Steven Henry Opalenik
| NAME: Steven Henry Opalenik | NICKNAME: Steve Brody | SERVICE NUMBER: 390460 (enlisted) O-39507 (commissioned) | |||||
| HOME OF RECORD: Morgan Street, South Hadley, MA | NEXT OF KIN: Mother, Mrs. Elizabeth Opalenik | ||||||
| DATE OF BIRTH: 8/11/1916 | SERVICE DATES: 5/19/1942 – 2/22/1945 | DATE OF DEATH: 2/22/1945 | |||||
| CAMPAIGN | UNIT | MOS | RATE | RESULT | |||
| Roi-Namur | L/3/24 | 651 | Sergeant | ||||
| Saipan | L/3/24 | 651 | Sergeant | WIA | |||
| Tinian | In Hospital | — | — | ||||
| Iwo Jima | HQ/1/24 | 1542 | Second Lieutenant | KIA | |||
| INDIVIDUAL DECORATIONS: Bronze Star, Purple Heart with Gold Star | LAST KNOWN RANK: Second Lieutenant | ||||||
Stephen Opalenik was born to be a fighter. He arrived in the world on 11 August 1916, the son of Michael and Elizabeth Opalenik of South Hadley, Massachusetts. Young Steve was the fifth of the family’s eight children and grew up in the picturesque college town; his father wrangled cattle on a private estate, while his siblings attended school, found local jobs, and married. For a while, Steve worked as a steam fitter; he was a burly young man and hard, heavy work helped develop his physique. However, he had his eye on a more colorful career.
Around 1936, the name “Steve Brody” began to appear on flyers and cards for amateur wrestling matches. Sports fans of the time recognized the reference to Steve Brodie, a stuntman “bridge jumper” who earned fame and notoriety with his claim of jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge in 1886. For a while, it was said that to take a chance or consequential leap was to “do a Brodie.” This new performer, a muscle-bound youth from South Hadley, was no stranger to taking chances as he tangled with colorful opponents like “Red Mephisto.” By 1938, Opalenik – aka “Brody” – was listing his occupation as “professional wrestler.”
After working his way through the east coast circuit, “Brody” went to try his fortunes in the Midwest and his reputation on the junior heavyweight circuit began to grow. He billed himself as “Brooklyn” Steve Brody; his persona claimed Irish descent and direct kinship with the famous bridge jumper. Soon he was a regular in the sports pages, with reporters commenting on his bouts with Bill Kuusisto, Karol Krauser, “Rapid Ray” Swartz, “Bouncing Bill McLevin,” “The Black Panther,” “Oregon McDonald,” “The Swedish Angel,” and an ongoing grudge match against bearded “Prospector Pete.” He was praised for his speed and earned some modest success, but had a bit of a devil inside him, too. In one match with “Prospector Pete,” Brody’s antics sparked a near riot in the crowd. While he enjoyed the role of the “heel,” Brody was a serious contender in the ring – “generally recognized,” said some commentators, as the “junior heavyweight wrestling champion of the world.”[1]
Scenes from a wrestling career, 1939 – 1941.
America’s entry into World War II put millions of careers on hold, and on 19 May 1942 “Steve Brody” left the wrestling circuit to enlist in the Marine Corps as Steven Henry Opalenik. His enormous stature and unusual qualifications led to a unique assignment. While most Marines were only too glad to leave Parris Island at the end of boot camp, Private Opalenik joined the ranks of recruit instructors. His specialty, of course, was teaching hand-to-hand combat, and he spent six months showing young boots the basics of judo.
After a brief spell with a defense battalion in North Carolina, Opalenik was transferred to the west coast to join the Fleet Marine Force. He appears on the muster rolls of Company L, Third Battalion, 24th Marines in the summer of 1943, holding a sergeant’s rating. Opalenik brought a bit of his “Steve Brody” swagger to this new outfit, and talked loudly and often about wanting to wrestle a Japanese soldier. “He believes that any good raster can beat the best ju-jitsu expert,” wrote journalist Bob Considine. “He orated to his buddies at great length on this premise… He even waged pantomime battles…. showed the Marines his ‘flying dropkick’ and what it did to a peacetime buddy named the ‘Swedish Angel.’”[2]
Much to the sergeant’s good fortune (and professed disappointment), he did not get the chance to test his theory in his first battle. “It was his first fight without so much as a bloody nose or a twisted wrist,” quipped a correspondent in the Marine Corps Chevron.[3] “Steve had to do his battling with a shotgun and a pocketful of hand grenades,” wrote Considine. “It is just as well, for the sake of Steve and his people in South Hadley. Steve would have been sorely perforated.”[4] The sergeant landed on Namur in the Marshall Islands on 1 February 1944 in one of the first waves, and soon had troubles aplenty. That first night ashore, he sheltered in a crater with three other men as a Japanese sniper plugged away, showering so much dirt on the men that “I thought a guy was outside, shoveling sand down on us.” A grenade landed in the hole and exploded, killing the other three Marines but leaving Opalenik unscathed. The following day, as he sheltered behind a wrecked car, a mortar shell blew up the chassis, critically wounding another Marine. Again, Opalenik was untouched.
At the end of the battle, he drowned his disappointment with a bottle of captured Japanese beer and contemplated combat.
“I wanted to find out if what I had been teaching the boys [in judo training] was as good as we thought it was. Well, I found out one thing. The Japs are afraid of our boys in hand-to-hand combat. Maybe we haven’t made experts of our boys, but we’ve given them confidence in themselves.”[5]
Sergeant Opalenik had plenty of opportunities to stay in fighting trim at Camp Maui in the spring of 1944. Wrestling and boxing were extremely popular spectator sports, and “smokers” among pugilists and grapplers happened frequently. Opalenik was invited to participate in an exhibition at the “Nimitz Bowl” in May, on the eve of the invasion of Saipan. Boxers from the 24th Marines took on champions from the 6th Marines at a spectacle attended by top brass and officers from both divisions. The wrestling bout was the marquee event, and the Brodian antics on display merited a mention in the regiment’s War Diary:
“The matches were followed by a wrestling exhibition in the best Stateside ‘professional’ manner, by Sgt. John R. “Wild Bill” Miedecke of the Sixth Marines and Sgt. Stephen “Steve Brody” Opalenik of the 24th Marines. Sgt. “Brody” won in two consecutive falls, the first in three minutes, 59 seconds and the second in seven minutes, 23 seconds, after tossing his opponent out of the ring and swatting the referee.”[6]
Sergeant Opalenik’s career almost ended on Saipan. Three days into the battle, he risked his life to rescue some of his wounded buddies trapped outside of friendly lines. A sniper’s bullet struck him in the leg, and the burly NCO was quickly evacuated to a hospital ship and sent back to Hawaii for treatment. His officers recommended Opalenik for a decoration; the Bronze Star was approved, along with a commission.[7] On 2 August 1944, the former wrestler became a “Mustang” – Second Lieutenant Opalenik, United States Marine Corps.
“For heroic achievement while serving as a mortar section leader with a Marine rifle company on Saipan. On June 18 1944, when his company was attacking strongly held enemy positions, the then-Sgt. Opalenik made two trips to the most advanced position while under hostile machine gun and rifle fire and carried casualties to the rear. He was wounded and evacuated later in the day while courageously leading his unit. His conduct throughout was an inspiration to the entire company and in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service."
Officers commissioned from the ranks were often transferred to new units, to prevent any undue familiarity or friction with their former enlisted buddies. Lieutenant Opalenik thus joined the First Battalion, 24th Marines on 28 August 1944. He held the double billet of battalion athletic officer and assistant platoon leader of the 81mm mortar platoon, supporting 1Lt. John M. Fox. The battalion’s mortarmen were almost all veterans of several campaigns, and during the winter of 1944 Fox and Opalenik kept their platoon in peak condition.
The regiment’s fourth combat landing was made on the shores of Iwo Jima, 19 February 1945. Lieutenant Opalenik gathered his troops and led them into a landing craft bobbing alongside the USS Hendry; he may have shared a conspiratorial swig of liquid courage from the “special canteen” that Lieutenant Fox always carried for amphibious operations. After a few hours of circling in the rough surf, the battalion landed in a reserve wave. Fox and Opalenik moved their platoon ashore, staked out a suitable area to deploy, and spent their first night ashore watching for a banzai attack which never materialized.
For three days, Lieutenant Opalenik worked with his mortar teams to plot targets and deliver supporting fire for the rifle companies. The officers noted that their heavy 81mm shells – weighing over 7 pounds each – had little effect on the well-built Japanese fortifications, but ineffective support was better than nothing, and sometimes they caught Japanese troops in the open. The sight of a well-timed mortar barrage also had a bolstering effect on American morale. So on 22 February 1945, when Charlie Company ran into trouble from a series of mutually supporting pillboxes and called for mortar support, Opalenik took a forward observation party up to the front line.
Unfortunately, Japanese mortarmen spotted their American counterparts and unleashed a barrage of their own. A nearby platoon leader, 2Lt. Charles R. Anderson Jr., reported what happened next.
Tiny bits of shrapnel in the head and heart felled the giant Steve Opalenik. “He was the strongest man I’ve ever seen,” remarked Major Irving Schechter, “but he wasn’t strong enough to stop a shrapnel silver from going into his brain.”[9] Lieutenant Robert Humphrey, who knew Opalenik in civilian life, happened to be nearby as well. “I went to their position after the barrage had lifted and saw Brody’s body,” he wrote. “He had been killed by the concussion of a mortar shell. When the word went through the units that the Japs had killed Brody the grief was genuine and widespread. He was one of the most popular officers in the Corps.”[10]
Four days after his death, Opalenik was buried in Plot 1, Row 4, Grave 173 of the Fourth Marine Division Cemetery on Iwo Jima. In 1948, his remains were returned to his native Massachusetts. His grave may be found in Mater Dolorosa Cemetery, South Hadley.
1. “Steve Brodie Is Killed,” The Kansas City Star, 25 March 1945.
2. Bob Considine, “Ex-Wrestler Was a Hero of Namur Assault But Still Pines To Meet Jap Barehanded,” The Austin American Statesman, 12 April 1944.
3. “Judo Instructor Satisfied Course Produces Results,” The Marine Corps Chevron, Vol. III No. 26, 1 July 1944.
4. Considine, “Ex-Wrestler.”
5. “Judo Instructor,” Chevron.
6. War Diary, 24th Marines, 28 May 1944.
7. While some accounts state that Opalenik received the Silver Star Medal, no citation has been found to support this claim in the USMC list of citations. He may have been recommended for this decoration, but had the Bronze Star approved instead.
8. “Steve Brodie Is Killed,” The Kansas City Star, 25 March 1945. By the time this article hit newspapers, Anderson was also dead from mortar fire on Iwo Jima.
9. Irving Schechter, “The Lawyer Who Went to War,” Semper Fi, Mac, ed. Henry Berry (New York: Harper, 1982), 224.
10. “Local Marine Talked To Pyle Before Invasion,” The St. Joseph News-Press, 13 May 1945.
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