Vintage matte-finish 9.75 x 7.75 photo of three of the men who helped raise an American flag atop Iwo Jima's Mount Suribachi, showing the soldiers holding and examining the tattered second flag, signed in fountain pen by all three: “Ira H. Hayes, Pfc., U.S.M.C.,” “John H. Bradley, Ph. M. 2/c,” and “Pfc. R. A. Gagnon.” Archivally matted and framed to an overall size of 15.25 x 13.5. In fine condition. Bradley, Gagnon, and Hayes were three of several US soldiers who planted two US flags atop Mount Suribachi on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima on February 23, 1945. Although often credited as a member of the second flag-raising, an event famously captured on film by photographer Joe Rosenthal, Bradley was in fact involved with the first raising of the American flag by the 2nd Battalion. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the surviving Rosenthal photo soldiers to Washington, D. C. to participate in the 7th War Bond Drive, Bradley was erroneously selected over United States Marine Corporal Harold Schultz to attend. The trio toured the nation for two months with the American flag and raised over $26 billion, twice the original goal. A phenomenal union of three unlikely heroes who, along with their fallen comrades, became the collective ‘face’ of World War II.
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