In 1991, former Marine Lt. George Greeley Wells, who was the Second Battalion, 28th Marines, adjutant in charge of carrying the American flag(s) for the battalion on Iwo Jima, stated in The New York Times that he was ordered by the battalion commander on February 23, 1945, to get a large replacement flag for the one on top of Mount Suribachi, and that he (Wells) ordered Pfc. Gagnon, the battalion's runner for E Company, to get a larger flag from a ship on shore — possibly the . Wells stated that this flag was the one taken up Mount Suribachi by Pfc. Gagnon to be given to Lt. Schrier, with a message for Lt. Schrier to raise this flag and return the smaller flag raised earlier on Mount Suribachi back to Gagnon. Wells also stated, that he had handed the original flag to Lt. Schrier that he (Lt. Schrier) took up Mount Suribachi, and when this flag was returned to him (Wells) by Pfc. Gagnon, he secured the flag until it was delivered to Marine Headquarters in Washington, D.C., after the Second Battalion returned to Hawaii from Iwo Jima.