Today David J Taylor spoke these views with conviction for
everyone's edification:

Would you or anyone just lurking be at all interested in
my posting the full text of the several E-mails I
exchanged with the fellow who did those 1,600% image
increase's of my Mt.Suribachi picture?

Perhaps you might glean something useful that I didn't and
clear this up. We'd all learn something in the process,
maybe...

Yes, I would be interested.
I wonder where the original negative is?

I'd have to go digging to re-find who Joe Rosenthal worked for
as a photo-jouranlist, but I imagine both the neg and the
copyright are owned by them, probably for the Pulizter Prize
winning flag raising shot, as well. But, I suppose Rosenthal's
family may also have something to say.

I searched around quite a bit almost two years ago to see if I
could /buy/ a larger, higher quality print or a larger
graphics file. If they exist, I couldn't find any foir sale.
I would've paid a high price and if I ever do find a print or
an image for sale, even into the hundreds of dollars, I will
buy it in a NW minute! Yes, there's sometimes a larger print
can be found in a book or on a calendar, but the few I've seen
appear to have been printed from that same 618 x 479 image,
hence the quality isn't any better for a re-scan, by
definition, plus I'd have to deal with the "noise" coming from
the half-tone printing process dots.

Incidently, although I'd known about my father's "exploits"
all my life, including the Worcester news paper photo, I
didn't get the digital one until April, 2004. By sheer
coincidence, on April 4, 2004 - the 91st anniversay of my
father's birth - my wife and I joined the Big Beaver United
Methodist Church in Troy, Michigan (that's about 10-11 miles
NNW of Detroit). I was sitting in a pew thinking about the
fact that we were formally joining this congregation when it
hit me that it was also my father's birthday. So I set out to
find more factual info about his Marine "career."

During my search, I ran across yet another pic with my father
in it. This one was taken by an unnamed Marine Combat
Photographer, who was actually taking a picture of Joe
Rosenthal from behind him. Joe looms large in the foreground,
and only 3-4 Marines are shown small in the background. One of
them, though, is my father.

I have searched long and hard, including through some veterans
groups, trying to find a way to let DOD, or at least the
Marine Corps, know that my father /is/ in that picture. I
don't have anything at like legally valid "proof", but I've
got a number of data points, including other pictures here
there and everywhere, that at least place him at the scene.
But, sadly, nobody seems interested in adding even one name to
the 20 men in the picture. Who knows, maybe /their/ families
are also trying to get their loved one some recognition?

Think I'm proud of him? Not. I am /extremely/ proud of him.
While he won no decorations for valor, and was only promoted
from PFC to CPL just before discharge in late November, 1945
mainly to entice him to re-up, he is still a really /big/
contibutor to the war effort in my mind.

(No-thing to do with this NG,but I've got a neat civilian
picture of him taken in 1959 with Chuck Connors, "The
Rifleman", when Conners was touring the Plymouth Lynch Road
Assembly Plant where my father works. He is shown with an ice
cream cone behind his back. He'd just bought it for 25 cents
on his relief and wouldn't throw it away. Then, the Chrysler
photographer moved /behind/ him and took the shot. Chrysler
gave my father the "8 x 10 B& W glossy as a souvenier)

Given that a typical Marine Company was maybe 200-250 men, I'd
guess that over 10% of the survivors of the /entire/ company
that successfully assaulted Mt. Suribachi are in that photo!

I'll start looking for the original E-mails between that
fellow who did the digital enlargements and me, and see if I
can put together a coherent story to post in this NG. If
nothing else, /I/ would like to better understand the
algorithm/technology that was used. Maybe someone can
understand the math better than me, and can identify what
software app(s) were used, so we could all D/L or buy them.

Thanks for your continued interest, David.

--
ATM, aka Jerry