The Marine Corps is investigating whether one of the men in an iconic World War II photo taken at Iwo Jima was misidentified, Marine Corps spokeswoman Capt. Sarah Burns confirmed Tuesday.
The investigation comes years after amateur historians Eric Krelle, of Omaha, Neb., and Stephen Foley, of Wexford, Ireland, began raising questions about the identity of one of the men in the photograph, The Omaha World-Herald reported. The photo was taken on Feb. 23, 1945, by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal, and showed a group of men raising the American flag atop Mount Suribachi, on the Japanese Island of Iwo Jima.
The duo alleges that the man identified as Franklin Sousley, was actually Harold Henry Schultz of Detroit, who passed away in 1995, AP reported. They maintain that Sousley, was in the photo, but was incorrectly identified as John Bradley, a Navy corpsman. If true, the mix-up could prove that Bradley was not actually present for the photo.
"The Marine Corps is examining information provided by a private organization related to Joe Rosenthal's Associated Press photograph of the second flag raising on Iwo Jima," Burns said in an email.
In 1945, the photo was featured on several Sunday newspapers and became a powerful image for war-weary Americans. Rosenthal was not able to get the names of the soldiers when the photo was taken, and President Franklin Roosevelt later asked the military to identify the men.
Foley noticed the discrepancy in 2013 while he was recovering from surgery, the World-Herald reported in 2014. After spending hours comparing photographs, he reached out to Krelle, who runs a website dedicated to the Marines Corps' famed 5th Division.
The duo found multiple discrepancies after poring over the iconic image and other photographs taken that day.
"People can hold onto what they have always known in the past," Krelle told the World-Herald in 2014. "But to me, the photos are the truth."
Bradley's son, James Bradley, told AP he was bewildered by the investigation.
"This is unbelievable," Bradley, who wrote a book on the flag raising, told AP. "I'm interested in facts and truths, so that's fine, but I don't know what's happening."
Burns did not provide a timeline for the investigation, and noted that the Marine Corps is "humbled by the service and sacrifice of all who fought on Iwo Jima."
"Rosenthal's photo captured a single moment in the 36-day battle during which more than 6,500 U.S. servicemen made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation and it is representative of the more than 70,000 U.S. Marines, sailors, soldiers and Coast Guardsmen that took part in the battle," she said in a statement.
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