'Last Flagraiser' Dies At 86 (Iwo Jima)

WCCO.com ^ | 6/25/07 | WCCO.com

[ButThreeLeftsDo]

Charles "Chuck" Lindberg, the last surviving flagraiser at Iwo Jima, passed away Sunday morning at Fairview Southdale Hospital.

Lindberg helped raise the first American flag during the Battle of Iwo Jima. His accomplishment was later overshadowed when a replacement flag was raised a few hours later.

He was honored in February 2006 at a military ceremony marking the anniversary of the Battle of Iwo Jima. He also recently attended a groundbreaking ceremony on Memorial Day at the site of a new veterans memorial in Richfield, Minn.

Lindberg's service and legacy as the last living flagraiser was the subject of an award-winning WCCO-TV documentary in 2005.

The funeral will be held later this week at Fort Snelling Chapel.

Lindberg was 86 years old.

[Maverick68]

God bless this man, his family, and his legacy. Thanks to men who are better than I will ever be, my son will be able to live in a free country...

[FoxInSocks]

That Charles Lindbergh died in 1974.

[Tolsti]

Salute

[Borges]

If it were that Lindbergh he would have been 105!

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

And little did Charles “Chuck” Lindberg know at that time that in 2007, traitorous Bush is about to give our country away.

All that fighting and loss of lives were for nothing.

God bless you, Charles.

[rudy45]

What about the second group (i.e. Ira Hayes, Harlon Bloch ?sp? etal?) How many of them if any are still alive?

[OneLoyalAmerican]

Greetings azhenfud:

Just a trivia question: From what ship did the first flag of Iwo come? Name & type?

From Coast Guard manned LST-758, of course.

Cheers,
OLA

[OneLoyalAmerican]

LST, Large Slow Target?

[azhenfud]

Good evening!

Good info - but LST-758 was the source for the larger, second flag.

The smaller, first was from APA-211, USS Missoula - a Haskell class transport.

http://www.fortmissoula.org/exhibits/ww/ussmissoulaproject.shtml

[OneLoyalAmerican]

Greetings azhenfud:

Seems like the flag order was reversed in my mind. My bad. Let me thank you for the USS Missoula link. Wikipedia has a pretty decent ship's biography. Too bad her last chapter was a meeting with the shipbreaker. She would have made a cool WWII museum, or at worst, an artifical reef.

Cheers,
OLA

[HitmanLV]

I just happened to watch ‘Flags of Our Fathers’ last evening. RIP.

[napscoordinator]

Goodbye. See ya up in Heaven.

[napscoordinator]

Truly a great Marine

The Squid died already?

[irish guard]

I believe all those from the famous photo are dead.

[HKMk23]

This country will soon need a whole new generation of such men, in addition to the current generation that is handling the M.E. for us now.

Fear not; hundreds of thousands of us are out here home educating a good, fresh crop of 'em.

HOMESCHOOLED KIDS: "America, we've got your six."

[rbosque]

God bless ya jarhead! RIP.

-Squid.

[A.A. Cunningham]

Zero. The last survivor, PHM2 John Bradley, passed away on 11 January 1994.

Harlon Block 1 March 1945
Rene Gagnon 12 October 1979
Ira Hayes 24 January 1955
Franklin Sousley 21 March 1945
Mike Strank 1 March 1945

[A.A. Cunningham]

USS Missoula APA-211 Haskell-class attack transport

[1COUNTER-MORTER-68]

Their Battlefield...

[rabidralph]

One of the guys that cuts the grass at (WI) Arcadia's Memorial Park was at Iwo Jima and saw the flag being raised. I don't remember his name off-hand. If you live in the Wisconsin or Eastern Minnesota, I invite you all to vist the park in Western Wisconsin. It has replica statues of Iwo Jima and many military heroes. It even has an I-beam from the WTC. The Chairman of Ashley Furniture designed the statues and replicated a few of them in smaller sizes than the originals.