United States Marine corporal who was wounded in action during the Bougainville campaign in World War II. During the Battle of Iwo Jima, he was a member of the patrol that captured the top of Mount Suribachi and raised the first U.S. flag on Iwo Jima on 23 February 1945. He is one of the six Marines who raised the larger replacement flag on the mountaintop the same day as shown in the iconic photograph Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima.
Keller was not recognized as one of the second flag-raisers until the Marine Corps announced on 16 October 2019, after an investigation, that he was in the historic photograph taken by combat photographer Joe Rosenthal of the Associated Press. The Marine Corps also stated that Keller was incorrectly identified as Private First Class Rene Gagnon in the photograph, who they determined is not in the photo. Keller is one of three Marines in the photograph who were not originally identified as flag raisers.
The Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Virginia, is modeled after the photograph of six Marines raising the second flag on Iwo Jima.
Harold Keller survived the war and returned to his wife Ruby in Iowa. They raised two boys and one girl. Keller worked a series of jobs in his hometown and was also a member of the volunteer fire department in Brooklyn for 30 years, eventually becoming the fire chief. He died of a heart attack on 13 March 1979 at age 57 in Grinnell, Iowa.
Link to Wikipedia biography