Former Las Vegas Councilman Wayne Bunker dies
Before his burial next week in a cemetery bearing the family name, lifelong Southern Nevadan and former Las Vegas City Councilman W. Wayne Bunker will be remembered as a humble Marine officer who seldom spoke about his heroism during the Battle for Iwo Jima.
Bunker, 94, died Tuesday of heart failure at his home in Boulder City, his eldest son, Bill Bunker, said.
“For most of his life he said nothing, literally nothing” about the epic battle that marked a turning point in the U.S. effort to defeat Japan in World War II.
“As his son, I really didn’t understand the war. Even Mother didn’t speak about it,” Bill Bunker said Friday, recalling the war souvenirs his father kept in the garage.
Much later in life, his father wrote a personal history that talked about his command of a mortar company that stormed the black sandy beach of Iwo Jima.
“When he first got to the beachhead, he recalled crawling along, inching his way to the airstrip. Then when he had to go back and get ammunition, he turned around and saw the first flag,” his son said about the iconic flag raisings on Mount Suribachi.
“The energy and comfort that gave to his mortar company was incredible.”
William Wayne Bunker was born Nov. 22, 1922, in St. George, Utah. He lived in St. Thomas, the Nevada town on the Overton Arm of Lake Mead, that was submerged by the reservoir’s filling in the 1930s. He graduated in 1940 from Las Vegas High School and then studied at Brigham Young University in Utah.
He later became a commissioned Marine officer after completing his undergraduate degree at Colorado College. He served in the 4th Marine Division and was in the fifth wave of the Iwo Jima invasion. After receiving the Bronze Star, he remained in the Marine Corps as a reservist but returned to active duty during the Korean War.
A certified public accountant, he opened a firm in Las Vegas in 1971.
During his City Council term from 1985 to 1989, he developed a reputation for correcting inaccurate financial statements with a red pencil he carried in his shirt pocket.
“Everything had to be checked and rechecked,” Bill Bunker said.
Bunker and his wife, Lucy Bluth Bunker, were accomplished musicians, and later formed and managed the Bluth Chorale for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where he was patriarch of the Las Vegas Stake.
After Lucy died in 1989, he married Margie Ripplinger in 1990, who died in 2014.
He is survived by his four children: Anita Michele Jones; William Bluth Bunker; Mary Louise Marsh; and Jonathon Wayne Bunker.
A memorial service will be at 10 a.m. Tuesday at the LDS Chapel, 1550 Buchanan Blvd., Boulder City. Interment will be at Bunkers Eden Vale Memorial Park, a Las Vegas cemetery named for the mortuaries Bunker’s cousins established.
Contact Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0308. Follow @KeithRogers2 on Twitter.