U.S. Marine Radioman Raymond Jacobs, who helped raise the first American flag on Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima, on Feb. 23, 1945, reportedly died today.
Jacobs was part of the first group of Marines to raise a flag at Mount Suribachi. Pictures were taken, but they were little noticed at the time. A little later the same day, a second flag-raising was captured in a much more artistically dramatic photograph, which came to represent the Marines’ commitment to victory.
The full story of the Iwo Jima flag-raisings probably is most accurately told in the recent motion picture, “Flags of Our Fathers.” But in the end, it didn’t really matter who raised the first flag. What mattered to those Marines was that the flags were raised in Day 5 of what turned out to be a bloody 35-day battle, in which 21,000 Japanese and 7,000 Americans died.
By winning Iwo Jima, the Marines won two key airfields, which helped give the Allies the advantage for the rest of the war. Radioman Jacobs was part of that great victory of freedom.
Frank Warner
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