TOKYO - An American team searching for the remains of a Marine combat photographer who filmed the iconic flag-raising on Iwo Jima is honing in on the cave where he was believed to have been killed 62 years ago, officials said Friday.
A lead from a private citizen prompted the search for the remains of Sgt. William H. Genaust, who was killed nine days after filming the flag-raising atop Iwo Jima's Mount Suribachi. The seven-member team - the first on the Japanese island in 60 years - is also searching for other Americans killed in the battle, one of the fiercest and most symbolic of World War II.
"The team is finding caves that have been cleaned out, and some that have collapsed," said Lt. Col. Mark Brown, a spokesman for the Joint POW/MIA Accounting office, or JPAC.
The preliminary search team is looking for the remains of as many Americans as it can find, Brown told The Associated Press. He said 250 U.S. service members from the Iwo Jima campaign are among the 88,000 missing from World War II.
Iwo Jima was officially taken on March 26, 1945, after 31-day battle that pitted some 100,000 U.S. troops against 21,200 Japanese - a turning point in the war with Japan. Some 6,821 Americans were killed and nearly 22,000 injured. Only 1,033 Japanese survived.
"Our motto is `until they are home,'" Brown said. "`No man left behind' is a promise made to every individual who raises his hand."
Brown said a full team would be sent in if it looks like remains are likely to be discovered.
Genaust, a combat photographer with the 28th Marines, filmed the raising of the flag atop Mount Suribachi on Feb. 23, 1945. He stood just feet away from AP photographer Joe Rosenthal, whose photograph of the moment won a Pulitzer Prize and came to symbolize the Pacific War and the struggle of the Marines to capture the tiny island.
Johnnie Webb, a civilian official with JPAC, said Genaust died nine days later when he was hit by machine-gun fire as he was assisting fellow Marines secure a cave. He was 38.
Bob Bolus, the Scranton, Pa., businessman who provided the lead in the search, said he became intrigued by Genaust after reading a Parade magazine story about him two years ago. Spending thousands of dollars of his own money, Bolus put together a team of experts, including an archivist, forensic anthropologist, geologist and surveyor, that was able to pinpoint where Genaust's remains were likely to be found.
Bolus, 64, began lobbying the military to search anew for the missing Marine.
"How do we leave an American?" he said in a telephone interview. "How do we ignore him and leave him in a cave along with other military personnel who are MIA on the island also? He gave us a patriotic symbol that we see to this day. It's important."
Bolus, who said he visited Iwo Jima last year and met the grandson of Gen. Tadamichi Kuribayashi, the Japanese commander on Iwo Jima, said he's confident Genaust will be found.
"We've put everything in place. Now we have to have him tell us where he is."
JPAC said the search was the first on Iwo Jima "since 1948, when the American Graves Registration Service recovered most U.S. service members killed during the campaign."
Many of the missing Marines were lost at sea, meaning the chances of recovering their remains are slim. But many also were killed in caves or buried by explosions, and Brown said officials were optimistic about finding the remains of Genaust and other servicemen.
"We are looking at several caves," he said. "We are looking for a number of service members, including Genaust. We have maps dating back to World War II and even GPS locations. So far, everything seems to be where it should be."
Accounts of Genaust's death vary, but he was believed to have been killed in or near a cave on "Hill 362A."
On March 4, 1945, Marines were securing the cave, and are believed to have asked Genaust to use his movie camera light to illuminate their way. He volunteered to shine the light in the cave, and when he did he was killed by enemy fire. The cave was secured after a gunfight, and its entrance sealed.
"We decided that the only way to determine if his remains were there was to work on the ground," Webb said. "We believe his remains may be in there, along with the remains of the Japanese."
Separately, Japan on Monday returned to using the prewar name for Iwo Jima at the urging of its original inhabitants, who want to reclaim an identity they say has been hijacked by high-profile movies like Clint Eastwood's "Letters from Iwo Jima."
The new name, Iwo To, was adopted by the Japanese Geographical Survey Institute in consultation with Japan's coast guard.
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Associated Press writer Michael Rubinkam contributed to this report from Philadelphia.
