Jacobs was a member of the combat patrol that climbed up to the top of Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima and raised the first U.S.

In September, the division departed for Hilo, Hawaii (Camp Tarawa) to continue training for follow on action in the Pacific Theatre.

After training and preparing for the invasion of Iwo Jima, the 28th Marines left Hawaii in December, embarking upon amphibious transports, and after a few days liberty in Pearl Harbor, they set sail heading west on January 7, 1945.

At approximately 10:20-10:35 a.m.,[5] Lt. Schrier, Platoon Sergeant Ernest Thomas, and Sergeant Henry Hansen, raised the flag (Thomas was ordered to report aboard the flagship USS Eldorado on February 25, and during an interview with a CBS radio broadcaster said that Schrier, and Sgt.

In the early afternoon, a larger replacement flag was brought up Mount Suribachi by the Easy Company runner (messenger) which was then attached unto another Japanese steel pipe.

A photograph of the second flag raising by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal appeared in the newspapers, became renowned world-wide, made the second flag-raisers and Rosenthal famous, and led to the creation of the huge Marine Corps War Memorial (sometimes referred to as the Iwo Jima Memorial) in 1954, in Arlington, Virginia.

[8] Jacobs and his family spent his later years trying to prove that he actually was the Marine radio operator who was photographed on top of Mount Suribachi beneath the first American flag several times by Staff Sergeant Louis R. Lowery (a combat photographer with Leatherneck magazine).

The radioman in the most famous of Lowery's photographs was assumed for years to be a Marine in F Company named Louis Charlo, or Pfc.

Charlo (KIA March 2, 1945), who was not a radioman, was identified as being on Mount Suribachi near the flag (F Company followed Schrier's E Company patrol up the mountain)[4] after Schrier's patrol climbed up the mountain, captured the summit, and raised the flag.

"However, there are no official Marine Corps records produced at the time that can prove or refute Mr. Jacobs' location.

There are however, several photo comparisons of Jacobs that do verify he is the radioman with Lt. Schrier on Mount Suribachi, and Los Angeles newspaper accounts (Associated Press Dispatch, beginning February 24, 1945) which support Jacobs's testimonies that he was personally interviewed on top of Mt.

[9] Due to an agreement with the Associated Press and the Marine Corps over Rosenthal's photo of the second flag raising on Mount Suribachi the afternoon of February 23, Lowery's photos taken on Mount Suribachi were not released until 1947, when 16 of his pictures appeared in Leatherneck Magazine.