The Seventh War Bond Drive and The Sixth Man Controversy
Upon seeing the photo, President Franklin D. Roosevelt realized the picture would make an excellent symbol for the upcoming seventh war bond drive, and ordered the Marines identified and brought home. The Marines were brought home at the conclusion of the battle. Using a photo enlargement, Rene Gagnon identified the others in the photograph, but refused to identify the sixth man (Hayes), insisting he had promised to keep the man's name a secret. Gagnon had promised not to discuss Hayes' identity because Hayes—who despised Gagnon—had threatened to kill him. After being brought to Marine Corps headquarters and informed that he was being ordered by the President to reveal the information, and that refusing an order to reveal the name would be a serious crime, Gagnon finally revealed Hayes' name.
Gagnon also misidentified Harlon Block as Sergeant Henry O. "Hank" Hansen, who had not survived the battle (but who had, incidentally, participated in the first flag-raising). Initially, John Bradley concurred with all of Gagnon's identifications. On April 8, 1945, the Marine Corps released the identification of five of the flag raisers (including Hansen)—Sousley's identity was withheld pending notification of his family of his death during the battle.
The three survivors went on a whirlwind bond tour. The tour was a success, raising $26.3 billion, twice the tour's goal.
Questions lingered about the misidentification of Harlon Block. His mother, Belle Block, refused to accept the official identification, noting that she had "changed so many diapers on that boy's butt, I know it's my boy." Immediately on arrival in Washington, D.C. on April 19, Hayes noticed the misidentification in the photo, and informed the Marine public relations officer who had been assigned to him. The public relations officer told Hayes that the identifications had already been officially released, and ordered Hayes to keep silent about it.
Over a year and a half later, suffering from depression and alcoholism that would characterize the rest of his life, Ira Hayes hitchhiked to Texas to inform Block's family that Block had, in fact, been the sixth flag raiser.
Ira remembered what Rene Gagnon and John Bradley could not have remembered, because they did not join the little cluster until the last moment: that it was Harlon, Mike, Franklin and himself who had ascended Suribachi midmorning to lay telephone wire; it was Rene who had come along with the replacement flag. Hansen had not been part of this action.
Block's mother, Belle, immediately composed a letter to her congressional representative Milton West. West, in turn, forwarded the letter to Marine Corps Commandant Alexander Vandegrift, who ordered an investigation. Both Bradley and Gagnon, upon being shown the evidence, agreed that it was probably Block and not Hansen.
Read more about this topic: Raising The Flag On Iwo Jima
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—Amaru (c. seventh century A.D.)
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—Bible: Hebrew Proverbs 22:15.
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—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)