Semper Fidelis

[Muck]

RICHFIELD, Minn. --
Charles W. Lindberg, one of the U.S. Marines who raised the first American flag over Iwo Jima during World War II, has died. He was 86.

Lindberg died Sunday at Fairview Southdale hospital in the Minneapolis suburb of Edina, said John Pose, director of the Morris Nilsen Funeral Home in Richfield, which is handling Lindberg's funeral.

Lindberg spent decades explaining that it was his patrol, not the one captured in the famous Associated Press photograph by Joe Rosenthal, that raised the first flag as U.S. forces fought to take the Japanese island.
In the late morning of Feb. 23, 1945, Lindberg fired his flame-thrower into enemy pillboxes at the base of Mount Suribachi and then joined five other Marines fighting their way to the top. He was awarded the Silver Star for bravery.

"Two of our men found this big, long pipe there," he said in an interview with The Associated Press in 2003. "We tied the flag to it, took it to the highest spot we could find and we raised it.

"Down below, the troops started to cheer, the ship's whistles went off, it was just something that you would never forget," he said. "It didn't last too long, because the enemy started coming out of the caves."

The moment was captured by Sgt. Lou Lowery, a photographer from the Marine Corps' Leatherneck magazine. It was the first time a foreign flag flew on Japanese soil, according to the book "Flags of Our Fathers," by James Bradley with Ron Powers. Bradley's father, Navy Corpsman John Bradley, was one of the men in the famous photo of the second flag-raising.

"We thought it would be a slaughterhouse up on Suribachi," Lindberg said in the book. "I still don't understand why we were not attacked."

Three of the men in the first raising never saw their photos. They were among the more than 6,800 U.S. servicemen killed in the five-week battle for the island.

By Lindberg's account, his commander ordered the first flag replaced and safeguarded because he worried someone would take it as a souvenir. Lindberg was back in combat when six men raised the second, larger flag about four hours later.

Rosenthal's photo of the second flag-raising became one of the most enduring images of the war and the model for the U.S. Marine Corps memorial in Washington.

Rosenthal, who died last year, always denied accusations that he staged the photo, and he never claimed it depicted the first raising of a flag over the island.

Lindberg was shot through the arm on March 1 and evacuated.

There remained lingering disputes over the identity of at least one man in the first flag-raising. A California veteran of Iwo Jima, Raymond Jacobs, has said he believes he is the man with a radio on his back who had usually been identified as Pfc. Gene Marshall, a radio operator with the 5th Marine Division who died in 1987. The other men involved in the raising all have died.

Last year's film "Flags of Our Fathers," based on the book, features a character named Lindberg played by Alessandro Mastrobuono, according to the Internet Movie Database.

After his discharge in January 1946, Lindberg - no relation to Charles Lindbergh the aviator - went home to Grand Forks, N.D. He moved to Richfield in 1951 and became an electrician.

No one, he said, believed him when he said he raised the first flag at Iwo Jima. "I was called a liar," he said. In 1954, Lindberg was invited to Washington for the dedication of the Marine memorial. It carried the names of the second group of flag-raisers, but not the first.

He spent his final years trying to raise awareness of the first flag-raising, speaking to veterans groups and at schools. He sold autographed copies of Lowery's photos through catalogs.

A back room in his neat house was filled with souvenirs of the battle, including a huge mural based on one of Lowery's photos. Prints of the photos were kept handy for visitors, and Lindberg's Silver Star and Purple Heart were in little boxes on a side table.

The Minnesota Legislature passed a resolution in Lindberg's honor in 1995. His face appears on a huge mural in Long Prairie of the battle for Iwo Jima, and his likeness is etched into the black granite walls of Soldiers Field in Rochester.

LINK

 

[Best Buckeye]

Semper Fi Mac, I expect you to be guarding the gates of Heaven when I get there.

"HAND SALUTE"

 

[cincibuck]

I've not read anything that suggests that Rosenthal was less than forthright about his shot being of the second raising, but this story makes me wonder how hard he and the men who raised the second flag tried to get the full story out there. Both groups deserved the praise.

Even sadder is the story of Ira Hayes, the Native American who helped raise the second flag.

A salute to all of them.

 

[Muck]

The blame doesn't lie with Rosenthal or the 2nd group of flag raisers, it lies with the US Government.

Rosenthal's photo created an enormous amount of interest back home in a country who's support for the war was waning. The government was quick to capitalize on that interest and was more worried about the publicity the photo (and by extension the Marines in it) garnered than the technicalities of what flag was raised when by whom.

 

[Big Papa]

True American hero, God Bless. This country is a better place and freedom lives because of you and people like you. God Bless our service men and women.

 

[Muck]

Cpl. Lindberg is the Marine standing at the upper right, behind PFC James Michels (with the M1 Carbine)

 

[scooter1369]

Semper Fi, brother. Your work here is done. See you on the other side.

 

[stxbuck]

I've not read anything that suggests that Rosenthal was less than forthright about his shot being of the second raising, but this story makes me wonder how hard he and the men who raised the second flag tried to get the full story out there. Both groups deserved the praise.

Even sadder is the story of Ira Hayes, the Native American who helped raise the second flag.

A salute to all of them.

I don't know if you have read Flags of Our Fathers (or seen the movie-I haven't seen the film yet), but in it they describe how the military immediately enveloped the 3 surviving flag raisers-3 died on Iwo-into a huge bond tour and basically handled any kind of media exposure for them. 2 of the guys-Ira Hayes and John Bradley-basically didn't want anything to do w/ publicity about Iwo after the initial burst of forced celebrity wore off. They didn't want any kind of exposure for this-good, bad, or publicizing anyone else after the ordeal.

 

[Muck]

Speaking of:

Team Closer to Finding Iwo Jima Marine

IWO JIMA, Japan - A team of U.S. searchers looking for the remains of the Marine who filmed the famous flag raising over Iwo Jima say they've located two possible sites and recommend a larger group excavate them, officials said Wednesday.

"Our investigation has been very successful," U.S. Army Major Sean Stinchion told The Associated Press, the only civilian media with the search team that had been surveying and digging on the island for 10 days.

"We found two caves and tunnels. We will recommend a follow-up team be brought in to use heavy equipment," he said.

He said the team did not find the remains of sergeant William H. Genaust, who filmed the flag-raising nine days before he was killed during combat on the island.

"We are the initial investigation. We surveyed the hill. We will need to return to actually dig for specific remains," Stinchion said.

The seven-man team, including an anthropologist, focused mainly on surveying Hill 362 A where Genaust was believed to have been killed.

It was the first U.S.-led search on Iwo Jima - one of the fiercest and most symbolic battlegrounds of World War II - in nearly 60 years.

The seven-member team arrived on Iwo Jima on June 17 and began slashing its way through thick, thorny brush on the island's interior in search of the area where Genaust is believed to have been killed.

A combat photographer with the 28th Marines, Genaust filmed the raising of the flag atop Iwo Jima's Mount Suribachi on Feb. 23, 1945, standing just feet away from AP photographer Joe Rosenthal as he took the photograph that won a Pulitzer Prize and came to symbolize the war in the Pacific.

Genaust, then 38, died nine days later when he was hit by machine-gun fire as he was helping fellow Marines secure a cave, said Johnnie Webb, a civilian official with the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, headquartered at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii.

Some 88,000 U.S. service members are listed as missing from World War II, and JPAC conducts searches throughout the world to find them.

Iwo Jima - inhabited only by a small contingent of Japanese troops - continues to be an open grave.

Though most of the American dead were recovered in 1948, some 250 U.S. troops are still missing from the Iwo Jima campaign. Many were lost at sea, meaning the chances of recovering their remains are slim. But many others died in caves or were buried by explosions.

Japan's government and military are helping with the search on Iwo Jima, which this month was officially renamed Iwo To - the island's name before the war.
Japan sent its first search parties to the island in 1952 and others have followed every year since Iwo Jima was returned to Japanese control in 1968. They have recovered sets of 8,595 remains - but, to date, no Americans, said Health Ministry official Nobukazu Iwadate.

The U.S. officially took the tiny volcanic island on March 26, 1945, after 31-day battle that pitted some 100,000 U.S. troops against 21,200 Japanese. Some 6,821 Americans were killed; only 1,033 Japanese survived. Of 82 U.S. Medals of Honor won by Marines in World War II, 26 were won on Iwo Jima.

Genaust paid the ultimate price.

On March 4, 1945, Marines were securing the cave, and are believed to have asked Genaust to use his movie camera to light their way. He volunteered to shine the light in the cave and was killed by enemy fire. The cave was secured after a gunfight, and its entrance sealed.

As a combat photographer, Genaust was trained to use a firearm, and he and another Marine protected the AP photographer as they climbed 546-foot Mount Suribachi. Genaust did not need to use his weapon; under heavy attack, the Japanese did not fire on the three men.

Genaust's footage also helped prove that the raising - the second one that day - was not staged, as some later claimed. He got no credit for his footage, however, in accordance with Marine Corps policy.

In 1995, a bronze plaque was put atop Suribachi to honor Genaust, who before coming ashore on Iwo Jima fought and was wounded in the battle on the Pacific island of Saipan. An actor portraying him appears in the Clint Eastwood movie "Flags of Our Fathers," and the annual Sgt. William Genaust Award has been established to honor the best videotape of a Marine Corps related news event.

The search was prompted in large part by information provided to JPAC by Bob Bolus, a Scranton, Pa., businessman who became intrigued by Genaust after reading a Parade magazine story about him two years ago. Using his own money,

Bolus put together a team of experts, including an archivist, forensic anthropologist, geologist and surveyor, that was able to pinpoint where Genaust's remains were likely to be found.

JPAC officials stressed that searchers came to the island hoping to find other remains as well.

"Our motto is 'until they are home,'" said JPAC spokesman Lt. Col. Mark Brown. "'No man left behind' is a promise made to every individual who raises his hand."

Like Genaust, few of the troops involved in either of the flag-raisings survived the battle.

The last known surviving flag-raiser, Charles W. Lindberg, who helped put up the first flag, died Sunday in the Minneapolis, Minn., suburb of Edinaone. He was 86.

But there remain lingering disputes over the identity of at least one man in the first flag-raising.

A California veteran of Iwo Jima, Raymond Jacobs, has said he believes he is the man with a radio on his back who had usually been identified as Pfc. Gene Marshall, a radio operator with the 5th Marine Division who died in 1987. The other men involved in the raising all have died.

 

[Best Buckeye]

I don't know if you have read Flags of Our Fathers (or seen the movie-I haven't seen the film yet), but in it they describe how the military immediately enveloped the 3 surviving flag raisers-3 died on Iwo-into a huge bond tour and basically handled any kind of media exposure for them. 2 of the guys-Ira Hayes and John Bradley-basically didn't want anything to do w/ publicity about Iwo after the initial burst of forced celebrity wore off. They didn't want any kind of exposure for this-good, bad, or publicizing anyone else after the ordeal.

All three survivors felt they should have been still on IWO fighting with their fellow Marines and that they didn't want to be thought of as dodgers for getting out of the war. The comradeship of Marines who have been in combat is one of the strongest bonds ever known between men. Hayes, though he was not alone, especially felt he was letting down his buddies by being on the bond tour.

SEMPER FI MARINES!

 

[GoBucks89]

All three survivors felt they should have been still on IWO fighting with their fellow Marines and that they didn't want to be thought of as dodgers for getting out of the war.

Technically speaking, Hayes was the only one of the three who was "fighting". Bradley was a corpsman and Rene Gagnon (who was only about 19 at the time) was a message runner for the officers. Hayes was overcome with grief because his good friend Mike Strenk had died on the island and Hayes felt that he was real hero of the group. I thought the most remarkable part of the story was the fact that Hayes hitch-hiked and walked all the way from his home in Arizona to Texas so that he could inform Harlan Block's parents that he was the man at the base of the flag in the picture. They had initially mis-identified this man because his back is turned and you can't see his face.

 

[Best Buckeye]

I know this is long but it shouldn't be split.

MEMORIAL DAY - REMEMBER IWO JIMA

As we remember Memorial Day

Six Boys and 13 Hands

Each year I am hired to go to Washington, DC, with the eighth grade class from Clinton, WI. where I grew up, to videotape their trip. I greatly enjoy visiting our nation's capitol, and each year I take some special memories back with me. This fall's trip was especially memorable.

On the last night of our trip, we stopped at the Iwo Jima memorial. This memorial is the largest bronze statue in the world and depicts one of the most famous photographs in history -- that of the six brave soldiers raising the American Flag at the top of a rocky hill on the island of Iwo Jima, Japan, during WW II.

Over one hundred students and chaperones piled off the buses and headed towards the memorial. I noticed a solitary figure at the base of the statue, and as I got closer he asked, "Where are you guys from?"

I told him that we were from Wisconsin "Hey, I'm a cheese head, too! Come gather around, Cheese heads, and I will tell you a story."

(James Bradley just happened to be in Washington, DC, to speak at the memorial the following day. He was there that night to say good night to his dad, who had passed away. He was just about to leave when he saw the buses pull up. I videotaped him as he spoke to us, and received his permission to share what he said from my videotape. It is one thing to tour the incredible monuments filled with history in Washington, D.C., but it is quite another to get the kind of insight we received that night.) When all had gathered around, he reverently began to speak. (Here are his words that night.)

"My name is James Bradley and I'm from Antigo, Wisconsin My dad is on that statue, and I just wrote a book called "Flags of Our Fathers" which is #5 on the New York Times Best Seller list right now. It is the story of the six boys you see behind me.

"Six boys raised the flag. The first guy putting the pole in the ground is Harlon Block. Harlon was an all-state football player. He enlisted in the Marine Corps with all the senior members of his football team. They were off to play another type of game. A game called "War." But it didn't turn out to be a game. Harlon, at the age of 21, died with his intestines in his hands. I don't say that to gross you out, I say that because there are people who stand in front of this statue and talk about the glory of war. You guys need to know that most of the boys in Iwo Jima were 17, 18, and 19 years old - and it was so hard that the ones who did make it home never even would talk to their families about it.

(He pointed to the statue) "You see this next guy? That's Rene Gagnon from New Hampshire. If you took Rene's helmet off at the moment this photo was taken and looked in the webbing of that helmet, you would find a photograph... a photograph of his girlfriend. Rene put that in there for protection because he was scared. He was 18 years old. It was just boys who won the battle of Iwo Jima. Boys. Not old men.

"The next guy here, the third guy in this tableau, was Sergeant Mike Strank. Mike is my hero. He was the hero of all these guys. They called him the "old man" because he was so old. He was already 24. When Mike would motivate his boys in training camp, he didn't say, 'Let's go kill some Japanese' or 'Let's die for our country.' He knew he was talking to little boys. Instead he would say, 'You do what I say, and I'll get you home to your mothers.'

"The last guy on this side of the statue is Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian from Arizona. Ira Hayes was one who walked off Iwo Jima. He went into the White House with my dad. President Truman told him, 'You're a hero.' He told reporters, 'How can I feel like a hero when 250 of my buddies hit the island with me and only 27 of us walked off alive?' So you take your class at school, 250 of you spending a year together having fun, doing everything together. Then all 250 of you hit the beach, but only 27 of your classmates walk off alive. That was Ira Hayes. He had images of horror in his mind. Ira Hayes carried the pain home with him and eventually died dead drunk, face down at the age of 32 .. ten years after this picture was taken.

"The next guy, going around the statue, is Franklin Sousley from Hilltop, Kentucky. A fun-lovin' hillbilly boy. His best friend, who is now 70, told me, 'Yeah, you know, we took two cows up on the porch of the Hilltop General Store. Then we strung wire across the stairs so the cows couldn't get down. Then we fed them Epsom salts. Those cows crapped all night.' Yes, he was a fun-lovin' hillbilly boy. Franklin died on Iwo Jima at the age of 19. When the telegram came to tell his mother that he was dead, it went to the Hilltop General Store. A barefoot boy ran that telegram up to his mother's farm. The neighbors could hear her scream all night and into the morning. Those neighbors lived a quarter of a mile away.

"The next guy, as we continue to go around the statue, is my dad, John Bradley from Antigo, Wisconsin, where I was raised. My dad lived until 1994, but he would never give interviews. When Walter Cronkite's producers, or the New York Times would call, we were trained as little kids to say "No, I'm sorry, sir, my dad's not here. He is in Canada fishing. No, there is no phone there, sir. No, we don't know when he is coming back." My dad never fished or even went to Canada Usually, he was sitting there right at the table eating his Campbell's soup. But we had to tell the press that he was out fishing. He didn't want to talk to the press.

"You see, like Ira Hayes, my dad didn't see himself as a hero. Everyone thinks these guys are heroes, 'cause they are in a photo and on a monument.

My dad knew better. He was a medic. John Bradley from Wisconsin was a caregiver. In Iwo Jima he probably held over 200 boys as they died. And when boys died in Iwo Jima, they writhed and screamed, without any medication or help with the pain.

"When I was a little boy, my third grade teacher told me that my dad was a hero. When I went home and told my dad that, he looked at me and said, 'I want you always to remember that the heroes of Iwo Jima are the guys who did not come back. Did NOT come back.'

"So that's the story about six nice young boys. Three died on Iwo Jima, and three came back as national heroes. Overall, 7,000 boys died on Iwo Jima in the worst battle in the history of the Marine Corps. My voice is giving out, so I will end here. Thank you for your time."

Suddenly, the monument wasn't just a big old piece of metal with a flag sticking out of the top. It came to life before our eyes with the heartfelt words of a son who did indeed have a father who was a hero. Maybe not a hero for the reasons most people would believe, but a hero nonetheless.

We need to remember that God created this vast and glorious world for us to live in, freely, but also at great sacrifice. Let us never forget from the Revolutionary War to the current War on Terrorism and all the wars in-between that sacrifice was made for our freedom.

Remember to pray praises for this great country of ours and also pray for those still in murderous unrest around the world.

STOP and thank God for being alive and being free at someone else's sacrifice.

God Bless You and God Bless America

REMINDER: Everyday that you can wake up free, it's going to be a great day.

One thing I learned while on tour with my 8th grade students in DC that is not mentioned here is that if you look at the statue very closely and count the number of "hands" raising the flag, there are 13. When the man who made the statue was asked why there were 13, he simply said the 13th hand was the hand of God. (Shannon)

 

[Muck]

AP

Last Marine in Iwo Jima Photo Dies at 82

REDDING, Calif. (AP) — Raymond Jacobs, believed to be the last surviving member of the group of Marines photographed during the original U.S. flag-raising on Iwo Jima during World War II, has died at age 82.

Jacobs died Jan. 29 of natural causes at a Redding hospital, his daughter, Nancy Jacobs, told The Associated Press.

Jacobs had spent his later years working to prove that he was the radio operator photographed looking up at an American flag as it was being raised by other Marines on Mount Suribachi on Feb. 23, 1945.

Newspaper accounts from the time show he was on the mountain during the initial raising of a smaller American flag, though he had returned to his unit by the time the more famous AP photograph was taken of a second flag-raising later the same day.

The radioman's face isn't fully visible in the first photograph taken of the first flag-raising by Lou Lowery, a photographer for Leatherneck magazine, leading some veterans to question Jacobs' claim. However, other negatives from the same roll of film show the radioman is Jacobs, said retired Col. Walt Ford, editor of Leatherneck.

"It's clearly a front-on face shot of Ray Jacobs," Ford said.

Annette Amerman, a historian with the Marine Corps History Division, said in an e-mailed statement "there are many that believe" Jacobs was the radioman. "However, there are no official records produced at the time that can prove or refute Mr. Jacobs' location."

Jacobs was honorably discharged in 1946. He was called up during the Korean conflict in 1951 before retiring as a sergeant, his daughter said.

Jacobs retired in 1992 from KTVU-TV in Oakland, where he worked 34 years as a reporter, anchor and news director.

 

[scooter1369]

Godspeed, Brother.

 

[Best Buckeye]

Anyone who survived the Hell that was Iwo Deserves all the Honor and praise we can give him.
SEMPER FI MAC!