combat patrol to climb, seize, and occupy the top of Mount Suribachi and raise the battalion's flag if possible to signal it was secure. Captain Dave Severance, commander of E Company, organized a 40-man patrol taken from his Third Platoon and the battalion. First Lieutenant Harold Schrier, his executive officer and former Marine Raider, was chosen by Lt. Col. Johnson to be in command of the patrol to take the men up Mount Suribachi. At 8:30 a.m., the patrol started to climb the east slope of Suribachi. The patrol included Bradley from Third Platoon and Navy corpsman Gerald Ziehme (he replaced PhM2c. Clifford Langley, who was wounded on February 21). Less than an hour later, after receiving occasional Japanese sniper fire, the patrol reached the rim of the volcano. After a brief firefight there, Lieutenant Schrier and his men captured the summit. After finding a Japanese steel pipe and attaching the flag to it, the flagstaff was taken to the highest place on the crater. At about 10:30 a.m., Schrier, Platoon Sergeant Ernest Thomas, Sergeant Henry Hansen, and Corporal Charles Lindberg raised the flag. Seeing the raising of the national colors immediately caused loud cheering from the marines, sailors, and Coast Guardsmen on the beach below and from the men on the ships docked at the beach. A short time later, as the high winds on top caused the flagstaff to move sideways, Bradley helped make the flagstaff stay in a vertical position. The men at and around the flagstaff were photographed several times by Staff Sgt. Louis R. Lowery, a photographer with Leatherneck magazine who accompanied the patrol up the mountain. Platoon Sergeant Thomas was killed on Iwo Jima on March 3 and Sgt. Hansen was killed on March 1. Second flag-raising Since the first flag flown over Mount Suribachi was regarded as too small to be seen by the thousands of Marines fighting on the other side of Iwo Jima, it was decided that a larger flag should be flown on the mountain. Marine Sergeant Michael Strank a rifle squad leader from Second Platoon, E Company, was ordered by Captain Severance to ascend Mount Suribachi with three Marines from his squad and raise the replacement flag. He then ordered Corporal Harlon Block, Private First Class Ira Hayes, and Private First Class Franklin Sousley to go with him up Suribachi. Private First Class Rene Gagnon the company's runner (messenger),