page_title: Louis R. Lowery
section_title: U.S. Flag raisings
hierarchical_section_title: Louis R. Lowery / U.S. Marine Corps / Battle of Iwo Jima / U.S. Flag raisings
caption_attribution_description: First Iwo Jima Flag Raising. Small flag carried ashore by the 2d Battalion, 28th Marines is planted atop Mount Suribachi at 1020, 23 February 1945 This picture is usually captioned as: 1st Lieutenant Harold G. Schrier with Platoon Sergeant Ernest I. Thomas, Jr. (both seated), PFC James Michels (in foreground with carbine), Sergeant Henry O. Hansen (standing, wearing soft cap), Corporal Charles W. Lindberg (standing, extreme right), on Mount Suribachi at the first flag raising. However, PFC Raymond Jacobs disputed these identifications,[1] and asserted that it should be: PFC James Robeson (lower left corner; not visible in this cropped version of the photo), Lieutenant Harold Schrier (sitting behind his legs), PFC Raymond Jacobs (carrying radio), Sergeant Henry Hansen (cloth cap), unknown (lower hand on pole), Sergeant Ernest Thomas (back to camera), Phm2c John Bradley (helmet above Thomas), PFC James Michels (with carbine), Cpl Charles Lindberg (above Michels).
context_page_description: Louis R. "Lou" Lowery was a United States Marine Corps captain. He was the only Marine Corps combat photographer to cover six major campaigns during World War II. He is best known for taking the first photographs of the first American flag that was raised on top of Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima on the morning of February 23, 1945.
  Lowery was the founder and president of the United States Marine Corps Combat Correspondents Association. He also was a photographic director of Leatherneck Magazine, a publication of the Marine Corps. He died on April 15, 1987, at age 70 from aplastic anemia and is buried in Quantico National Cemetery in Prince William County, Virginia near the Marine Corps War Memorial. In 2006, Lowery was portrayed by actor David Hornsby in film Flags of Our Fathers.
context_section_description: On February 23, 1945, Lowery, then a staff sergeant, accompanied the 40-man combat patrol (which included two Navy corpsmen) that climbed Mount Suribachi to seize and occupy the crest and raise the Second Battalion's U.S. flag if possible to signal that it was captured. The patrol led by First Lieutenant Harold Schrier, captured and secured the mountaintop and raised the flag attached to a Japanese steel water pipe approximately 10:30 A.M. Immediately after the flag was raised, a short firefight took place after Japanese soldiers came out of a cave. An enemy grenade was tossed, and Lowery fell with his camera several feet down the side of the crater from the blast. Lowery was unhurt, and though his camera was damaged, the film was intact.
  The actual flag raising (not in Lowery's photographs) was done by Lt. Schrier (a former Marine Raider), Platoon Sgt. Ernest Thomas (a former drill instructor), and Sgt. Henry Hansen (a former Paramarine), according to Sgt. Thomas who did a CBS news interview aboard the flagship USS Eldorado (AGC-11) after meeting with Vice Admiral Richmond K. Turner and Lieutenant General Holland Smith on February 25, 1945. Most of the patrol members were from Third Platoon, Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 28th Marine Regiment, 5th Marine Division; Pfc. Raymond Jacobs was the radioman (photographed by Lowery) reassigned from F Company for the patrol. Hansen was killed in action on Iwo Jima on March 1 and Thomas on March 3, 1945.
  The flag was determined to be too small to be easily seen north of Mount Suribachi where most of the Japanese soldiers were located and heavy fighting would occur in the coming days. A second (and larger) American flag attached to another Japanese steel pipe, was raised and planted by a group of six different Marines approximately 1 P.M. the same day which resulted in the world-famous photograph taken by Joe Rosenthal of the Associated Press who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Photography later that year. At Schrier's command, one flag went up and the other flag came down. Rosenthal, whose photos were processed days before Lowery's photos were, went up Mount Suribachi with Marine photographers Sgt. Bill Genaust (killed in action on March 4) and Pvt. Robert R. Campbell after the first flag was raised. While Lowery was coming down Suribachi, he met Rosenthal and the two Marine photographers, and he informed them about the first flag raising.
  On March 14, by orders of General Holland Smith, another U.S. flag was officially raised during a ceremony at V Amphibious Corps headquarters near the base of Mount Suribachi which signaled the island was occupied by U.S. Forces and the flag flying on Mount Suribachi was taken down; the battle of Iwo Jima was officially over on March 26.
caption: Staff Sergeant Lou Lowery's most widely circulated image of the first American flag flown on Mount Suribachi.
   Left to right: 1st Lt. Harold Schrier (kneeling beside radioman's legs), Pfc. Raymond Jacobs (radio operator), Sgt. Henry "Hank" Hansen (soft cap, holding flagstaff), Platoon Sgt. Ernest "Boots" Thomas (seated), Pvt. Phil Ward (holding lower flagstaff), PhM2c. John Bradley, USN (holding flagstaff, standing above Ward and Thomas), Pfc. James Michels (holding M1 carbine), and Cpl. Charles Lindberg (standing above Michels).
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