Posted by
Alan on Saturday, February 09, 2008 10:08:03 AM
Last Marine in First Iwo Jima Photo Dies
AP Posted: 2008-02-04 19:51:13 Filed Under: Nation News REDDING, California (Feb. 4)
Raymond Jacobs, believed to be the last surviving member of the group
of Marines photographed during the original U.S. flag-raising on Iwo
Jima during World War II, has died at age 82. The man believed to be
the last surviving member of the group of Marines photographed during
the original U.S. flag-raising on Iwo Jima during World War II died at
82. Raymond Jacobs' daughter said her father died of natural causes at
a Redding, Calif., hospital on Jan. 29. Jacobs died Jan. 29 of natural
causes at a Redding hospital, his daughter, Nancy Jacobs, told The
Associated Press. Jacobs had spent his later years working to prove
that he was the radio operator photographed looking up at an American
flag as it was being raised by other Marines on Mount Suribachi on Feb.
23, 1945, on the island about 745 miles south of Tokyo. Newspaper
accounts from the time show he was on the mountain during the initial
raising of a smaller American flag, though he had returned to his unit
by the time the more famous AP photograph was taken of a second
flag-raising later the same day. The radioman's face isn't fully
visible in the first photograph taken of the first flag-raising by Lou
Lowery, a photographer for Leatherneck magazine, leading some veterans
to question Jacobs' claim. However, other negatives from the same roll
of film show the radioman is Jacobs, said retired Col. Walt Ford,
editor of Leatherneck. "It's clearly a front-on face shot of Ray
Jacobs," Ford said. Annette Amerman, a historian with the Marine Corps
History Division, said in an e-mailed statement "there are many that
believe" Jacobs was the radioman. "However, there are no official
records produced at the time that can prove or refute Mr. Jacobs'
location." Jacobs was honorably discharged in 1946. He was called up
during the Korean conflict in 1951 before retiring as a sergeant, his
daughter said. Jacobs retired in 1992 from KTVU-TV station in Oakland,
where he worked 34 years as a reporter, anchor and news director.
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