Ira Hayes? Wasn’t he awarded the CMOH?
“Ira Hayes? Wasn’t he awarded the CMOH?” [17th Miss Regt, post 33]
The list of USMC Medal of Honor awardees for the Second World War does not contain his name.
He was one of six Marines who raised the second American flag atop Mount Suribachi on 23 February 1945.
Confusion has bedeviled the official record of exactly who raised the second flag, captured on film by photographer Joe Rosenthal, later made into the sculpture that now dominates the Marine Corps War Memorial. No faces could be seen in the photo, and in the chaos and confusion of battle not every administrative detail was properly verified. Three of the six men were killed before the island was declared secure.
One man’s identity was corrected in 1947. Another was not properly identified until 2016; he lived out his life quietly and never spoke about it to anyone.
USN Corpsman John Bradley was initially identified as one of the raisers of the second flag. His son James wrote a book about his father’s activities, which was later adapted for the film directed by Clint Eastwood. It later came out that Bradley was one of the men who raised the first flag.