For anyone familiar with the iconic WWII photo of the flag being raised over Iwo Jima, the news today was pretty startling: the Marine Corps has opened an investigation to determine who actually raised the flag. You may wonder what this has to do with John F. Kennedy’s assassination, but bear with me a few moments for a little background...
Even those of us born decades after WWII recognize this image, which was shot by AP photographer Joe Rosenthal shortly after U.S. Marines took the tiny island in a pivotal and intensely bloody battle with the Japanese. The photo became the basis for the bronze larger-than-life USMC War Memorial statue in Arlington, VA. Months after the shot was taken, it made such an impact on the American public, that FDR flew three of the surviving flag raisers back to the U.S. and sent them on a tour to raise war bonds.
But now we learn that one of those men, John Bradley, did not actually raise the flag. This revelation, confirmed by the U.S. Marine Corps in 2016, came about because of an article, “New mystery arises from iconic Iwo Jima image,” published by the Omaha World-Herald. The evidence against Bradley as the flag raiser is so clear that the Marines should have acted much sooner after the article appeared in 2014. This revelation is especially ironic because Bradley’s son, James, co-wrote a bestselling book about his father’s role in the photo called Flags of Our Fathers, which became a movie directed by Clint Eastwood. Meanwhile, the unidentified flag raiser, a Detroiter named Harold Schultz, lived the rest of his life in obscurity – at least until the World-Herald article.
So, who made this discovery? If you had to guess, you might say the Smithsonian Institution, a college history professor, or some other well-published authority on WWII. But instead, the credit goes to two so-called “amateur” historians. Stephen Foley, who worked for a building supply company in Ireland, was laid up for a few weeks after surgery when he came to the conclusion about Bradley after poring over other photos taken shortly before and after the flag was raised. He then passed the baton to Eric Krelle, a toy designer and WWII buff who runs a website dedicated to the Marine division involved in the battle. He arrived at the real flag raiser's identity with equally convincing photo evidence.
But just as remarkable is the response of the “professional” historians to the amateurs’ discovery. According to the World-Herald reporter Matthew Hansen, when he called several pre-eminent military historians to look at a blog Krelle had written to support his thesis, they “flatly refused.” One expert “grudgingly” agreed only after calling the amateurs “insane.” He then called back to say, “One: I think I buy it. Two: Don’t quote me on that.”
This has a familiar ring for anyone who has toiled in the vineyards of JFK assassination research. No matter how convincing your evidence about a conspiracy, the so-called authorities do not even deign to consider it. In this camp, I put most established media outlets and their reporters along with the professional historians. It’s why some of the seminal books on the assassination are either self-published or produced by small publishers. If a book’s research is backed by good sources, there’s no reason to dismiss its conclusions because there’s no name brand on the spine. But there’s an even greater lesson from the example of amateurs Foley and Krelle. As they have proven, thanks to the Internet, the richest source material is no longer locked in an Ivory Tower but is there for all of us to see. All we need to do is start looking.