Harold Henry Schultz (January 28, 1925 – May 16, 1995), a United States Marine corporal, was wounded in action during the Battle of Iwo Jima. He was a member of the patrol that captured the top of Mount Suribachi and raised the first U.S. flag on Iwo Jima on February 23, 1945. He is one of the six Marines who raised the larger replacement flag on the mountaintop as shown in the iconic photograph ‘Raising the Flag’ on Iwo Jima.
Schultz was not recognized as one of the second flag-raisers until the Marine Corps announced on June 23, 2016 that he was in the historic photograph which was taken by combat photographer Joe Rosenthal. The Marine Corps stated that Schultz was incorrectly identified as Private First-Class Franklin Sousley in the photograph. Sousley himself was also incorrectly identified as Navy corpsman John Bradley, who they determined is not in the photo. Schultz is one of the three Marines in the photograph who were not originally identified as flag raisers.
Harold Schultz was born and raised in Detroit. He attended Southwestern High School, where he was a classmate of Stan Lopata. Schultz entered the Marine Corps Reserve on December 23, 1943. He was a member of Easy (E) Company, 2nd Battalion, 28th Marine Regiment, 5th Marine Division. On February 23, together with five Marines, he helped raise the second and larger flag atop Mount Suribachi that day along with Private First-Class Harold Keller. On March 13, Pfc. Schultz was wounded in action and was evacuated off the island. He was honorably discharged with the rank of corporal on October 17, 1945.
After being discharged from the Marines, he moved to Los Angeles and worked as a mail sorter for the U.S. Postal Service until retiring in 1981. Schultz never had children. In his youth he lost a fiancée named Mary to a brain tumor, and did not marry until his 60s, when he wed his neighbor Rita Reyes.
Schultz never publicly stated that he was one of the flag-raisers in the photograph during his lifetime. Analysts believe that he must have known he was in the famed image but chose not to talk about it. His stepdaughter claimed “that during a family dinner in the early 1990s, when her mother was distracted, he told her that he was one of the flag raisers on Iwo Jima, and never spoke of it again.”
Harold Paul Keller (August 3, 1921 – March 13, 1979), a United States Marine corporal. During the Battle of Iwo Jima, he was a member of the patrol that captured the top of Mount Suribachi and raised the first U.S. flag on Iwo Jima on February 23, 1945. He is one of the six Marines who raised the larger replacement flag on the mountaintop.
Harold Keller was born in Brooklyn, Iowa and graduated from Brooklyn High School. On January 2, 1942, he enlisted in the Marine Corps. Keller was assigned to the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion, was present for the Battle of Midway and took part in the fighting at Guadalcanal. In 1943, Keller was shot through his right shoulder at Bougainville.
In February 1944, the Marine Raiders were disbanded. Keller was next assigned to Easy (E) Company, 2nd Battalion, 28th Marine Regiment, 5th Marine Division which was activated at Camp Pendleton in 1944. In January 1945, the division left Hawaii and sailed for Iwo Jima. On February 23, he was part of the 40-man patrol that ascended Mount Suribachi and raised the Second Battalion’s flag (the 1st flag). Later that day, he was one of the six Marines that raised the second and larger flag on top.
Harold Keller survived the war and returned to Iowa. “Though Keller virtually never spoke of the war, Marine researchers found evidence that he acknowledged the fact that he was one of the second flag raisers at least twice: first, in a letter to his wife Ruby written from Iwo Jima in February or March 1945; and decades later, circa 1977, in a newsletter of his employer (a company called Surge) in which his participation is stated unambiguously. Additionally, Keller’s private scrapbook contained a strongly-worded letter from Major General Philip H. Torrey, dated 17 September 1945, which suggests that Keller might have attempted to correct the record but was silenced.”
Keller worked a series of jobs in his hometown and was also a member of the volunteer fire department in Brooklyn for 30 years, eventually becoming the fire chief. He died of a heart attack on March 13, 1979 and was buried in the Brooklyn Memorial Cemetery.
René Arthur Gagnon (March 7, 1925 – October 12, 1979), a United States Marine Corps corporal, was generally known as being one of the Marines who raised the second U.S. flag on Mount Suribachi on February 23, 1945, as depicted in the iconic photograph ‘Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima’ by photographer Joe Rosenthal.
Gagnon was born March 7, 1925, in Manchester, New Hampshire, the only child of French-Canadian immigrants He grew up without a father. When he was old enough, he worked alongside his mother at a local shoe factory and as a bicycle messenger boy for the local Western Union.
Gagnon was inducted into the United States Marine Corps Reserve on May 6, 1943. The 5th Division trained there to prepare for the assault on Iwo Jima by three Marine divisions of the V Amphibious Corps (code named “Operation Detachment”).
On February 19, 1945, Pfc. Gagnon landed on the southeast side of Iwo Jima with E Company, 2nd Battalion, 28th Marines, on “Green Beach 1”, the closest landing beach to Mount Suribachi. “On February 23, Pfc. Gagnon, battalion runner (messenger) for Easy Company, became a part of what was most likely the most celebrated American flag raising in U.S. history.”
The Marine Corps War Memorial (Iwo Jima Memorial) in Arlington, Virginia, was dedicated on November 10, 1954. The monument was sculptured by Felix de Weldon. Gagnon personally posed for the sculptor.
After the war René Gagnon, Sr. opened a travel agency and did accounting work, and in his last job, he worked as head of maintenance at an apartment complex in Manchester. On February 19, 1965, while working as an airline sales representative for Delta Air Lines, Gagnon visited Mount Suribachi with his wife and son.
According to the book Flags of Our Fathers “in his later years Gagnon only participated in events that were at his wife’s urging, events praising the U.S. flag raising on Iwo Jima. She enjoyed the limelight, whereas he, by that time, no longer did.”
“At the age of 53, he bitterly inventoried his lost “connections” — the jobs promised him by government people when he had been at the height of his fame, jobs that never materialized. “I’m pretty well known in Manchester,” he told a reporter. “When someone who doesn’t know me is introduced to me, they say ‘That was you in The Photograph?’ What the hell are you doing working here? If I were you, I’d have a good job and lots of money.’”
Gagnon died on October 12, 1979, at age 54, in Manchester, New Hampshire of a heart attack in the boiler room. He was buried at Mount Calvary Cemetery in Manchester. “At the request of his widow, a government waiver was granted on April 16, 1981, and his remains were re-interred in Arlington National Cemetery on July 7. Inscribed on the back of his Arlington headstone are the words: ‘For God and his country he raised our flag in battle And showed a measure of his pride at a place called Iwo Jima Where courage never died’.”