René Arthur Gagnon (March 7, 1925 – October 12, 1979) was a United States Marine Corps corporal who participated in the Battle of Iwo Jima during World War II.

On October 16, 2019, the Marine Corps announced publicly (after an investigation) that Corporal Harold Keller, not Gagnon, was in Rosenthal's photo.

[1] Gagnon was one of three men who were originally identified incorrectly as flag-raisers in the photograph (the others being Hank Hansen and John Bradley).

After the battle, Gagnon and two other men who were identified as surviving second flag-raisers were reassigned to help raise funds for the Seventh War Loan drive.

[3] He was transferred to the Marine Guard Company at Charleston Navy Yard in South Carolina and remained there for eight months.

Gagnon who was the battalion runner (messenger) for Easy Company,[4] incorrectly became a part of what was most likely the most celebrated American flag raising in U.S. history.

On the morning of February 23, Lieutenant Colonel Chandler W. Johnson commander of the Second Battalion, 28th Marines, ordered E Company's commander Captain Dave Severance to send a platoon-sized patrol from his company up Mount Suribachi to lay siege to and occupy the crest.

On orders from Lt. Col Johnson, First Lieutenant George G. Wells the battalion adjutant handed Lt. Schrier the flag just before the patrol left the base of Mount Suribachi at about 8:30 a.m. Once Lt. Schrier was on top with his men after some occasional sniper fire and a brief firefight at the rim, he and two other Marines attached the flag to a length of Japanese iron water pipe that was found.

Ernest Thomas, Sergeant Henry Hansen,[5] and Corporal Charles Lindberg, raised the flag at approximately 10:30 a.m.[6] Seeing the raising of the national colors immediately caused loud cheers from the Marines, sailors, and Coast Guardsmen on the south end beaches of Iwo Jima and from the men on the ships near the beach.

Third Platoon corpsman John Bradley pitched in with Private Phil Ward to help make the flagstaff stay vertical.

The men at, around, and holding the flagstaff which included Lt. Schrier's radio operator, Private First Class Raymond Jacobs (assigned to patrol from F Company), were photographed several times by Staff Sergeant Lou Lowery, a photographer with Leatherneck magazine who accompanied the patrol up the mountain.

Michael Strank, a rifle squad leader of Second Platoon, E Company, was ordered by Captain Severance to take three of his Marines up to the top of Mount Suribachi and raise a second flag which was obtained from one of the ships docked on shore.

The battle of Iwo Jima was officially over on March 26 and a service was held at the 5th Marine Division cemetery.

Gagnon left Iwo Jima for Hawaii, and both of the U.S. flags that were flown on Mount Suribachi were sent to Marine Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Gagnon, he secured the flag until it was delivered to Marine Headquarters in Washington, D.C., after the Second Battalion returned to Hawaii from Iwo Jima.

[10][11][12][13] In February or March 1945, President Roosevelt ordered that the flag raisers in Joe Rosenthal's photograph be sent immediately after the battle to Washington, D.C., to appear as a public morale factor.

Gagnon had returned with his unit to Camp Tarawa in Hawaii when he was ordered on April 3 to report to Marine Corps headquarters in Washington, D.C.

He arrived on April 7, and was questioned by a lieutenant colonel at the Marine Corps public information office concerning the identities of those in the photograph (Rosenthal did not take names).

Both men were questioned separately by the same Marine officer that Gagnon met with concerning the identities of the six flag-raisers in the Rosenthal photograph.

The Marine interviewer then told Hayes that a list of the names of the six flag-raisers in the photo were already released publicly and besides Block and Hansen were both killed in action (during the Marine Corps investigation in 1946, the lieutenant colonel denied Hayes ever mentioned Block's name to him).

On April 20, Gagnon, Hayes, and Bradley met President Truman at the White House and each showed him their positions in the flag-raising poster that was on display there for the coming bond tour that they would participate in.

Hayes left Washington by plane on May 25 and arrived at Hilo, Hawaii on May 29 and rejoined E Company at Camp Tawara.

The bond tour was held in 33 American cities that raised over $26 billion to help pay for and win the war.

[3] The Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Virginia, which was inspired by Rosenthal's photograph of the second flag-raising on Mount Suribachi, was dedicated on November 10, 1954.

During the dedication, President Dwight D. Eisenhower sat upfront 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.

[19] Ira Hayes, one of the three surviving flag raisers (the other two were Harold Schultz and Harold Keller) depicted on the monument was also seated upfront with Rene Gagnon, John Bradley (incorrectly identified as a flag raiser until June 2016),[7] 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, sculptor; and Richard Nixon, who gave the dedication address.

Inscribed on the memorial are the following words: On February 19, 1965, while working as an airline sales representative for Delta Air Lines, Gagnon visited Mount Suribachi with his wife and son.

At the request of his widow, a government waiver was granted on April 16, 1981, and his remains were re-interred in Section 51, Grave 543 of Arlington National Cemetery on July 7.

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