Posted on 01/06/2006 11:43:38 AM PST by lunarbicep
CRAWFORDSVILLE, Ind. - Phil Ward, who was part of a Marine patrol that raised an American flag on Iwo Jima hours before the famous World War II flag-raising photograph was taken, has died.
Ward, who was 79, died Dec. 28 at his winter home in McAllen, Texas. His funeral was Tuesday in Crawfordsville and his ashes will be interred Jan. 19 at Arlington National Cemetery.
Ward was two weeks shy of his 19th birthday when he and other members of E Company, 2nd Battalion, 28th Marines, landed on Iwo Jima, a Japanese-occupied Pacific island. The battle was the deadliest in Marine Corps history. Nearly 7,000 Americans and more than 21,000 Japanese died.
On Feb. 23, 1945, a reconnaissance patrol scaled the island's 560-foot Mount Suribachi to scout Japanese positions around the mountain's volcanic crater. Ward, then a private first class, was a member of that patrol, which reached the summit and raised a small American flag using a Japanese water pipe as a flagpole. That first flag-raising was photographed by combat photographer Sgt. Lou Lowery.
Later that day, a larger flag was erected on the mountain - an event captured by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal in what became one of the war's most stirring images.
Over the years, many people have claimed they were present for the first flag-raising.
Retired Col. Walter E. Ford, editor of Leatherneck, the Marine Corps magazine, said Ward is not in the Lowery flag-raising photos. He did not dispute that Ward was on the patrol, merely that he is not among the Marines that Lowery photographed erecting the first flag. One of the men in the Lowery photos and Ward's platoon commander, however, maintain that Ward is in some of the photos. Ward, who was one of 11 children who grew up in Linnsburg about 25 miles northwest of Indianapolis, served three tours of duty in the Army after his stint in the Marines.
He is survived by his second wife, a son, daughter, brother and six sisters.
RIP Phil Ward
One for the Canteen..
Marine Corps ping to you and others you know on FR..
O, the gates of heaven....
According to Bradley's book, Flags of our Fathers, the roar of horns from the ships and cheers from the men when that flag went up was incredible.
My 'first' Marine was at Iwo Jima. We left flowers for him and my Dad at the monument the day my son graduated from Parris Island.
Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore dimly seen thro' the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream:
'T is the star-spangled banner: O, long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash'd out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
O, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand,
Between their lov'd homes and the war's desolation;
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserv'd us as a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust"
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
Prayers UP...
one for your indiana ping list
My grandmother went to high school with one of those guys
The untold story is how much fighting still had to be done after that flag was raised.
Thanks for the ping.
Another Marine has gone to his final post.
Semper Fi,
Kelly
One of the most amazing military accomplishments of all time.
Just to have been on that island is enough for me.
If you were there, you don't have to be in a photo for me to know you're a hero.
ping!
Please read Jim Bradley's book.
McAllen is in the Rio Grande Valley part of Texas, right by the border with Reynosa Mexico. Nearby to McAllen is the town of Weslaco, where Marine Harlon Bloch (part of the second flag raising group) was from. He is the one at the base of the flagpole in the Rosenthal picture.
Also, Harlon Bloch is buried in Harlingen TX, at the Marine Military Academy there (by the airport), where the original statue (on which the Marine Corps. Memorial, just outside Arlington National Cemetery) is located.
Ahhhh... sorry, I do it all the time... thanks.
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