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thedrifter
09-14-08, 07:27 AM
Search for Genaust yields nothing new
The latest attempt to recover the remains of the Marine who filmed the flag-raising at Iwo Jima — a cause championed by Scranton business Bob Bolus — has ended like the first.

BY DAVID SINGLETON
STAFF WRITER
Published: Sunday, September 14, 2008 4:22 AM EDT

The latest attempt to recover the remains of the Marine who filmed the flag-raising at Iwo Jima — a cause championed by Scranton business Bob Bolus — has ended like the first.

An investigative team from the Defense Department’s Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command wrapped up a 20-day mission to Iwo Jima last month without finding any trace of Sgt. William H. Genaust, JPAC spokesman Lt. Col. Wayne Perry said. It was the second search in two years.

Mr. Bolus, who was pursuing a new lead about the possible location of Sgt. Genaust’s remains even as JPAC investigators were on Iwo Jima, said he’s not giving up.

Sgt. Genaust, then 38 and a combat photographer with the 28th Marines, shot the iconic footage of the raising of the American flag on Iwo Jima’s Mount Suribachi on Feb. 23, 1945. He was killed by machine-gun fire nine days later while helping to secure a cave on the island, and his body was never recovered.

The JPAC team, consisting of nine Americans and two representatives of the Japanese government, focused its search for Sgt. Genaust on the southwest side of Hill 362A in an area where the 2007 mission had identified two collapsed caves that warranted additional investigation.

“The team excavated the entire southwest quadrant with negative results,” Col. Perry said in an e-mail from Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii, where JPAC is headquartered. “No remains were found.”

He said JPAC continues to look at all leads and evidence related to Sgt. Genaust, including additional information it “just received” and turned over to its historian for review.

Mr. Bolus said the source of that information is Gareth Rosson, an Army veteran from Canton, Ill., who was stationed on Iwo Jima for 18 months in 1946-47.

In August, while the JPAC team was on Iwo Jima, Mr. Bolus met with Mr. Rosson in Canton. Mr. Bolus said Mr. Rosson, 80, shared with him a chilling recollection.

Mr. Rosson, he said, remembers seeing a wooden plaque reading, “Bill Genaust died here,” on Hill 362A — but on the north side, not the southwest side.

“He was very vivid on that. He was very vivid on the details,” said Mr. Bolus, who passed the information on to JPAC officials, who have since contacted Mr. Rosson.

Col. Perry said JPAC will convene a review board to examine what was learned during the latest mission, along with any new information, and make a recommendation on whether another mission to Iwo Jima is warranted. At this point, he said, there are no immediate plans to go back to the island.

Mr. Bolus, who has been crusading to recover Sgt. Genaust’s remain since reading about the Marine three years ago, has offered to take his own team of investigators to Iwo Jima at his expense to assist JPAC with the search. He’s been repeatedly rebuffed by the Defense Department.

He is trying to get an audience with the Japanese government, which controls access to the island, in the hope it will be more receptive.

Contact the writer: dsingleton@timesshamrock.com

Ellie