Harold Schultz (28 January 1925 – 16 May 1995) was a US Marine Corps corporal who served in the US 5th Marine Division and was wounded during the Battle of Iwo Jima during World War II. He was a member of the patrol that captured the top of Mount Suribachi and raised the first U.S. flag on Iwo Jima on February 23, 1945. In 2016, It was revealed that Schultz was one of the six Marines who raised the replacement flag on the mountaintop the same day as shown in the iconic photograph by Joe Rosenthal. It was also the same day that the Marine Corps stated that Schultz was incorrectly identified as Franklin Sousley in the photograph. Sousley himself was also incorrectly identified as US Navy corpsman John Bradley.
Biography[]
Schultz was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, and was the youngest son of Karl Albert and Marie Martha Schultz. As a teenager, Schultz attended Southwestern High School and was classmates with Famous Baseball player Stan Lopata. On December 23, 1943, Schultz joined the Marine Corps Reserve before joining activated duty months later and began training at Camp Pendleton, California, and was reassigned to Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, US 28th Marine Regiment, US 5th Marine Division. In September 1944, the 5th marines were sent to Camp Tarawa near Hilo, Hawaii, for further training to prepare for the invasion of Iwo Jima. In January 1945, the division left Hawaii and sailed for Iwo Jima. As the US 4th and 5th Marine Divisions stormed the beaches of Iwo Jima on February 19, 1945. The 28th Marines of the 5th marines landed southeast of the porkchop island closest to where Mount Suribachi was located. The 28th objective was capturing Mount Suribachi on the first day of the battle but that didn’t happen because they were taking heavy fighting. So they reached the east side of the mountain two days later and by the evening of February 22 and had most of the mountain surrounded. On the morning of February 23, 1945, a 40-man patrol from Second Battalion, 28th Marines, including Schultz, 1LT. Harold Schrier, Corpsman John Bradley, Sgt. Henry Hansen, Cpl. Charles Lindberg, Sgt. Ernest Thomas, Pvt. Ralph Ignatowski, and Pvt. Phil Ward had climbed up Suribachi and succeeded in capturing it and raising the first American flag before they were under heavy fire from Imperial Japanese resistance but took it but during this confrontation, Schultz broke his helmet liner chinstrap. The flag was replaced an hour later and Sergeant Michael Strank a squad leader from Second Platoon, Easy Company, was ordered by Colonel Chandler to take a few Marines from his squad up to the top of the Mountain to raise the second flag. Strank chose Corporal Harlon Block, Pfcs. Ira Hayes, Franklin Sousley , and Rene Gagnon who is a Second Battalion runner (a messenger) for E Company were ordered to take the replacement flag up the mountain and return with the first flag which was flying on top. Schultz took part in the second flag-raising. Schultz witnessed Bradley and three other Marines receive shrapnel wounds from a Japanese mortar round explosion and promised to get him help which Schultz did. As they when down to the beaches of Iwo Jima, Bradley and Schultz saw one of the first B-17 bombers to ever land on the island, he told Bradley that he has to go back to the unit before Schultz too wounded in action on March 13, 1945, and was evacuated off the island. He was honorably discharged from the US Marine Corps with the rank of corporal on October 17, 1945. Afterward, he moved to Los Angeles, California, and worked as a mail sorter for the United States Postal Service until he retired in 1981. Schultz never had children because when he was still a youth, he lost a fiancée named Mary from having a brain tumor, and did not marry until his 60s, when he wed his neighbor Rita Reyes and had a step-daughter name Dezreen MacDowell. Schultz never publicly stated that he was one of the second flag-raisers in the photograph during his lifetime. Analysts believe that he must have known that he was in the iconic image but chose not to talk about it. His own stepdaughter claimed that, during a family dinner in the early 90s, when her mom was distracted, Schultz told her that he was one of the flag raisers on Iwo Jima, and never spoke of it again before he died in 1995 at the age of 70.
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