John Bradley (10 July 1923-11 January 1994) was a US Navy Hospital corpsman who was awarded the Navy Cross for extraordinary heroism while serving with the US Marines during the Battle of Iwo Jima in the Second World War. During the fifth of the battle, he was a member of the patrol that captured the top of Mount Suribachi and raised both the first and second American flag on Iwo Jima on February 23, 1945. However in June 2016, the Marine Corps publicly announced that Bradley was not in the photograph. Everyone thought to have been Bradley but was Franklin Sousley, and the man who had been originally identified as Sousley was identified as Harold Schultz.
Biography[]
John Henry Bradley was in Antigo, Wisconsin on July 10, 1923 and was the second eldest son to Irish Catholics and grew up in Appleton, Wisconsin, graduating from Appleton Senior High School in 1941 before his younger sister Mary Ellen died form pneumonia. A year before Bradley join the United States Navy, he had an interest in entering the funeral business when he was younger because he felt those were the men everyone looked up to, and later got a job at his local funeral home. In March of 1943, Bradley graduated from Navy recruit training at the Farragut Naval Training Station at Bayview, Idaho and was assigned to an Hospital Corps School at Farragut where he pass the Hospital corpsman course, he was assigned to Naval Hospital Oakland in Oakland, California. Then on January 1944, he was assigned to the Fleet Marine Force and sent to one of the "field medical service schools" at a Marine base for combat medical training in order to serve with a Marine unit. Afterward, he was assigned to the US 5th Marine Division on April 15, at that time the 5th Marines were a newly activated infantry division that was being formed at Camp Pendleton, California. He was reassigned there to Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, US 28th Marine Regiment of the division were he befriended a Private named Ralph Ignatowski. When the Allied forces stormed the volcanic island Iwo Jima on February 19, 1945, Bradley who was a member of Company E, 2nd Battalion, US 28th Marines, landed with the ninth wave of Marines on the beaches and after aiding beach casualties there, proceeded with his company to the front lines. Then two days later, hesaved the life of a Marine caught in the open under heavy Japanese fire and then stopped some other Marines from taking the wounded man to their safer position from enemy fire; he took the wounded Marine to their position himself and was awarded the Navy Cross. On February 23, He and another corpsman named Gerald Ziehme were part of the forty man combat patrol led by 1st Lt. Harold Schrier of E Company successfully climbed up Mount Suribachi to capture the summit and raise the American flag, but two Imperial Japanese started shooting both the men and the flag but managed to kill the two soldiers. Two hours later, Bradley watched as five Marines from E Company's 2nd Platoon, Sgt. Michael Strank, Cpl. Harlon Block, PFCS Ira Hayes, Franklin Sousley, Harold Schultz and company runner Rene Gagnon who brought up the 2nd flag to Schrier. The first flag and flagstaff was taken down at the same time the second flag and flagstaff went up. The reason why they took down the first flag because the Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal wanted and said that the raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next 500 years. 9 days later on March 1, 1945 the men were horrified as they saw Strank getting shot by friendly artillery fire a US Navy shell having his heart ripped out killing him. It was also the same day Bradley witness Sgt. Henry Hansen (The paramarine and friend who raised the first flag at Mount Suribachi with) is shot in the chest and dies in his arms and Block gets hit by an enemy mortar round explosion while he took charge of the squad while attacking Nishi Ridge. When Bradley found him, Block said to him that the Japanese killed him. Two nights later on the night of March 4, 1945, Bradley was helping a wounded Marine till suddenly Ignatowski was abducted by Imperial Japanese troops and dragged into a tunnel. Doc finds his viciously mangled body three days later and later found with his eyes, ears, fingernails, and tongue severed and removed, his teeth were smashed in, the back of his own head caved in, being multiple times in the abdomen by bayonets, and his arms broken like a ragdoll. Bradley's own recollections of discovering and taking care of Iggy's remains haunted him and suffered for many years. Bradley and three other Marines received shrapnel wounds from an Japanese mortar round explosion on 12th of March and was evacuated from combat to an aid station. Than transferred to a field hospital and being flown to Guam, Hawaii, and Oakland Naval Hospital. Between May and June of 1945, Bradley still recovering from his leg wounds, then the newspaper stated the he participated with two-second American flag-raisers even though he was the first, he still participated with Ira Hayes and Gagnon, in the Seventh War Loan Drive in order to raised over $26 billion to help win the war. The three men arrive to a hero's welcome in Washington, DC, and Bradley notices that Hansen's mother is on the list of mothers of the dead flag raisers. Hayes angrily denounces the whole bond drive is a farce. They are reprimanded by Bud Gerber of the Treasury Department, who tells them that the United States cannot afford the war and if this bond drive fails, America will probably abandon both the Pacific and European Theatre and their sacrifices will in vain. So the three agree to go with the lie that Hansen was not in the photograph. As the three traveled around the country to raise money and make speeches, Hayes was suffering from survivors guilt and post traumatic stress, facing racial discrimination as a Native American, and descending into alcoholism before he is sent back to his unit and the bond drive continues without him because couldn't take it anymore. When the Second World War was over, Bradley was discharged from the Navy in November 1945. Bradley married Betty Van Gorp settled in Antigo where the two had eight children. He became a funeral parlor. Bradley was active in a lot of civic club and rarely took part in ceremonies celebrating the Iwo Jima flag-raising. He was still tormented by that volcanic island and wept in his sleep for the first four years of his marriage and kept a large Ka-Bar in his dresser drawer for protection. John Henry Bradley on January 11, 1994 from a stroke at the age of 70. Before he died, he told his story to his son, James Bradley (The author who wrote the book "Flags of Our Fathers" about his father's experience during the Battle of Iwo Jima and the flag raising) that he first and second flag raisers swim in the ocean after raising the two flags.
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