Charles W. Lindberg - Original Iwo Jima flag raiser

Charles Lindberg passed away on Sunday June 24. His obit (re)tells the story behind the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima in WWII.



There's more at the link!
http://www.deadnotforgotten.com/blog/

I'm reminded that war stories can sometimes take on a life of their own, even when they aren't being deliberately spun in a certain direction.

Too bad Charles Lindberg didn't get credit for his participation in such an historic event. How great that the real story turns out to be that it was a spontaneous, whimsical action of regular troops, and that the flag so raised the morale of everyone within sight of it. :patriot: :) :patriot:

It's nice to think of an American Flag with reverence.

But not so.

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Minnesotan Charles Lindberg, who's not related to the famous aviator, was one of six Marines who reached the top of Mount Suribachi and raised the first flag that day. We visited him at his home in Richfield. He says Iwo Jima was bombed for 72 days before the Marines arrived, and he thought the battle would be a cinch.

"We hit that beach that morning -- the 19th of February -- and boy did we get a surprise. They mortared us up and down the beach -- they had it all synchronized -- they could walk 'em right up and down the beach. I found out later their plan was to put us on the beach and annihilate us," he said.

Many Marines died on the beach. But Lindberg made it off and pushed toward Mount Suribachi, the highest point on the island. He was a flamethrower. He carried 5 gallons of jellied gasoline on his back, and shot fire into tunnels where the Japanese were hiding. After several days of fighting and thousands of casualties, the Marines reached the base of the mountain.

"And then they came and said, 'you're going to start climbing in the morning.' That's kind of a jittery night we had. Next morning, we reported to Col. Chandler Johnson, the battalion commander. He handed Lt. Schrier a flag, and said, 'if you get to the top, raise it.'

The Marines made it to the top. And the first thing Lindberg and five others did was put up the flag.

"Two of our men found a great big long pole up there, about 20-feet long. We tied the flag to it, carried it to the highest spot we could find, and raised it. Boy, then the island came alive down below. The troops started to cheer, the ships' whistles went off, it was quite a proud moment," he says.

A man named Lou Lowery photographed that moment, but chances are, you haven't heard of him. That's because he didn't take the famous flag-raising picture. Lowrey's photo is of six men standing by a flag that's already up; he ran out of film right before it was raised.

Meanwhile, a commander down below was getting nervous about the safety of the flag. He sent up a replacement -- a much bigger one this time.

"It was four hours after ours that they raised that second flag. That was put up there to preserve our flag. They just put that in place of it because they were afraid somebody was going to steal that flag," Lindberg says.

Joe Rosenthal took the second picture. His film was flown off the island, and was on the front pages of U.S. papers within a week.
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http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2005/02/18_wurzerc_photo/

pnorman

:blush:

still good.

Sorry for the cross post.

According to Flags of Our Fathers by James Bradley, Colonel Chandler Johnson gave the first flag to Lt. George Schrier, the leader of the 40 man patrol, and ordered him to put it up "IF" the patrol made it to the top of Suribachi. This was only the fifth day of the battle, and this was the first large group to attempt to climb the heavily defended volcano.

One of those 40 was "Doc" John Bradley -- the only man who participated in both flag raisings. Oddly, the patrol faced no resistance in their climb to the top, but did engage in a brief fire fight on the summit after the first flag was raised.

Of the more famous six who raised the second flag (on orders) three died on Iwo Jima. Bradley was wounded and evacuated. One of the six was misidentified. Both the actual flag raiser (Harlon Block) and the person ID'd as being in the photo (Hank Hansen who helped raise the first flag) died before the battle ended. Block was not correctly identified until after the war, when Ira Hayes (one of the three survivors) walked and hitch hiked from Arizona to Texas to tell Block's father. He and the others had been ordered not to talk about the incorrect identification during the war bond tour.