Alan Wood, the World War II veteran who provided the flag for the famous flag-raising on Iwo Jima has died last April 18 at age of 90 of natural causes at hist Sieera Madre home.
At the time of the Iwo Jima battle, Wood was a 22-year-old Navy officer in charge of the communications on a landing ship on Iwo Jima's shores when a Marine asked him for the biggest U.S. flag that he could find. Wood handed him a 37-square-foot flag he had found months before in a Pearl Harbor Navy depot.
Five Marines and a Navy Corpsman later raised the flag on Mount Suribachi as Allied forces struggled to capture the Japanese-held island. The stirring moment was captured in an iconic image by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal.
Steven Wood says his father was always humbled by his small role in the historic moment.
