page_title: Raymond Jacobs
section_title: Battle of Iwo Jima
hierarchical_section_title: Raymond Jacobs / Early life / U.S. Marine Corps, World War II / Battle of Iwo Jima
caption_attribution_description: English: ID: DNSD0311845; Service Depicted: Other Service 010928N0271M009; Aerial view of Mount Surabuchi on the Island of Iwo Jima, Japan. Camera Operator: PHAN LEE MCCASKILL, USN; Date Shot: 28 Sep 2001
context_page_description: Raymond E. Jacobs was a United States Marine Corps sergeant who served in World War II and during the Korean War. Jacobs was a member of the combat patrol that climbed up to the top of Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima and raised the first American flag on February 23, 1945. He later was a news reporter.
context_section_description: Jacobs participated in the Battle of Iwo Jima which began on February 19, 1945. On February 23 at 8 AM, First Lieutenant Harold Schrier, the E Company executive officer, led a 40-man combat patrol from Third Platoon, E Company, 2nd Battalion, 28th Marines up Mount Suribachi to siege and occupy the crest. Accompanying Schrier was Jacobs, a radioman from F Company who was assigned to him for the patrol. Schrier was to raise an American flag he was given to signal that the mountaintop was captured. Once on top of the volcano, a section of a Japanese water pipe was found that became the flagstaff for the flag. Schrier and two other Marines attached the flag to the pipe which was then carried to the highest spot on the crater.
  At approximately 10:20-10:35 a.m., Lt. Schrier, Platoon Sergeant Ernest Thomas, and Sergeant Henry Hansen, raised the flag (Thomas was ordered to report aboard the flagship USS Eldorado on February 25, and during an interview with a CBS radio broadcaster said that Schrier, himself, and Sgt. Henry Hansen had actually raised the flag). Seeing the raising of the national colors immediately caused a reaction of loud cheering from the Marines, sailors, and coast guardsmen on the beach below and from the men on the ships near the beach; the ships whistles and horns went off too. Hansen was killed in action on Iwo Jima on March 1, and Thomas on March 3. On March 10, 1945, Jacobs was wounded by enemy mortar fire and was evacuated off Iwo Jima. The actual raising of the first flag on Mount Suribachi had not been photographed.
  In the early afternoon, a larger replacement flag was brought up Mount Suribachi by the Easy Company runner (messenger) which was then attached unto another Japanese steel pipe. This flag was raised by six servicemen while the first flag was lowered. A photograph of the second flag raising by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal appeared in the newspapers, became renowned world-wide, made the second flag-raisers and Rosenthal famous, and led to the creation of the huge Marine Corps War Memorial (sometimes referred to as the Iwo Jima Memorial) in 1954, in Arlington, Virginia.
caption: Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima.
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