The initial identifications made on Iwo Jima were not entirely accurate.

Harlon Block was initially misidentified as Hank Hansen, a Marine who had taken part in the first flag raising.

This error — made in haste under combat conditions — would persist for years in official records and would eventually become one of the causes Ira Hayes took up after the war, at considerable personal cost.

The three survivors — Private First Class Rene Gagnon, Pharmacist’s Mate John Bradley, and Private First Class Ira Hayes — were pulled off Iwo Jima as the fighting was still in progress and brought home for the bond tour.

Hayes, by some accounts, did not want to leave.