SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Photographer Joe Rosenthal, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his immortal image of the American flag being raised over Iwo Jima in World War Two, has died.
One of the six servicemen in the photo was a New Hampshire marine, Rene Gagnon, of Hooksett, who died in 1979.
Gagnon was preparing to carry radio batteries up Mount Suribachi in February 1945, when an officer handed him a flag and told him to take it with him. Once there, someone attached it to a pole and Gagnon and five others muscled it into place.
Gagnon’s widow, Pauline, once said the former marine played down any heroics.
“He used to say, “They asked me to get up there, and on the way to my job (carrying the batteries), do this.’ And he said “I just gave them a hand, no more no less.”‘
Many consider Rosenthal’s Associated Press photo the most famous combat photo ever.
Rosenthal died Sunday in California at age 94.
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