Hide Article Text (OCR)
9Nothing Out of Ordinary/ Says John Brad feyFormer Appleton Man Is One of Two Survivors Of Famed Crew Which Raised Flag at I wo JimaIn one-four hundredth of a second a man with eyesight too poor to be accepted in the military draft saw a moment in history 20 years ago during the blooriv battle of Iwo Jima and immortalized it in a news photograph The man was Associated Press Photographer Joe Rosenthal, then 33, and the picture was the raising of a flag on Mt Suribachi Th picture so captured the essence of that temble turning point in the Pacific battle that it has had the unique compliment of being cast m bronze as a monument at Arlington Cemetery in Arlington, Va There were six mer on that picture, five Marines and a Naval medical corps man in a Marine uniform Four of the men are dead now One of the survivors, Pfc Rent A Gagnon of Manchester, N H, traveled to the black sands if Iwo Jims' this week to commemorate the 20th anniversary of that piece of photographic historyFormer Applet* Ma*The other survivor was thecorps man, John Bradley, an Appleton boy now living m Antigo, working as a partner In a funeral home Bradley wants nothing to do with the picture nor with the periodic fuss that it attracts He contends that the men in the picture — as far as their actions being photographed — had not done anything noteworthy.The flag in the picture was the second flag to go up on Mt Suribachi The first wasearned by a Lt Harold G Schrier as he led his men up the heights that commanded the bloody beaches of Iwo Jima His orders were to clear the heights and raise the flagSchrier with a frightful toll of men carried out his orders and with a 20-foot pipe the party found in the debrisladen fortified volcanic craterthat topped the heights, they raised the small flag on the fourth day of the battle Important SymbolThat flag and the morale boosting meaning of its being raised as a signal that the frightful heights had been cleared was too important a symbol to hazard It was a prime target for any souvenir hunter «nd on the followingday a large ship s flag replaced ’t and Rosenthal got his picture The first flagFormer Appleton M*n, John Bradley, now of Anti-go, as he appears today and 20 years ago, shortly after his discharge from service during which he participated in the immortal flag raising on Iwo Jima Bradley is one of the two men still living of the six in the famed photo of the event. (AP Wirephoto)raising was photographed too — bv Sgt Ixkhs R Lowery of Leatherneck Magazine — but it was Rosenthal s picture that captures the meaningful composition and won the immortality It is fitting that Iwo Jima s memorialized It not only cost the United States a life for every acre, it was the beginning of the direct answer to Japan for its attack on the United States Iwo Jima was the southern-rrost part of Japan proper, the first soil of the Imperial homeland the first time we had the chance to carry t, Japan proper our answer for Pearl Harbor for the shells that fell on southern Califor ma for the incendiary balloon that miraculously failed tlt; scorch Washington stat** and OregonDrop ‘The Bomb’In retrospect. Iwo Jima was even something more and it must have figured in the decision, later n Uk summer of 1945 to drop “the bomb” and open the atomic age Iwo Jima was the first chance we had to test the Japanese on their homeland and the answer we learned was that the Japanese would exact a terrible toll without regard to their own Lves Iwo Jima painted a temble picture of what the invasion cf the homeland would be like and foiecast the atomic distinction of Hiro .huna and Nagasaki
Newspaper Details
Appleton Post Crescent
Appleton, Wisconsin, US
Mon, Feb 22, 1965
Page 9
Full Page
Clipped by
Scott D.
NA, NA 23 Mar 2021
Other Publications Near Appleton, Wisconsin
Appleton Daily Post
Appleton Post Crescent
Appleton Motor
