LOS ANGELES (AP) — Alan Wood, a World War II veteran credited with providing the flag in the famous flag-raising on Iwo Jima, has died. He was 90.
Wood died April 18 of natural causes at his Sierra Madre home, his son Steven Wood said Saturday.
Wood was a 22-year-old Navy officer in charge of communications on a landing ship on Iwo Jima's shores Feb. 23, 1945 when a Marine asked him for the biggest flag that he could find.
After five days of fighting to capture the Japanese-held island, U.S. forces had managed to scale Mount Suribachi to hoist an American flag.
Wood happened to have a 37-square-foot flag he had found months before in a Pearl Harbor Navy depot. .
