Warrior in iconic Iwo Jima flag-raising photo was misidentified, Marines Corps acknowledges
Historians determined that Cpl. Harold 'Pie' Keller was one of the six men who raised the flag.
Oct. 16, 2019, 6:32 PM EDT By Corky Siemaszko
The list of heroes immortalized in the iconic photo of the U.S. flag being raised over Iwo Jima has been revised again.
The Marine Corps acknowledged on Wednesday that for 74 years, it had misidentified one of the six fighting men who appeared in the Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal.
The admission came after three historians, using film footage from atop Mount Suribachi and photos taken by other soldiers who were there, concluded that Cpl. Harold “Pie” Keller — not Pfc. Rene Gagnon — was one of the flag-raisers in the photograph.
The findings of historians Stephen Foley, Dustin Spence and Brent Westemeyer were confirmed by a special investigative board convened by the Marines and by investigators from the FBI's Digital Evidence Laboratory.
