[UPDATE] Marines misidentified man in the iconic flag-raising photo on Iwo Jima
“The Marine Corps admitted in a statement on Thursday that it had misidentified one of the six men pictured in the iconic flag-raising photo taken during the battle for Iwo Jima in 1945.”
The man who took almost a century to identify, who stood where Sousley was thought to be, is PFC Harold Shultz from Detroit, Michigan.
Shultz, a mortarman with Easy company 2nd Battalion 28th Marine Division, accompanied the 40-man patrol that snaked up Mt. Suribachi on the morning of Feb. 23. 1945. Atop the 550-foot tall mountain positioned at the southern tip of the tiny volcanic island, the Marine Corps determined that Shultz would help Marines Rene Gagnon, Ira Hayes, Harlon Block, Michael Strank and Franklin Sousley raise a piece of Japanese irrigation pipe affixed with the American flag that would soon make history.
Shultz, who was wounded on the island three weeks after the flag raising, died in 1995 at the age of 70. He never spoke publicly of his part in the flag raising.
[PREVIOUS] Marine Corps investigating photo of iconic flag-raising on Iwo Jima
“The Marine Corps has opened an investigation into whether it misidentified one of the six men shown raising an American flag atop Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima in February 1945, the Associated Press reported Monday. The picture, taken by AP photographer Joe Rosenthal, became one of the most enduring images of World War II and the identities of the flag raisers is something that has been accepted for decades.
In 2014, two amateur historians began raising issues regarding one service member supposedly depicted in the picture, Navy Corpsman John Bradley, according to the AP. Their evidence was first published in the Omaha World-Herald and the paper was the first to report on the Marines’ new inquiry Saturday.
The picture, taken Feb. 23, 1945, actually depicted the raising of the second flag that day. The first was quickly raised, taken down and replaced with the second, larger one. The second flag, taken off a nearby landing ship, was raised by five Marines and one Navy corpsman. The battle for the island was still in its infancy and the Marines had made it a point to take the mountain on which the flag was raised. The 550-foot-high mound of volcanic earth was a piece of important terrain that overlooked the small pork-chop-shaped island.”
