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In the “Perspectives,” department of the January 2000 issue, R.C. House wrote that the large American flag that flew over Mount Suribachi on the island of Iwo Jima in February 1945 is today “displayed in the U.S. Marine Corps Museum in Quantico, Va.” In March 1995, I had the honor to stand on top of Mount Suribachi where the flag was raised. In May 1995, I had the opportunity to visit the Marine Corps Museum, located at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. There I found, enclosed in separate cases, both the smaller flag and the larger one that flew over Suribachi. Have these flags been moved to Quantico, or are they still in Washington, D.C.?

Albert Burnham
Duluth, Minn.

Editor’s note: You are indeed correct. Both of the flags that flew over Mount Suribachi are now on display at the Marine Corps Historical Center in Washington, D.C.

Iwo Jima and Andrew Higgins

As a Navy veteran of the Pacific, I have just finished reading “A Coxswain at Iwo Jima” in your February 2000 issue, and I would like to bring to your attention an interesting coincidence.

On November 6, 1999, at one of the old Higgins Industries Inc. shipyards in New Orleans, La., the U.S. Coast Guard held a special ceremony to recognize boat builder Andrew Jackson Higgins and to christen and commission into the Coast Guard a landing craft, vehicles and personnel (LCVP) that had just been built from scratch, from Higgins’ original 1944 plans, by a group of volunteers.

The LCVP was christened PA33-21 to commemorate an earlier LCVP that was carried on USS Bayfield during the invasions of Normandy, southern France and Iwo Jima. In fact, the coxswain of that LCVP, Marvin Perret, a New Orleans native, lost his boat at Iwo Jima.

My wife, Dawn, is one of two surviving daughters of Andrew J. Higgins, and she and her sister accepted the Coast Guard’s Distinguished Public Service Award on their father’s behalf. It’s amazing that the article was published within a month of the ceremony.

Robert A. Murphy, Jr.
Jackson, Miss.

Editor’s note: LCVP PA33-21 is now on display at the National D-Day Museum in New Orleans. The museum also features exhibits on the many contributions of Higgins Industries and its founder, Andrew Higgins, to Allied victory during World War II.

Invitation From Quisling

I was interested to read your January 2000 “Intrigue” article on Norwegian collaborator Vidkun Quisling, particularly with reference to the lack of documentation prior to his trial in August 1945. I was in Oslo in May 1945 and was given, as a souvenir, a blank invitation printed by Quisling with a German eagle on the top. The invitation does not tie Quisling to the German invasion of Norway, but it shows where his sympathies rested. How I got the invitation is a story in its own right.

In May 1945, Norwegian authorities sent a message to the Air Ministry in London asking that a Royal Air Force officer be sent to Oslo to represent the RAF in the Norwegian independence day parade (their first in several years). I was chosen for this honor and piloted an Avro Lancaster from my base at Woodhall Spa, Belgium, to Gardemöene, Norway, on May 16, 1945. Circling Gardemöene prior to landing, I saw neat rows of Messerschmitt Me-109s lined up on the airfield. As my crew and I exited the aircraft, we were met by German troops. I just hoped they were aware the war had ended on May 8. In Oslo I reported to A.V.M. Boret in the Hotel Bristol, where I stayed for the next week.

It later transpired that a mistake had been made. The original message should have requested a Norwegian pilot to represent the RAF in the parade.

The invitation was given to me during my stay at the hotel by a Mr. Christensen, who was a member of the resistance movement and who had a number of identical documents. I never heard if the invitation was used at the Quisling trial, but in view of what you say about Alfred Rosenberg’s political diary, perhaps it was not needed.

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