Michael Strank (10 November 1919 - 1 March 1945) was a Czech-American United States Marine Corps sergeant. He was one of the six marines who raised the second American flag on Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima, as depicted in the famous photo Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima. Of the six Marines depicted in the photo, Strank was the only one to be correctly identified from the beginning; the other five were either assigned the wrong locations or were given the names of Marines who were not in the photo.
Biography[]
Strank was born in a Rusyn family in the Prešov village of Orjabyna in Czechoslovakia (present-day Jarabina in the Stará Ľubovňa district), Prešov Region of northeastern Czechoslovakia (now in Slovakia) in 1919. His family migrated to Pennsylvania in the 1920s. Strank enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1939 and was promoted to corporal in 1941.
On 12 April 1942 Strank was deployed to American Samoa. He participated in several offensives against Imperial Japan in the Pacific Theatre. He was eventually placed in charge of a squad in E Company and deployed to Iwo Jima. Strank took part in the Second Battalion landing on Green Beach on February 1945 and succeeded in isolating Mount Suribachi. The next day Second Battalion was ordered to capture Mount Suribachi. They were able to surround it despite heavy opposition, and were ordered by Lieutenant Colonel Chandler W. Johnson to seize the crest of the mountain and plant the US flag to signal it was secure. Captain Dave Severance sent a platoon lead by Harold Schrier to plant the flag, but after it was planted it was deemed to be too small to be seen by soldiers further away from the mountain. Captain Severance ordered Strank, Corporal Harlon Block, Pfc Ira Hayes and Pfc Franklin Sousley to plant a larger flag. Pfc Rene Gagnon was ordered to accompany them and bring the replacement flag up the mountain.
Once Strank's team reached the top of the mountain, Hayes and Sousley found a steel pipe to attach the flag to. Once it was attached, Strank called over Pfc Harold Schultz and Pfc Harold Keller to help him get the flag into position. The six raised the flag at approximately 1 pm and were photographed by Associated Press reporter Joe Rosenthal. The photo, entitled Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, became one of the most famous photos in US military history.
On 28 February 1945, the platoon was ordered to move forward. On 1 March Strank and Corporal Block were killed by friendly artillery fire from an offshore American ship. He was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart and the World War II Victory Medal.