<P> Lieutenant Colonel Chandler Johnson, commander of the 2nd Battalion, 28th Marine Regiment, 5th Marine Division, ordered Marine Captain Dave Severance, commander of Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 28th Marines, to send a platoon to seize and occupy the crest of Mount Suribachi . First Lieutenant Harold G. Schrier, executive officer of Easy Company, who had replaced the wounded Third Platoon commander, John Keith Wells, volunteered to lead a 40 - man combat patrol up the mountain . Lieutenant Colonel Johnson (or 1st Lieutenant George G. Wells, the battalion adjutant, whose job it was to carry the flag) had taken the 54 - by - 28 - inch / 140 - by - 71 - centimeter flag from the battalion's transport ship, USS Missoula, and handed the flag to Schrier . Johnson said to Schrier, "If you get to the top, put it up ." Schrier assembled the patrol at 8 AM to begin the climb up the mountain . </P> <P> Despite the large numbers of Japanese troops in the immediate vicinity, Schrier's patrol made it to the rim of the crater at about 10: 15 am, having come under little or no enemy fire, as the Japanese were being bombarded at the time . The flag was attached by Schrier and two Marines to a Japanese iron water pipe found on top, and the flagstaff was raised and planted by Schrier, assisted by Platoon Sergeant Ernest Thomas and Sergeant Oliver Hansen at about 10: 30 am (on February 25, during a CBS press interview aboard the flagship USS Eldorado about the flag - raising, Thomas stated that he, Schrier, and Hansen (platoon guide) had actually raised the flag). The raising of the national colors immediately caused a loud cheering reaction from the Marines, sailors, and coast guardsmen on the beach below and from the men on the ships near the beach . The loud noise made by the servicemen and blasts of the ship horns alerted the Japanese, who up to this point had stayed in their cave bunkers . Schrier and his men near the flagstaff then came under fire from Japanese troops, but the Marines quickly eliminated the threat . Schrier was later awarded the Navy Cross for volunteering to take the patrol up Mount Suribachi and raising the American flag, and a Silver Star Medal for a heroic action in March while in command of D Company, 2 / 28 Marines on Iwo Jima . </P> <P> Photographs of the first flag flown on Mount Suribachi were taken by Staff Sergeant Louis R. Lowery of Leatherneck magazine, who accompanied the patrol up the mountain, and other photographers . Others involved with the first flag - raising include Corporal Charles W. Lindberg, Privates First Class James Michels and Raymond Jacobs, Private Phil Ward, and Navy corpsman John Bradley This flag was too small, however, to be easily seen from the northern side of Mount Suribachi, where heavy fighting would go on for several more days . </P> <P> The Secretary of the Navy, James Forrestal, had decided the previous night that he wanted to go ashore and witness the final stage of the fight for the mountain . Now, under a stern commitment to take orders from Howlin' Mad Smith, the secretary was churning ashore in the company of the blunt, earthy general . Their boat touched the beach just after the flag went up, and the mood among the high command turned jubilant . Gazing upward, at the red, white, and blue speck, Forrestal remarked to Smith: "Holland, the raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next five hundred years". </P>

Who raised the first flag at iwo jima