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Rademacher, a World War II veteran, mentioned another landmark flag when describing his friend: “I can remember when I was on Iwo Jima, and that flag was on top of Mt. Suribachi. But I think Harry has raised that flag a little bit higher.”

He was in the harbor at Iwo Jima to witness the raising of the U.S. flag atop Mount Suribachi, and had returned there in 2019, just before his 97th birthday.

Williams was a 21-year-old Marine Corps corporal when he watched from the bloodied, ashy beaches of Iwo Jima as the Stars and Stripes rose atop Mount Suribachi on Feb. 23, 1945.

As a young Marine corporal, Williams went ahead of his unit in February 1945 and eliminated a series of Japanese machine gun positions at Iwo Jima, where Marines planted the American flag on Mount Suribachi, a moment captured in one of history’s most iconic war photographs.

Two days after that came the flag-raising at Mount Suribachi captured by AP photographer Joe Rosenthal.