A major event at this year’s Iwo Jima/World War II Veterans Reunion will be the presentation of a special painting to 98-year-old Joe Caminiti, a World War II veteran and Iwo Jima survivor, by the artist who is traveling the country painting veterans. 

Caminiti is the subject of the painting by artist Don Scott, who finished the portrait early in December 2022, according to Neal Supranovich, who has been handling publicity for the local American Legion, and who provided this information in several emails. 

Caminiti requested that the presentation take place at the reunion, commemorating the beginning of the Battle of Iwo Jima, on Sunday, Feb. 19 at 2 p.m. at the Bristol Public Library. Doors open at 1 p.m. and the event is open to the public. 

The Sunday program will feature a short talk by the artist on his WW II project and the presentation of the portrait to Caminiti, a presentation by local historian Aaron Elson on Caminiti, the reading of the names of the 100 U.S. soldiers killed at the Battle of Iwo Jima, and the ringing of the bell from the dedication of the Iwo Jima Monument. 

Also, at the event will be a commentative quilt for veterans to sign in honor of those Bristolites who served in WWII and the 169 Bristolities who lost their lives.  

The event is co-sponsored by the Bristol Memorial Museum, World War II legacy Foundation, Inc. and the Bristol Korean Veterans Association. 

Caminiti is the first of the WW II veterans to have his portrait completed as part of Scott’s project. The original will hang in Washington, D.C. Caminiti will receive a special limited-edition print. 

The process began when Caminiti attended the unveiling of the Iwo Jima Memorial Monument in Newington. He was to have been joined there by Woody Williams, the last living WW II veteran to receive the Medal of Honor, for actions at the Battle of Iwo Jima.  

As it turns out, both Caminiti and Williams, were in the same Division. Unfortunately, Williams took a fall and was not able to attend, but his grandson and president and CEO of the Woody Williams Foundation, Chad Graham, attended and met with Caminiti. 

At the unveiling, Caminiti also received one of Woody Williams Medal of Honor Coins from Graham who had carried the coin to Connecticut to hand deliver it. Caminiti was also included in the unveiling ceremony. 

Around the same time, Caminiti’s picture was taken for a special painting to be done of him by an artist traveling across the country painting World War II veterans. 

When Caminiti learned about the presentation, he requested it be presented to him on Feb. 19, in honor of those he served with, 100 from the state who died during that battle and the four soldiers from Bristol, who were among the dead. 

An oral history of Caminiti’s life, conducted by local historian  

Editor’s note: Neal Supranovich included this oral history of Joe Caminiti’s life, specially prepared for the Feb. 19 program. Aaron Elson, the historian who conducted the interview, consented to having the following published here: 

The ironies of war are not lost on Joe Caminiti. When he and a buddy went to Springfield, Mass., to enlist in the Marines, his buddy was told he had wax in his ears and to clean it out and come back. When he returned, he had not cleaned the wax out properly and was rejected again. So, he went to a doctor and had his ears cleaned out professionally and they took him.  

“Would you believe it?” Caminiti, 98, said during a recent interview. “It’s during wartime and they wouldn’t take him because he had wax in his ears.” 

When speaking of his fellow Marines, Caminiti often refers to them as “kids,” which is what they were. Caminiti himself, a motor mechanic on an amphibious tractor, was 18-years-old when he delivered an amphibious tractor full of those kids onto the beach at Iwo Jima.  

“There was a kid, when we went to the Marshall Islands, he had appendicitis, so they took him off, and when we came back, he was there waiting to come back on the ship,” Caminiti said. 

“This is like what fate is. He got back on the ship. So we go back to Guam, we’re going to make the landing. This poor guy was in front of me. It’s a good thing he landed the troops, because on the way back he hit a kettle mine and it blew the tractor out of the water and killed the three crewmen that were on it. A kettle mine they called it, that’s what the Japanese laid out there, it looked like a kettle.” 

“Then there’s another kid,” Caminiti said. The Japanese didn’t have many planes, but they had bombs for the planes, so they put a fuse on the bombs and used them as mines, so that if anything heavy went over it, it would explode.  

“They would booby trap the steps going up to a house, things like that. So, this one poor kid, on Iwo Jima, we had to go up on the line at night and watch to see if they came across the line. In the morning we came back down to the beach. He jumped off the tractor and landed right on one of those mines, and bang, he was gone. “At that time, you’re only a kid, 18 years old. You’re just hoping it’s not you. You really can’t explain it unless you were there.” 

 Caminiti was there, on the airfield on Iwo Jima, when the flag was raised over Mt. Suribachi on Feb. 23, 1945. \ 

“When they raised the flag, we were on the airfield,” Caminiti said. “We looked right at it. I said, ‘It’s about time.” 

On the 61st anniversary of the flag raising, Caminiti said, “they gave us a flag that was flown on Iwo Jima, and I donated it to the Bristol Historical Society. They invited us to a ceremony in Norfolk on the USS Iwo Jima.” 

Joe, in 2022, received a Military Coin from Woody Williams, the last Medal of Honor Recipient of World War II. The week Williams was to come to Connecticut he had a fall. He sent his grandson in his place to present the coin to Joe a fellow 4^th Div. Marine at the base of the Iwo Jima Monument on the Newington/New Britain town lines. A few months later Woody passed away. 

Caminiti spent most of his life in Bristol and still lives here, although he was born in West Virginia.  

“My father was from Bristol,” he said, “but he went to West Virginia to work in the coal mines, and that’s where I was born. During the Depression we moved back to Bristol.” He’s lived here ever since.  

After the war he got married and had a child. When the Korean War broke out, he was called back into the service and spent 13 months at Camp Lejeune training Marines on amphibious tractors. Eventually he went to work at New Departure, from which he retired after 31 years. 

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I am sending pictures. First is a picture of the actual painting of Joe Caminiti. 

  The second picture is from 2019 opening ceremony of the Mum Festival. World War II veterans, 9 present signed the quilt. The next 3 months I visited nursing homes and individual homes for signatures. It was at three American legion breakfasts and at Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day where it was turned over to the Bristol hospital. Due to the Indvidual leaving and not finishing the project it was placed in storage, I been able to get it back and we plan to keep going. Only World War II Veterans can sigh it.