Rene Gagnon

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Rene Arthur Gagnon
March 7, 1925 – October 12, 1979
Rene Arthur Gagnon
Place of birth	Manchester, New Hampshire
Place of death	Manchester, New Hampshire
Allegiance	USMC
Years of service	1943-1946
Rank	Corporal
Unit	2nd Battalion 28th Marines
Battles/wars	Battle of Iwo Jima

United States Marine Corps Portal

Rene Arthur Gagnon (March 7, 1925 – October 12, 1979) was one of the U.S. Marines immortalized by Joe Rosenthal's famous World War II photograph Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima.

1 Early life
2 Marine Corps service
3 Post-war
4 Portrayal in film
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Early life

Gagnon was born in Manchester, New Hampshire, the only child of French Canadian immigrants from Saint Luce, Quebec Henri Gagnon and Irene Marcotte.^[1] Rene grew up without a father. His parents divorced when he was an infant, after his mother caught his father cheating. When he was old enough, Rene worked alongside his mother at the local mill. Rene was drafted in 1943, and elected to join the Marine Corps.

[edit] Marine Corps service

Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, by Joe Rosenthal / The Associated Press

A photo colorized to show all six men - Ira Hayes (red), Franklin Sousley (violet), John Bradley (green), Harlon Block (yellow), Michael Strank (brown), Rene Gagnon (teal).

On May 6, 1943, he was inducted into the Marine Corps Reserve and sent to Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, South Carolina. From Parris Island, Private First Class Gagnon, promoted on 16 July 1943, was transferred to the Marine Guard Company at Charleston, South Carolina, Navy Yard. He remained there for eight months and then joined the Military Police Company of the 5th Marine Division at Camp Pendleton, Oceanside, California. Four days later, on 8 April 1944, he was transferred to Company E, 2nd Battalion, 28th Marine Regiment.

After training at Camp Pendleton and in Hawaii, Gagnon landed with his unit on Iwo Jima on February 19, 1945. After Iwo Jima was secured, he was ordered to Washington, D.C.. arriving on April 7. Together with the other two survivors of the second flag raising, Pharmacist's Mate John Bradley and Private First Class Ira Hayes, he was assigned to temporary duty with the Finance Division, U.S. Treasury Department, for appearances in connection with the Seventh War Loan Drive.

He finished the tour on July 5, 1945 and was ordered to San Diego for further transfer overseas. Gagnon was married to Miss Pauline Georgette Harnois, of Hooksett, New Hampshire, in Baltimore, Maryland, on 7 July 1945.

By September, he was on his way overseas again, this time with the 80th Replacement Draft. On November 7, 1945, he arrived at Tsingtao, China, where he joined Company E, 2nd Battalion, 29th Marines, 6th Marine Division. He later served with the 3rd Battalion of the same regiment.

On duty with the U.S. occupation forces in China for nearly five months, Gagnon boarded ship at Tsingtao at the end of March 1946, and sailed for San Diego, arriving on 20 April.

With nine days short of three years' service in the Marine Corps Reserve, of which 14 months was spent overseas, Gagnon was promoted to corporal and discharged on 27 April 1946. He was entitled to wear the Presidential Unit Citation with one star (for Iwo Jima), the American Campaign Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with one star (for Iwo Jima), the World War II Victory Medal, and the China Service Medal.

[edit] Post-war

Gagnon's headstone in Arlington National Cemetery

After the war, unlike Ira Hayes and John Bradley, Gagnon attempted to cash in on his celebrity status. He made a brief movie career of the event, appearing in two films about the battle: To the Shores of Iwo Jima (a government documentary which simply showed the color footage of the flagraising) and Sands of Iwo Jima, the latter with fellow flagraisers Bradley and Hayes. He was also part of a Rose Bowl half-time show. However, in the end, it amounted to almost nothing, and left him bitter and alcoholic. He worked at menial jobs, was fired from most of them, the last, sadly, on Memorial Day of 1978. He died in October the next year when he was 54 of a heart attack. In his last job he worked as a janitor at an apartment complex in Manchester. As recorded in the book "Flags of Our Fathers", in his latter years Gagnon only participated in events that praised the flag raising at his wife's urging, as she enjoyed the limelight, whereas he by that time did not.

At the age of 53, he bitterly inventoried his lost 'connections' - the jobs promised him by the government people when he'd been at the height of his fame, jobs that never materialized. "I'm pretty well known in Manchester," he told a reporter. "When someone who doesn't know me is introduced to me, they say 'That was you in The Photograph?' What the hell are you doing working here? If I were you I'd have a good job and lots of money.'"^[2]

Corporal Gagnon died on October 12, 1979 in Manchester, New Hampshire, and was buried at Mount Calvary Mausoleum. At his widow's request, Gagnon's remains were re-interred in Arlington National Cemetery on July 7, 1981. He is also honored in a special room at the Wright Museum of WWII memorabilia in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. ^[3]