211576 Alan Wood United States Navy from:Sierra Madra, California A World War II veteran credited with providing the flag in the famous flag-raising on Iwo Jima. Alan Wood was a 22year old Navy officer in charge of communications on a landing ship on Iwo Jima's shores February 23, 2945, when a Marine asked him for the biggest flag he could find.
After five days of fighting to capture the island, U.S. forces had managed to scale Mount Suribachi to hoist an American flag. Mr. Wood happed to have a 37-square-foot flag he found months before in a Pearl Harbor Navy depot.
Five Marines and a Navy corpsman raised that flag in a stirring moment captured by Associated Press photogapher Joe Rosenthal.
The Lost Angeles Times reported that over the years others had claimed that they provided the flag, but retired Marine Col. Dave Severance, who commanded the company that took Mount Suribachi, said in an interview that it was Mr. Wood.
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