Bradley was generally known as being one of the men who raised the second U.S. flag on Mount Suribachi on February 23, 1945, as depicted in the iconic photograph Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima by photographer Joe Rosenthal. On June 23, 2016, the Marine Corps announced publicly (after an investigation) that Private First Class Harold Schultz, not Bradley, was in Rosenthal's photo. Bradley is one of three men who were originally identified incorrectly as flag-raisers in the photograph (the others being Hank Hansen and Rene Gagnon).