Signal Mountain resident George Derryberry will be signing copies of his first – and what he said will probably be his only – book, “Path of Valor: A Marine’s Story,” at the Signal Mountain Library Thursday, Jan. 30 at 6:30 p.m.
“I got the story handed to me out of the blue by a friend, and I got inspired to track it all down and tell it,” he said.
A former Marine, Derryberry was given a 1944 canteen found by another Marine on work duty that was about to be destroyed. The other Marine noticed a hand-scratched note on the canteen that read “SURIBACHI TAKEN I’M ON IT. KILLED 3 JAPS IWO JIMA ROUF GO MOVING ON TO CAVES IF I DON’T MAKE IT BACK TELL BETTY,” and signed H.C. Ayres, 23rd Marines, Feb. 23, 1945. The fellow Marine kept the canteen, thinking he would eventually do something with it, and eventually ended up giving it to Derryberry.
“He thought another Marine should have it,” Derryberry said, adding that Marines share a common bond. “The message languished for years, and I thought I should find out everything I could about this Marine.”
He began to do research into who Ayres was by doing interviews with people in his hometown and reading operation reports. Derryberry and his wife spent a weekend with Ayres’ platoon leader’s widow, who gave him a 75-page handwritten journal in which Ayres was mentioned throughout. He met Ayres’ best friend’s sister and read all the letters she had from her brother, which also mentioned Ayres frequently.