In the wrong place at the right time, Manchester's Rene Gagnon was among 110,000 Marines who arrived in 880 ships in the costly World War II battle at Iwo Jima, Japan. With five fellow Marines, he raised the flag of victory. Captured on film and designed into a massive bronze sculpture, the scene has become one of the most memorable in the nation's history.

Gagnon was the youngest of the six flag-raisers and - with John Bradley and Ira Hayes - one of three survivors. Gagnon posed for his likeness in the famous Washington, DC memorial, and played himself in two Iwo Jima films, one starring John Wayne. It was Gagnon who carried the flag up Mt. Suribachi after the famous moment was recorded. A modest man by all accounts, Gagnon is buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. He and the other five flag-raisers are the subject of the book "Flags of Our Fathers" by James Bradley, son of one of the survivors.

A real NH war hero, this Marine raised the famous Iwo Jima flag