Ira Hayes
Ira Hamilton Hayes was a United States Marine during World War II. Hayes was an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian Community, located in Pinal and Maricopa counties in Arizona. He enlisted in the United States Marine Corps Reserve on August 26, 1942, and, after recruit training, volunteered to become a Paramarine. He fought in the Bougainville and Iwo Jima campaigns in the Pacific War.
Hayes was one of the six men who appeared in the iconic photograph Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima by photographer Joe Rosenthal. The first flag raised over Mount Suribachi on February 23, 1945 at the south end of Iwo Jima, was deemed too small and was replaced the same day by a larger flag. A photo of the second flag-raising, which included Hayes in it, became famous and was widely reproduced. After the battle, Hayes and two other men were identified as surviving second flag-raisers and were reassigned to help raise funds for the Seventh War Loan drive. In 1946, after his service in the Marine Corps, he was instrumental in revealing the correct identity of one of the Marines in the photograph.
After the war, Hayes suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and descended into alcoholism. On November 10, 1954, he attended the dedication of the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington County, Virginia, which was modeled after the photograph of Hayes and five other Marines raising the second flag on Iwo Jima. After a night of heavy drinking on January 23–24, 1955, he died of exposure due to the cold and alcohol poisoning. He was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery on February 2, 1955.
Hayes was commemorated in art and film, before and after his death. In 1949, he portrayed himself raising the flag in the movie Sands of Iwo Jima, starring John Wayne. He was the subject of an article by journalist William Bradford Huie, which was adapted for the feature film The Outsider, starring Tony Curtis as Hayes. The movie inspired songwriter Peter La Farge to write "The Ballad of Ira Hayes", which became popular nationwide in 1964 after being recorded by Johnny Cash. In 2006, Hayes was portrayed by Adam Beach in the World War II movie Flags of Our Fathers, directed by Clint Eastwood.
Early life
Ira Hayes was born in Sacaton, Arizona, a town in the Gila River Indian Community in Pinal County. He was the eldest of six children born to Nancy Whitaker and Joseph Hayes. The Hayes children were: Ira, Harold, Leonard, Kenneth, Arlene and Vernon. Joseph Hayes was a World War I veteran who supported his family by subsistence farming and its cotton harvesting. Nancy Hayes was a devout Presbyterian and a Sunday school teacher at the Assemblies of God church in Sacaton.Hayes was remembered by his family and friends as being a shy and sensitive child. Sara Bernal, his niece, said, "Ira Hayes was a very quiet man; he would go days without saying anything unless you spoke to him first. The other Hayes children would play and tease me, but not Ira. He was quiet, and somewhat distant. Ira didn't speak unless spoken to. He was just like his father." His boyhood friend Dana Norris said, "Even though I'm from the same culture, I could never get under his skin. Ira had the characteristic of not wanting to talk. But we Pimas are not prone to tooting our own horns. Ira was a quiet guy, such a quiet guy." Despite this, Hayes was a precocious child who displayed an impressive grasp of the English language, a language that many Pima never learned to speak. He learned to read and write by the age of four and was a voracious reader.
In 1932, the family settled in Bapchule, Arizona, approximately 12 miles northwest of Sacaton. The Hayes children attended grade school in Sacaton and high school at the Phoenix Indian School in Phoenix, Arizona.
Ira Hayes was working as a carpenter during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Hayes confided to his classmate Eleanor Pasquale after the Japanese attack that he was determined to serve in the United States Marine Corps. Pasquale said, "Every morning in school, would get a report on World War II. We would sing the anthems of the Army, Marines, and the Navy." Hayes completed two years at the Phoenix Indian School and served in the Civilian Conservation Corps in May and June 1942. He worked as a carpenter before enlisting in the military.
US Marine Corps
World War II
Hayes enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve on August 26, 1942. He completed recruit training in Platoon 701 at Marine Corps Base, San Diego and in October volunteered for Marine paratrooper training at the Marine Parachute School at Camp Gillespie located east of San Diego. Ira Hayes became the first Pima in history to receive his paratrooper wings, to which he received the codename of Chief Falling Cloud. On November 30, he graduated from the Parachute Training School and received his silver "jump wings". On December 1, he was promoted to private first class.On December 2, 1942, he joined Company B, 3rd Parachute Battalion, Divisional Special Troops, 3rd Marine Division, at Camp Elliott, California. On March 14, 1943, Hayes sailed for New Caledonia with the 3rd Parachute Battalion, which was assigned to Camp Kiser there on March 25 until September 26; the unit was redesignated in April as Company K, 3rd Parachute Battalion, 1st Marine Parachute Regiment of the I Marine Amphibious Corps. The 3rd Parachute Battalion was shipped to Guadalcanal and remained there until it was sent to Vella Lavella, arriving on October 14 for occupational duty. On December 4, Hayes landed with the 3rd Parachute Battalion on Bougainville and fought against the Japanese as a platoon automatic rifleman with Company K during the Bougainville Campaign. The 3rd Parachute Battalion was shipped back to Guadalcanal, and he stayed there until sometime in February, when the Paramarines were sent back to California. The 1st Parachute Regiment was officially disbanded at Camp Pendleton, California, in February 1944.
Hayes was transferred to Company E, 2nd Battalion, 28th Marine Regiment of the newly activated 5th Marine Division at Camp Pendleton. Hayes sailed to Hawaii with his company in September for continued training with the 5th division at Camp Tarawa as it trained for the invasion and capture of Iwo Jima.
Battle of Iwo Jima
The 5th Marine Division landed on Iwo Jima on February 19, 1945. Easy Company, Second Battalion, 28th Marines, landed on the southern beach near Mount Suribachi off of after transferring from. The island was defended by over 20,000 Japanese soldiers who were entrenched in fortifications and willing to fight to the death. At the end, only 216 Japanese soldiers would survive the battle.First flag-raising
After four days of fighting, the Marines finally made their way onto the slopes of the mountain. On February 23, Lieutenant Colonel Chandler W. Johnson, the Second Battalion commander, ordered a combat patrol to climb, seize, and occupy the top of Mount Suribachi and raise the battalion's flag if possible to signal it was secure. Captain Dave Severance, commander of E Company, organized a 40-man patrol taken from the remainder of his Third Platoon and the battalion. First Lieutenant Harold Schrier, the company's executive officer, was chosen by Lt. Col. Johnson to be in command of the patrol. At 8:30 am, the patrol started to climb the east slope of Suribachi. The patrol included two Navy corpsmen and stretcher bearers. Less than an hour later, after receiving occasional Japanese sniper fire, the patrol reached the rim of the volcano. After a brief firefight there, Lt. Schrier and his men captured the summit. After finding a Japanese steel pipe and attaching the flag to it, the flagstaff was taken to the highest place on the crater. At about 10:30 a.m., Lt. Schrier, Platoon Sergeant Ernest Thomas, Sergeant Henry Hansen, and Corporal Charles Lindberg raised the flag. Seeing the raising of the national colors immediately caused loud cheering from the Marines, sailors, and Coast Guardsmen on the beach below and from the men on the ships docked at the beach. Due to the high winds on Mount Suribachi, Sgt. Hansen, Private Phil Ward, and Navy corpsman John Bradley pitched in to help make the flagstaff stay in a vertical position. The men at, around, and holding the flagstaff were photographed several times by Marine Staff Sergeant Louis R. Lowery, a photographer with Leatherneck magazine who accompanied the patrol up the mountain. Platoon Sgt. Thomas was killed on Iwo Jima on March 3 and Sgt. Hansen was killed on March 1.Second flag-raising
The first flag flying over Mount Suribachi at the south end of Iwo Jima was regarded to be too small to be seen by the thousands of Marines fighting on the other side of Iwo Jima. The Marines in command and Lt. Col. Johnson decided that a larger flag should be taken on top and flown on the mountain. In the early afternoon, Capt. Severance ordered Sgt. Michael Strank a rifle squad leader from Second Platoon, E Company, to ascend Mount Suribachi with three Marines from his squad and raise the larger flag. Sgt. Strank then ordered Cpl. Harlon Block, Pfc. Hayes, and Pfc. Franklin Sousley to go with him up Suribachi with supplies. Pfc. Rene Gagnon the Second Battalion's runner for E Company was ordered to take "walkie-talkie" batteries and the replacement flag up the mountain, and return the first flag to the battalion adjutant down below.When all five Marines were on top, a Japanese steel pipe was found by Pfc. Hayes and Pfc. Sousley who carried the pipe to Sgt. Strank and Cpl. Block near the first flag. The second flag was attached to the pipe and, as Sgt. Strank and his three Marines were about to raise the flagstaff, he yelled out to two nearby Marines from Schrier's patrol to help them raise it. At approximately 1 p.m., Lt. Schrier ordered the raising of the second flag and the lowering of the original flag. The second flag was raised by Sgt. Strank, Cpl. Block, Pfc. Hayes, Pfc. Sousley, Pfc. Harold Schultz, and Pfc. Harold Keller. After the flag was raised, rocks were added at the bottom of the flagstaff by Pfc. Schultz and Pfc. Keller, which was then stabilized by three guy-ropes because of the high winds on top.
The raising of the second American flag on Mount Suribachi on February 23, 1945, was immortalized by Associated Press combat photographer Joe Rosenthal and became an icon of the world war.
On March 14, another American flag was officially raised up a flagpole by two Marines under the orders of Lieutenant General Holland Smith during a ceremony at the V Amphibious Corps command post on the other side of Mount Suribachi where the 3rd Marine Division troops were located to signal the Marines occupied Iwo Jima. The flag flying on top of Mount Suribachi that Hayes helped raise was taken down.
Hayes fought on the island until it was secure on March 26. The same day, he attended the service for the American troops buried at the 5th Marine Division Cemetery. Hayes boarded the and left Iwo Jima with his unit for Hawaii on March 27. Easy Company had many casualties, and Hayes was one of five marines remaining from his original platoon of 45 men, including their corpsmen. Sgt. Strank and Cpl. Block were killed on Iwo Jima on March 1, and Pfc. Sousley was killed on March 21.