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Letter to the editor

First Iwo Jima flag-raiser dies

Veteran said his patrol, not the one in famous photo, did it.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published June 26, 2007

RICHFIELD, Minn. - Charles W. Lindberg, one of the U.S. Marines who raised the first American flag over Iwo Jima during World War II, has died. He was 86.

Mr. Lindberg died Sunday (June 24, 2007) at Fairview Southdale hospital in the Minneapolis suburb of Edina, said John Pose, director of the Morris Nilsen Funeral Home in Richfield, which is handling the funeral.

Mr. Lindberg spent decades explaining that it was his patrol, not the one captured in the famous Associated Press photograph by Joe Rosenthal, that raised the first flag as U.S. forces fought to take the Japanese island.

In the late morning of Feb. 23, 1945, Mr. Lindberg fired his flame-thrower into enemy pillboxes at the base of Mount Suribachi and then joined five other Marines fighting their way to the top. He was awarded the Silver Star for bravery.

The moment was captured by Sgt. Lou Lowery, a photographer from the Marine Corps' Leatherneck magazine.

Three of the men in the first raising never saw their photos. They were among the more than 6, 800 U.S. servicemen killed in the five-week battle for the island.

By Mr. Lindberg's account, his commander ordered the first flag replaced and safeguarded because he worried someone would take it as a souvenir. Mr. Lindberg was back in combat when six men raised the second, larger flag about four hours later.

Rosenthal's photo of the second flag-raising became one of the most enduring images of the war and the model for the U.S. Marine Corps memorial in Washington.

After his discharge in January 1946, Mr. Lindberg - no relation to Charles Lindbergh the aviator - went home to Grand Forks, N.D. He moved to Richfield in 1951 and became an electrician.

[Last modified June 26, 2007, 00:39:43]