Once in a while, I’ll find a good subject to write about. Today’s subject is the OTHER combat cameraman who captured the famous flag raising on the island of Iwo Jima, who filmed it. Everyone knows, or should know, the still photograph that Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal took. The unsung hero who shot it on film was:
SERGEANT WILLIAM “BILL” HOMER GENAUST; MARINE CORPS
DOB/DOD: October 12, 1906 (Sioux Falls, SD) – March 4, 1945; 38 years old
MARITAL STATUS: Married Adelaide C.H. Hanson (1907-1996) on July 10, 1928, in Hennepin, Minnesota
CHILDREN: None
PRIOR SERVICE: Served in Company F, 5th Infantry, Minnesota National Guard from 1922 through 1927
ENLISTMENT DATE: February 11, 1943
SERVICE NUMBER: 813945
MILITARY OCCUPATIONAL SPECIALTY: 043; Cameraman, Motion Picture
ASSIGNMENTS: Parris Island, South Carolina, for recruit training; Marine Corps Station Quantico for Still, Cinema, and Cameraman training (May 1943 – December 1943); Camp Elliott, California (December 1943 – January 1944); Headquarters Company, Headquarters Battalion, 5th Marine Division, Fleet Marine Force; assigned to the 28th Marines on Iwo Jima
FAMILY: Born to Herman (1868-1920) and Jessie F. Morgan Genaust (1881-1947). One brother, George Franklin Genaust (1904-1974). William’s father was killed in a workplace accident. He had survived seven days but succumbed to his wounds.
EDUCATION: Attended grammar school in Whiting, Indiana, graduating in 1921. Attended high school at Pipestone High School in Pipestone, Minnesota, graduating in 1925. Attended the University of Minnesota’s pre-dental program for two and a half years. Then attended the Hillman Business School in Minneapolis in 1928 to learn how to type shorthand.
OTHER: The Sergeant William Genaust Award is presented each year by the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation, one of a series of awards to both Marines and civilian community members recognizing their work in advancing and preserving Marine Corps history. It is given for a documentary and short subject (15 minutes or less) dealing creatively with U.S. Marine Corps heritage or Marine Corps life.
MEDALS: Bronze Star Medal with Combat “V” device, Purple Heart Medal with one Gold Star (2x recipient; Saipan in 1944 and Iwo Jima in 1945), Combat Action Ribbon, Navy Presidential Unit Citation, Navy Unit Commendation, American Campaign Medal, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with two bronze stars, and the World War II Victory Medal. NOTE: Nominated for the Navy Cross, which was denied.
From The Blade (Toledo, Ohio) March 17, 1983
HONORS FOR IWO JIMA’S CAMERAMAN
Posthumous Recognition May Come To Bill Genaust, Who Filmed the Famous
Flag-Raising
Famed war photographer Joe Rosenthal, who snapped the historic flag-raising on Iwo, is one of the leaders of a battle to obtain Marine Corps Recognition and honors posthumously for William H. Genaust, whose great photographic feat on Mount Suribachi has been officially ignored for nearly 40 years.
Who was Bill Genaust?
His name has never been a household word like that of Rosenthal, who won countless honors for the masterpiece photo he shot during World War II on Iwo.
Even the Marines who fought with Genaust on Iwo Jima don’t know his name. Ironically, Genaust himself never knew what he accomplished with his camera because he was later killed in combat on that tiny volcanic isle in the Pacific.
Sergeant Genaust was a Marine movie cameraman who stood at Rosenthal’s elbow on Mount Suribachi and recorded on 16mm color film the identical flag-raising scene for which Rosenthal deservedly received international fame.
One of Genaust’s movie frames is a masterpiece identical to Rosenthal’s photo, showing the same way, from the same photographic angle.
But Genaust has never been given credit for his feat. The Marine Corps has never officially recognized his achievement. (It did, however, award him the Bronze Star for heroism in the battle on Saipan.)
Aware of how Genaust’s film feat has been slighted for nearly four decades, Rosenthal is on the forefront of the fight to win official recognition for the Minneapolis sergeant.
In February, on the eve of the 38th anniversary of the Marine landing on Iwo Jima, Rosenthal was honored by the Los Angeles chapter of the U.S. Marine Corps Combat Correspondents Association. Attending the meeting at the Los Angeles Press Club were scores of former Marine correspondents and cameramen, plus members of the Fourth and Fifth Marine divisions who fought at Iwo.
Now in his early 70s, white-haired Rosenthal is a quiet, modest San Franciscan who for four decades has turned over to charity all funds earned by his famous photo. After accepting an award from the correspondents, he paid tribute to Genaust and criticized the Marine Corps for never giving credit — of any kind — to Genaust for the movie film he shot during the battle for Iwo Jima.
After Rosenthal spoke, the correspondents dedicated a large plaque that honors Genaust for his Iwo film. The plaque also pays tribute to Rosenthal and Staff Sergeant Louis R. Lowrey of Pittsburgh, who photographed the first flag-raising on Iwo.
The first flag erected on Mount Suribachi was smaller, measuring 54 by 28 inches. About an hour and a half later, it was replaced by the larger flag — 8 feet by 4 feet, 8 inches — which became the subject of the masterpiece filmed by Rosenthal and Genaust.
Rosenthal, who snapped his celebrated photo while working as a civilian for the Associated Press, has always felt indebted to Genaust because the movie footage on many occasions has been used to verify to skeptics that the famous flag-raising wasn’t posed or faked in any way.
Because there were two flags and because Rosenthal’s photo became so famous, he has long been the center of controversy concerning it. He has been accused unjustly of having falsified his masterpiece or of stealing another cameraman’s work.
Genaust’s film proves that he and Rosenthal had nothing to do with planning the raising of the second flag. They just happened to be on the scene when the five Marines and one sailor arrived atop the extinct volcano, put the flag on a pipe, and pushed it toward the sky.
A third photographer also happened to be there. He was Marine Private Bob Campbell, and his photo of the first flag being lowered while the second was raised also verified that Rosenthal and Genaust didn’t pose their historic photos.
Perhaps half the population of the United States and countless other millions throughout the world have seen the Genaust film. For years, his dramatic footage has been used as a sign-off by hundreds of TV stations across the land.
The Genaust footage, which is very brief, has been shown in color (or in black-and-white copies) in newsreels, war documentaries, and patriotic films in theaters, auditoriums, and schoolrooms everywhere on the globe. It was featured in the motion picture “The Sands of Iwo Jima” starring John Wayne and also shown in other film stories about Iwo Jima.
But Genaust has never in nearly 40 years received one line of screen credit — or any other kind of official credit — for his Iwo camera artistry.
How was such a prolonged oversight possible?
An explanation is offered by Harrold A. Weinberger, a retired Marine Corps major who directed the Marine photo section that assigned Genaust and Rosenthal to Iwo Jima. Since the late 1940s, Weinberger, who lives in Los Angeles, has waged a one-man campaign to get official credit for Genaust.
“It was by a quirk of media policies and standards,” said Weinberger, “that Genaust’s film has been circulated anonymously throughout the world. During and after World War II, it was a media rule that the work of a still photographer rated a byline. But whenever a cinematographer’s work was shown, it was policy for him to receive no identifying credit.”
Weinberger’s campaign on behalf of Genaust is in no way designed to take away from Rosenthal. Since 1945, Weinberger has supported Rosenthal whenever controversy has surrounded Joe’s great photo.
Weinberger, an expert with still and movie cameras, is fully aware that Rosenthal’s picture was an incredible combination of skill and buck. Rosenthal had only a split-second to shoot his picture. But Genaust, using a movie camera, had the advantage of shooting many frames of the same scene.
“God beamed on Joe Rosenthal that February afternoon,” Weinberger said. Weinberger doesn’t expect Genaust ever to receive the kind of acclaim Rosenthal has been accorded.
“And that’s the way it should be,” Weinberger said. “Joe accomplished the impossible. His success was a billion-to-one shot. A photographic miracle. Genaust’s accomplishment was quite different in its way. But because it was different is no reason for the man to have ever received credit for what was great and unique artistry.”
Weinberger feels that his efforts to win recognition for Genaust have failed until now for these reasons:
The Marine Corps lost all of Genaust’s files when a fire destroyed part of the Marine records center in St. Louis.
Other recommendations for Genaust were lost in the corps’ vast bureaucracy in Washington.
Genaust, who was 38 when he was killed, left no children to campaign on his behalf for the honors he deserved.
His widow and an older brother preferred not to bring pressure on the Marine Corps for official recognition.
It was believed in high places that according honors to Genaust might in some way diminish Rosenthal’s accomplishment in the eyes of the world.
“The Marine combat correspondents who served on Iwo don’t think that way,” Weinberger said. “And neither does Joe Rosenthal. We are going to work together to bring Genaust the recognition he earned and deserved. He was an American war hero in the fullest sense. He lost his life on Iwo filming a combat scene with the same camera he used to photograph the flag-raising.”
William Homer Genaust was born in Pipestone, Minnesota [WEBMASTER NOTE: this is incorrect; he was born in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.] His survivors included his widow, Adelaide, of Minneapolis, to whom he was married 17 years, his brother, the late George F. Genaust, of Minneapolis, and a niece, Mrs. Susan Genaust Naber, of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. After the war, Genaust’s widow married the late Roland Dobbins and moved to Florida. She lives now in Winter Park, Florida.
“Bill has been mentioned many times in newspaper stories and books for his camera work on Iwo Jima,” his widow said. “But during all these years, the Marine Corps has never once sent us any kind of recognition for what be did there.”
Weinberger, now 83, feels certain that the Marine Corps will react favorably on Genaust’s behalf because of pressure to be brought by the 460 members of the US. Marine Combat Correspondents Association.
“Because of Joe Rosenthal’s extra efforts,” says Weinberger, “we are certain that eventually the Marine Corps will give Sergeant Genaust the recognition he earned — and the world will know Genaust’s name and honor him for what he did on Iwo Jima.”
SPECIAL NOTE:
Sergeant Genaust’s body was never recovered, and he is classified as Missing in Action. He entered a cave to help his fellow Marines. When he turned his flashlight on inside the cave, he was killed instantly. According to witness statements, a subsequent demolition mission to seal the cave resulted in his body being buried under the rubble. Multiple attempts have been made to recover his body, to no avail.
Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, July 6, 2007 | Army Staff Sgt Matthew Cholasta
HICKAM AIR FORCE BASE, HAWAII—An investigation team from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command returned to Hawaii June 28 from a 13-day mission to search for the Marine Combat Cameraman who shot video of the famous scene of Marines raising the American flag over the Island of Iwo Jima during World War II.
Marine Sgt. William Genaust was killed in March 1945 on Iwo Jima (now called IwoTo), near a tunnel that later collapsed.
He died only days after he shot footage of the American flag raising by victorious Marines on February 23, 1945, on top of Mount Suribachi.
The iconic photo taken by Joe Rosenthal of the same scene is the most reproduced photograph of all time and was replicated at the Marine Memorial in Washington D.C.
“We conducted the investigation to map and survey the southwest side of Hill 362A and to find the location that matches the circumstances of loss records,” Team Leader Army Maj. Sean Stinchon, officer in charge, Worldwide Analysis and Investigations, JPAC, said. “We were attempting to find the site that contains the remains of an unaccounted-for American [Genaust]. We had exhausted all of our historical research efforts here at JPAC, and the next logical step was to send a team to Iwo Jima to investigate the hill.”
“There were a couple of reasons why I got picked to go on this mission,” Marine Staff Sgt. Rudy Galima, Air Operations, JPAC, said. “The Investigation Team needed a Team Sergeant, and to my understanding, they wanted to put Marines on this mission because Marines fought in the battle of Iwo Jima, and we take pride in our history and traditions. My role on the mission was to keep everything organized and have accountability for the team members and team gear. I am also one of JPAC’s Air Operations NCO’s [noncommissioned officers]. This is the first time an Air Ops NCO was actually part of the team on a mission.”
The IT searched using maps originally made by the Navy after the battle.
“We did not know what to expect when we got to hill 362A,” Stinchon said. “Historical records stated that he was killed in a large cave on the southwest side of the hill, so that was our focus area. Additionally, we were looking for areas that had been collapsed or caved in because that was the reason that his body was never recovered during the battle; he was buried under rock and soil. We had a map that was drawn by a Navy Engineer (Seabee) survey team after the battle that depicted all of the known tunnel and cave networks on the hill. We used that map to orient us to the terrain. Although the mapped tunnels and caves were not what we were looking for, we wanted to find areas that were caved in or collapsed because those were the areas that best matched the circumstances of loss.”
The IT was able to locate locations where caves may have collapsed.
“We found two sites on the southwest side of Hill 362A that were not mapped by the Navy Engineers and that we determined best matched the circumstances of loss,” Stinchon said. “One of these areas we were able to dig out and discovered a small tunnel. The other area we believed to be a cave; however, we were unable to open it in our attempts with shovels.”
An investigative team deployed from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) surveys caves during June in Iwo Jima.
Team members were well aware of the historical context of JPAC’s first-ever search on Iwo Jima and the image of the flag-raising on Iwo Jima as an important event in the history of the U.S.
“It was an honor to be a part of this particular mission because of how many Marines and Japanese died fighting for such a small piece of land that had such a large impact on the war,” Stinchon said. “You do not go on a mission to one of the most significant battle sites in American history and not do your homework.”
“It was a great feeling to be part of this Investigation Team, especially because it was in Iwo Jima,” Galima said. “Being on Iwo Jima was the best experience I ever had. We had one day off from the whole mission, and we spent that day touring the whole island. The driver took us to all the memorials and caves, but best of all, we went to the top of Mt. Suribachi, where the flag was raised.”
“I knew the historical significance of Iwo Jima because it was one of the many battles that Marines study while in Boot Camp,” Galima added.
The Battle of Iwo Jima was also the subject of two recent films by Director Clint Eastwood, “Letters from Iwo Jima” and “Flags of Our Fathers,” which were both nominated for Academy Awards in 2007, with “Letters from Iwo Jima” a winner for Sound Editing.
At this point, JPAC doesn’t have a set timetable to return to Iwo Jima.
The team’s final reports have to be evaluated by the command before a decision to excavate or to continue investigating is made.
“No formal recommendation has been presented to the command yet,” Stinchon said. “However, the two areas that the IT identified as possible areas that best match the circumstances of loss locations will need to be explored using heavy equipment to open them up. If a team returns, those two areas will likely be their focus area.”
“I would like to go back on the recovery mission,” Galima said. “I am honored to be part of this command and our mission stays true to the meaning of no one left behind.”
The Island of Iwo Jima was given back to the Japanese by the U.S. in 1968.
“[A] large part of the success was the support and cooperation from the Japanese Government and Japanese Self-Defense Force on Iwo Jima,” Stinchon said. “They were extremely supportive of our mission and provided a lot of logistical support to the team. Just about everything we asked for from the Japanese was granted. Their overall support was excellent.
“Additionally, the Japanese lost about 20,000 Soldiers during the battle, and they have recovered only 8,000, which means 13,000 Japanese remains are still unrecovered on the island,” Stinchon said. “So, that really emphasizes the significance of how importance Iwo Jima is to the Japanese.”
Other than a small Japanese military base on the island, there are no other inhabitants.
SC Times (St. Cloud, MN), July 1, 2017 | Bill Morgan
I was 10 years old when my cousin Sergeant William Homer Genaust, a Marine Corps photographer, age 37, sat in our home while on leave. Bill had come home in the summer of 1943 to visit his mother, Jessie, and my mother, Bill’s Aunt Mabelle. After he left, we never saw him again.
Bill graduated from Pipestone High School in 1925 and moved to Minneapolis, where he attended the University of Minnesota. He married a young woman named Adelaide, who grew up on an Iowa farm and moved to Minneapolis, where she and Bill met.
In July 1944, after his home visit, Genaust was wounded at the Battle of Saipan in the South Pacific. Although recommended for the Navy Cross for his role in a firefight, the medal was denied because — although he often carried a sidearm and a rifle — photographer, not infantryman, was his official job description.
On February 19, 1945, my cousin landed on the beach at Iwo Jima with the 4th Marine Division. The opening day of the battle, as the men were attempting to establish a beachhead, 9,000 Japanese soldiers attacked and killed 550 Marines and wounded 1,800.
Iwo Jima is one of the most desolate islands in the South Pacific. Volcanic in origin, the 4½-mile-long island is covered in ankle-deep black sand and ash from which sulfurous mists arise from the mud-colored surface.
A Western Union telegram notified Adelaide Genaust that her husband was missing in action in 1945 while serving in Iwo Jima. A vial of volcanic sand from the island is part of a collection of materials related to Genaust owned by Bill Morgan of Sartell.
Mount Suribachi, the source of the volcanic ash, stands at the southern point of the island. In preparation for war, the Japanese had built an elaborate, 11-mile system of tunnels below the 554-foot peak.
At 10:30 a.m., February 23, 1945, Sgt. Louis R. Lowery, a photographer with the Marine Corps magazine Leatherneck, stood atop Suribachi, where he photographed Marines holding a water pipe with a small American flag suspended from it. When a Japanese soldier lobbed a grenade at Lowery, the photographer rolled down and survived a 50-foot drop that destroyed his cameras.
Around noon, Bill Genaust and Robert R. Campbell, another Marine photographer, were ordered to ascend the volcano and look for subjects to record on film. On the way up, they met Lowery coming down and Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal making his way toward the top.
By the time Rosenthal and the Marines reached the summit, a second, larger (4-by-8-foot) flag was being raised, one that troops below and offshore ships could clearly see.
Genaust and Rosenthal stood side-by-side. The AP photographer was shooting black and white film with a Speed Graphic camera while Genaust captured the second flag-raising with a 16 mm moving picture camera with color film.
At that moment, no one, including Rosenthal, knew that one still photograph would become the iconic World War II image. For years, Rosenthal was forced to defend his photo as genuine and un-staged. Genaust’s film proves the flag-raising was unrehearsed.
In 2005, an article in Parade magazine aroused new interest in Genaust and his role in recording the second flag-raising with moving picture film. One historian has called Bill’s 198 frames “one of the most reproduced strips in the history of film-making, civilian or military.”
Genaust’s film was later used in John Wayne’s “The Sands of Iwo Jima” (1949) and as a standard, nightly sign-off image for hundreds of TV stations. An actor in Clint Eastwood’s “Flags of Our Fathers” (2006) portrays the Iwo Jima photographer.
Bill Genaust’s work on Iwo Jima was not yet done. Japanese soldiers were barricaded in the labyrinthine network of tunnels that threaded their way beneath the volcanic sand. Innumerable caves also held marauding soldiers, forcing Marines to move from one site to the next, where enemy soldiers hid.
Six days after shooting the flag-raising, Bill Genaust volunteered to inspect a cave thought to have been cleared of enemy soldiers. Bill used either a flashlight or a light from his camera to aid in his search. As he crawled forward, enemy soldiers opened fire, killing my cousin instantly.
The cave was part of a 362-foot mound on the northwest corner of the island dubbed Hill 362A. Following Bill’s death, the cave entrance was dynamited, bulldozed and sealed. For a short time, Bill Genaust was listed as missing in action.
In 1995, a bronze plaque was placed on top of Suribachi in honor of the photographer. In 2007, a seven-person government search team was sent to the island to try to retrieve the photographer’s remains, only to find that his body was unrecoverable.
During the war, Adelaide wrote Bill every day. Their letters reveal a special relationship. Bill Genaust had planned to enter medical school at the University of Minnesota after the war ended. Adelaide, his wife of 17 years, died in Florida in 1994 after losing a second husband.
Marines paid a dreadful price on Iwo Jima, though neutralizing the island meant U.S. long-range bombers could reach mainland Japan. The 31-day battle left 6,821 U. S. troops dead, 19,217 wounded, and 250 missing, many lost at sea. Of 82 Medals of Honor given to Marines in World War II, 26 were earned on Iwo Jima, 14 posthumously. Nine hundred segregated black Marines were used as ammunition carriers, but many picked up rifles and joined their fellow white Marines.
Just over 1,000 out of 21,200 members of the Imperial Japanese Army survived the battle. Many, according to custom, took their own lives rather than surrendering. In 1951, two Japanese soldiers who thought the war was an ongoing affair were found alive on Iwo Jima.
Family records were invaluable for this column. Bill Genaust’s service records were lost in a fire in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1973. Other sources of information include: Bill D. Ross, “Iwo Jima: Legacy of Valor,” Vintage Books, 1996; and Tedd Thomey, “Immortal Images: A Personal History of Two Photographers and the Flag Raising on Iwo Jima,” Naval Institute Press, 1996.
Bronze plaque at the Mount Suribachi Memorial on Iwo Jima.
SGT WILLIAM HOMER GENAUST
MARINE COMBAT CAMERAMAN
SHOT HISTORIC MOVIE OF FLAG RAISING
WON BRONZE STAR
KILLED IN ACTION, MARCH 1945
AGE 38
Memorialized on the Courts of the Missing, National Memorial Cemetery (Punchbowl), 2177 Puowaina Road, Honolulu, Hawaii
Memorial marker in Old Woodlawn Cemetery, 676 116th Street (County Road 67), Pipestone, Minnesota; Block B, Lot 126
END
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