Historians studying the origins of the famous flag-raising picture of Marines on Iwo Jima’s Mount Suribachi have said that a Marine in the picture has been misidentified.
Pfc. Rene A. Gagnon had posed for the Marine Corps War Memorial in Washington, D.C., and was thought to have taken part in the original flag-raising during World War II. Marine Corps officials now believe this was wrong and that the Marine thought to be Gagnon was Cpl. Harold P. Keller.
Historians brought “a significant amount of new evidence for consideration, mostly in the form of dozens of previously private photographs” that suggest that Keller is the figure in the photo, the Marine Corps said on Thursday.
“It gives you an amazing feeling that I just can’t even describe,” said Kay Maurer, Keller’s daughter. “To look up and just think, ‘Whoa. That’s my dad.'”
In 2016, the Marine Corps recognized Pfc. Harold Schultz as being in the photo after historians obtained evidence that he, and not Navy hospital corpsman John Bradley, was in the original photo.
