Marine Force, Pacific), Pacific Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, General Alexander A. Vandegrift (Commandant of the Marine Corps), Rear Admiral R. W. Hayler (head of the Navy Department of Awards and Decorations), and Fleet Admiral Ernest King (head of the U.S. Navy) recommended approval of a Medal of Honor for Stein.[12] Stein’s nomination for the award received 15 endorsements, the most of any soldier in Flamethrower.

A week after he had fallen, Tony’s decayed body was retrieved from the battlefield and buried in plot 5, row 6, grave 1107, in the 5^th Marine Division Cemetery on Iwo Jima, a cemetery where, several weeks later, Rabbi Roland Gittlesohn gave a famous eulogy entitled, “The Purest Democracy.”

A year later, on February 19, 1946, Tony’s Medal of Honor was presented to his 24-year-old widow at the Ohio Statehouse in the presence of the governor. Admiral Richard Pennoyer tied the Medal around her neck as she stood overwhelmed by the emotions of pride and loss. Stein’s mother witnessed the ceremony with tears streaming down her face.

Stein’s remains were removed from Iwo Jima in 1948 and arrived, one week before Christmas, back in Dayton, provoking a fight between his widow and mother over where he would be buried. His mother Rose wanted Tony buried in a Jewish cemetery and Joan wanted him laid to rest in her church’s burial grounds. Although it seems Tony identified as Jewish, he may have converted for his wife when they got married (the records are unclear). Joan had remarried, complicating the legal question as to whether she was his next-of-kin. 

The military recognized Joan as the next-of-kin and Stein was reburied in Our Lady of Rosary Church according to his wife’s wishes. [13]

As far as history is concerned, though, Tony Stein was the only Jewish Medal of Honor recipient from Iwo Jima.

Sources: Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation;
Bryan Rigg, Flamethrower: Iwo Jima Medal of Honor Recipient and U.S. Marine Woody Williams and His Controversial Award, Japan's Holocaust and the Pacific War, Fidelis Historia, (March 19, 2020).

Photos: Top Public Domain Wikimedia
Additional photo courtesy of Bryan Rigg