Wausau, Wis. ? For nearly six decades, World War II veteran Jerry Ziehme spoke proudly of his role as a corpsman on Iwo Jima — a moment he says was captured in a photograph taken by Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Joe Rosenthal.

Then came the book.

Ziehme says the book — “Flags of Our Fathers,” published in 2000 — is used by some to claim he’s lying about being on that Japanese island mountaintop when one of the most famous military pictures was snapped.

The nearly blind, 80-year-old former Navy medic has a forensic photo expert reviewing old pictures to try to prove he’s in a photo of Marines on Iwo Jima taken just after the famous flag-raising.

“I would rather face the whole Japanese army than face that book,” said Ziehme, his voice choked with emotion. “I hope that, before I check out, my name will be cleared again.”

Vets dispute identifications

Those who dispute Ziehme’s claim include a former Marine officer instrumental in the 36-day battle to capture the island.

The book, written by James Bradley and Ron Powers, documents the lives of the six Marines who raised the flag atop Iwo Jima’s highest peak on Feb. 23, 1945 — an immortal moment captured by Rosenthal, an Associated Press photographer, in a Pulitzer Prize-winning picture.

One of the six is Bradley’s father, the late John “Doc” Bradley of Antigo, Wis.

It’s not the famous flag-raising picture that has Ziehme steaming. It’s another photo Rosenthal took moments later of 17 cheering, gun-waving troops posed beneath the flag atop Mount Suribachi after four days of fighting.

That picture is published in Bradley’s book and is labeled the “gung-ho shot.” The book identifies 16 of the men — none of them as Ziehme — and lists another as unknown.

World War II veteran and Iwo Jima survivor Jerry Ziehme sits in his home near Cumberland, Wis. The nearly blind, 80-year-old former Navy medic has a forensic photo expert reviewing old pictures to try to prove he's in a photo of Marines on Iwo Jima taken just after the famous flag-raising.

Ziehme (pronounced ZEE-me) said he’s in the photo but is misidentified as another soldier — Grady Dyce. Dyce is actually the man listed as unknown, Ziehme said.

Dyce also said he’s misidentified in the photo, but he thinks he’s the rifle-toting Marine identified as someone else, not the unknown soldier. Dyce, in a telephone interview from Billings, Mont., said he doesn’t know if Ziehme is in the photo because he didn’t know him during the war.

Dyce, 77, said he wasn’t bothered by being misidentified in the photo. “To me, it don’t make any difference. It all happened a long time ago.”

‘People look down at me’

Ziehme feels differently. For years, he carried a business card with the picture and a line pointing to him. He finds honor in having fought on Iwo Jima, a battle that produced so many U.S. casualties it was likened to Civil War battles.

On Feb. 20, 1955, the La Crosse Tribune ran the gung-ho picture identifying Ziehme, who lived in La Crosse then. The accompanying story quotes Ziehme as saying he was behind the main group of Marines because he was helping a wounded soldier. Ziehme now lives in Cumberland, Wis., about 150 miles northwest of Wausau.

Ziehme said he goes to veterans meetings and gets cold stares because of the book. “People look down at me and say, ‘You have been lying for 50 to 60 years.’ There is no possible way it could be anybody but me.”

The flag-raisers’ commanding officer, retired Marine Col. David Severance, and the book’s author say otherwise.

“As far as I am concerned, everybody is identified,” Bradley said. “As generals have said, if everyone who claimed to have been on Mount Suribachi was there, the mountain would have sunk into the ocean.”

Paperwork is vague

U.S. Navy Corpsman Jerry Ziehme is seen in this undated family photo. For nearly six decades, World War II veteran Ziehme spoke proudly of his role as a corpsman on Iwo Jima, a moment he says was captured in a photograph taken by Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Joe Rosenthal.

Military records have Ziehme on Iwo Jima at the time of the flag-raising, but nothing indicates he ever joined the company that reached the mountaintop, Severance said from his California home.

“In my opinion, he is an impostor,” said Severance, 83. Ziehme’s claim of helping a wounded Marine makes no sense because there were no casualties on the mountaintop that day, Severance said.

Severance and other veterans helped identify the men in the gung-ho picture, a difficult task because so many of them are dead, Severance said, adding Dyce told him only recently that he was misidentified.

But what about the Marine citation Ziehme has for meritorious service on Iwo Jima and “being with the platoon which placed the first flag on Mount Suribachi”?

Any Naval doctor could have authorized it, Severance said. “I don’t know how he got it.”

Ziehme, a retired beer distributor, wants the book’s publisher, Random House, to identify him in the picture in future editions.

The photo analyst, Jim Ebert of New Mexico, said it will be difficult to make a positive identification of Ziehme from the pictures he is studying.

But he has compared four other pictures of Ziehme taken during the war to the gung-ho picture.

“The facial proportions and hair are the same, and the configuration of the two upper front incisors also appear to be,” he said. “I can say at this point that I have no doubt that it is Jerry.”

Matthew Martin, an attorney for Random House in New York, said the publisher would review any new documented evidence regarding any identifications in the book.

One man’s story

Ziehme said Doc Bradley was the reason he got into the photo.

Bradley was head corpsman of E Company of the 2nd Battalion of the 28th Regiment of the 5th Marine Division and needed a replacement for a corpsman he had lost.

Ziehme was in a replacement company and volunteered to join Bradley’s company.

Severance said a replacement corpsman with a name similar to Ziehme’s was linked to Bradley. In 1945, Bradley told the publication Hospital Corps Quarterly of a corpsman named James R. Zima who worked like a dog with him on Mount Suribachi.

“I tried to locate him and I had no success,” said Severance, who assembled the 40-man patrol that climbed Mount Suribachi.

Ziehme said he was with E Company three or four days, including the day the famous picture was snapped.

He acknowledges that no military paperwork exists to prove it.

Ziehme said he was talking with someone on the side of the mountaintop when some Marines took down a small flag and replaced it with a larger one, creating the image for Rosenthal’s photo.

“Then Joe says, ‘Come on, all you guys. Let’s get together here,”‘ Ziehme recalled. “He staggered us all around. I was still kneeling near this guy, and Brad says, ‘Hey Ziem, get up here.’ He reached down and got a hold of me and stood me up and I just stood in between those guys. I remember that like it was yesterday.”

‘Proud soldier’

There are many times from the war he doesn’t remember, Ziehme said, but not the day Rosenthal gathered some Marines beneath the flag on Iwo Jima for a picture.

“That is one memory they will never take from me, of the whistles blowing, the bells ringing, the people shouting, the guns going off,” he said. “I am about as proud a soldier as you’ll ever find.”