Harold Henry Schultz (January 28, 1925 – May 16, 1995) was a United States Marine corporal who was wounded in action during the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II.

He was a member of the patrol that captured the top of Mount Suribachi and raised the first U.S. flag on Iwo Jima on February 23, 1945.

The first flag flown 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 the mountain, so it was replaced by the second one.

[2] The Marine Corps also stated that Schultz was incorrectly identified as Private First Class Franklin Sousley in the photograph.

[5] After being discharged from the Marines, he moved to Los Angeles and worked as a mail sorter for the United States Postal Service until retiring in 1981.

In his youth he lost a fiancée named Mary to a brain tumor, and did not marry until his 60s, when he wed his neighbor Rita Reyes.

In September, the division was sent to Camp Tarawa near Hilo, Hawaii, for further training to prepare for the invasion of Iwo Jima.

On February 23, together with five Marines, he helped raise the second and larger flag atop Mount Suribachi that day.

The 28th Marines mission was to capture Mount Suribachi on the first day, but due to the heavy fighting they encountered from the Japanese, that did not happen.

On the morning of February 23, a 40-man patrol mostly from the Third Platoon, E Company, Second Battalion, 28th Marines, climbed up Mount Suribachi.

After some sniper fire and a brief firefight at the rim of the volcano, they succeeded in capturing the mountain and raising the American flag on the summit.

At 8:00 am on February 23, 1945, Lieutenant Colonel Chandler W. Johnson, the Second Battalion, 28th Marines, commander, ordered a platoon size patrol to climb up Mount Suribachi to seize and occupy the crest.

Captain Dave Severance, E Company's commander, assembled the remainder of Third Platoon and other members of the battalion to form a 40-man patrol that included two Navy corpsmen and stretcher bearers.

Lt. Schrier was instructed by Lt. Col. Chandler to raise the battalion's American flag on top if he could, to signal that the summit was secure.

After a Japanese iron water pipe was found to use as a flagpole, the battalion's flag was tied to it by Lt. Schrier, Sergeant Henry Hansen, and Corporal Charles Lindberg.

[11] Seeing the raising of the National colors immediately caused loud cheers from the Marines, sailors, and Coast Guardsmen on the south end of Iwo Jima and from the men on the ships near the beach.

John Bradley, Easy Company's, Third Platoon corpsman, pitched in with Private Phil Ward to help make the flagstaff stay vertical.

Strank with his three Marines who were carrying communication wire (or supplies), made it to the top, Pfc.

[13] The monument was sculptured by Felix de Weldon from the image of the second flag raising on Mount Suribachi.

[9] President Dwight D. Eisenhower sat upfront during the dedication ceremony with Vice President Richard Nixon, Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson, Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Anderson, and General Lemuel C. Shepherd, the 20th Commandant of the Marine Corps.

Ira Hayes, one of the three surviving flag raisers (Hayes, Schultz, and Keller) depicted on the monument, was also seated upfront with John Bradley (incorrectly identified as a flag raiser until June 23, 2016),[9] Rene Gagnon (incorrectly identified as a flag raiser until October 16, 2019),[14] Mrs Martha Strank, Mrs. Ada Belle Block, and Mrs. Goldie Price (mother of Franklin Sousley).

Moreau, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired), President, Marine Corps War Memorial Foundation; General Shepherd, who presented the memorial to the American people; Felix de Weldon; and Richard Nixon, who gave the dedication address.

[16] Inscribed on the memorial are the following words: On March 20, 1945, President Roosevelt ordered the flag-raisers in Rosenthal's photograph to Washington D.C. after the battle.

He was questioned the same day by a Marine public information officer about all the identities of the flag raisers in the photograph.

Hayes that the identities were made public on April 8 and would not be changed, and to not say anything about it anymore (the lt. colonel later denied that Pfc.

[17] A Marine Corps investigation of the six identities of the second flag-raisers began in December 1946 and concluded in January 1947 that it was Cpl.

The possibility that Harold Schultz was in the photograph first publicly surfaced in November 2014, when the Omaha World Herald published an article questioning the accepted identifications, based on research conducted by amateur historians Eric Krelle and Stephen Foley.

[18] The Marine Corps review board looked once more into the identities of the six second flag-raisers in Rosenthal's photograph.

[7][19][20] His stepdaughter Dezreen MacDowell claimed that, during a family dinner in the early 1990s, when her mother was distracted, he told her that he was one of the flag raisers on Iwo Jima, and never spoke of it again.

[21] In October 2019, a third Marine Corps investigation found that Harold Keller was in the Rosenthal's photograph in place of Rene Gagnon (fifth from left).